The Interface Role on Virtual Team Project Success: A Study in the IT Sector

International projects are natural consequences of the diversity of competitive advantages among different countries. With the increasing development of information technology and the large expansion of the global market, projects demanded the use of virtual teams to make interaction possible. Such interaction gathers aspects in Technical, Organizational, and Human interfaces. This paper intends to investigate the associations between those local-remote interfaces aspects and the success noticed on international projects about Information Technology (IT) – which are completely dependent on the virtual team to achieve its goals. IT projects are highlighted because such companies have the means and necessary experience to be the pioneers in virtual team usage. Moreover, we believe they can be a model to other companies who will develop similar projects in the near future. The research was done along with Brazilian IT companies which presented the demanded characteristics for this research. The projects data was collected throughout questionnaires, and those questionnaires were examined through statistics techniques. As a result, many significant associations were determined among the interfaces aspects and the success of the project. The study revealed that classical elements for project management are the most important for the associations observed. Moreover, some intervening variables – as Team Size and Project Complexity – were analyzed and these turn out to prove an important association between Interfaces and Success. The results produced some recommendations to international project managers.