Cultural differences in global virtual teams: mapping knowledge and identifying research directions

Abstract

Abstract This study examines research performance indicators and builds a structural overview of topics related to cultural differences in global virtual teams (GVT) in the period 2000-2020. A bibliometric analysis of 151 academic articles on the topic of cultural differences in GVTs, retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases, was applied with the Bibliometrix package in R. The analyses reveal findings regarding the cultural differences in GVTs research, in particular, the most valuable sources, prolific authors, the geography of the research, as well as main scientific articles. The main research themes and their evolution were determined, as well as potential research directions. According to the revealed most relevant themes, the trend of the stream of research is heading towards individual dimensions of the topic, indicating a moved research focus from the organizational level of management and psychology to the individual one.