Surinder Kahai is an Associate Professor of MIS and Fellow of the Center for Leadership Studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton.
He has a B. Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay), an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Surinder has an active research program on leadership in virtual teams, computer-mediated communication and learning, collaboration in virtual worlds, CIO leadership, and IT alignment. His research has been published in several journals including Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Decision Sciences, Group & Organization Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Information Systems, Leadership Quarterly, and Personnel Psychology. He is currently serving on the editorial boards of Group and Organization Management, IEEE-TEM, and the International Journal of e-Collaboration. He co-edited a Special Issue of Organizational Dynamics on e-leadership and a Special Issue of International Journal of e-Collaboration on Virtual Team Leadership.
Surinder has won numerous awards for his teaching, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Surinder has spoken on and consulted with several organizations in the U.S. and abroad on the topics of virtual team leadership, e-business, and IS-business alignment, and IS strategy and planning
A project leader recently asked me how to promote cooperation among members of his virtual team who are at different locations. This is a common issue that virtual team leaders struggle with. Virtual teams often consist of subgroups of team members located in separate locations. This division of team members can give rise to social categorization within the team (i.e., those who… Read more →
What: David Pogue’s NY Times Blog Post on basic technology tips. Posts to Which it is Related: Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using Technology Bottom Line: A significant contributor to a virtual team’s success is members’ familiarity with technology. Many virtual team leaders tend to assume, oftentimes inaccurately, that team members possess basic computer skills which would allow them and the… Read more →
The WSJ published an interesting article on Monday (September 29, 2008) about Preston Fosback, a 16-year old, who engaged people all over the world to monitor, via the Internet, the Obama-Biden sign outside his front yard to make sure it wasn’t stolen. The people who monitor the sign essentially form a virtual community or a virtual group who are unlikely to ever… Read more →
Every once in a while, you come across something that defies the conventional wisdom that you need face-to-face contact to build strong social relationships (see a recent article that relies on this wisdom). A New York Times article “After Blogger’s Plane Crash, Virtual Becomes Personal” that was published on September 6, 2008 is one such item. In this post, I… Read more →
What: Blog post from the Institute for Corporate Productivity about virtual team trends. Posts to which it is related: About LeadingVirtually.com Bottom Line: 67% of 278 companies responding to a survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) foresee their reliance on virtual teams increasing over the next three years. This number (i.e., the percentage indicating greater reliance on virtual… Read more →
My fellow bloggers and I have made many recommendations on this blog about how to improve the functioning of virtual teams. When we recently presented these recommendations to an audience, we were told that it would be useful if we could take some of the most critical recommendations and frame them in a way that makes it easier for someone… Read more →
What: Article titled “In-house perspective: The challenge of a virtual team” from ALB Legal News Posts To Which It Is Related: Leading In Face-To-Face Versus Virtual Teams, Improving Virtual Team Leadership Using TechnologyBottom Line: The author, Lynne Saunder, talks about virtual team issues that she faced when she move to a new role as a legal counsel in which she… Read more →
What: WSJ article “India’s Workforce Revolution” by Vivek Wadhwa (this article is adapted from a report titled “How the Disciple Became the Guru“) Posts to which it is related: Welcome to LeadingVirtually.com, The Leading Virtually Digest, March 14, 2008 Bottom Line: This article highlights why India is becoming (and will continue) to become a major global player in high-value added,… Read more →
In one of her recent posts, Betsy Carroll blogged about alternatives to email. Email tends to be misused because of its accessibility and convenience. People end up using it in situations where alternatives would be more suitable. While stressing that email is great for communication but not for collaboration, Betsy discussed alternatives to email and the situations where they would… Read more →
What: Availability of browser-based virtual worlds from The Electric Sheep Company, Vivaty, and Google. Posts to which it is related: Wonderland: A Tool for Online Collaboration, Rethinking the Value of Virtual Worlds for Virtual Team Collaboration, The Future of Virtual Teams: Collaboration in 3D Web Bottom Line: New web browser-based virtual worlds make it easier for virtual team members to… Read more →