How Global Virtual Teams Are Innovating the Business Models of MNEs and Higher Education Institutions

This chapter deals with global virtual teams (GVTs) and how they innovate the business models of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and higher education institutions (HEIs). This chapter explores how GVTs have innovated the business models of MNEs and HEIs in the pre- and post-pandemic world. The term “virtual team” appeared in the literature in the mid-1980s and became increasingly popular in the early 1990s as the advent of the Internet making electronic communication tools ubiquitous. The term GVTs first appeared in literature in 1999 to define a team whose members transcend time, space, and culture. By that time, GVTs were already popular and recognised organisational settings in international business (IB), especially in the neo-global corporation idea of fragmentation of country subsidiaries and virtuality of corporate headquarters. The COVID-19 pandemic gave a booster to adopting GVTs in all areas of IB practice and education at every level of organisations, overcoming status quo inertia through health emergence. The widespread adoption of GVTs in multinational corporations, management consulting and IB education makes their business models increasingly virtual based, sustainable and resilient to external factors.