[Air-L] CFP for Connexions Special Issue: Education and Training for Globally Distributed Virtual Teams

connexions journal editor at connexionsjournal.org
Sun Nov 10 20:52:34 PST 2013


Dear Colleagues—



We cordially invite you to submit a proposal for a special issue of the
journal *Connexions *entitled *Education and Training for Globally
Distributed Virtual Teams*.  This special issue will feature articles that
respond to the following question: “How can we better prepare people to
work successfully in international, online contexts?”  We are interested in
research articles, review articles, focused commentaries, industry
perspectives, and teaching cases.



Submit proposals to connexionsspecialissue at gmail.com on or before 15
January 2014.  We have included the text of the Call in this email.  To
receive a PDF, please respond with your request to this email.   If you
have any questions, please contact me atbrewer_pe at mercer.edu or Kirk
St.Amant at stamantk at ecu.edu.  We would be happy to chat with you.



Best,

Pam Brewer, Guest Editor

Kirk St.Amant, Guest Editor







connexions

Call for Proposals

EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR

GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL TEAMS

Preparing the workforce of the future

Special Issue

Guest editors

*Pam Estes Brewer*

*Mercer University *(email: brewer_pe at mercer.edu)

*Kirk St.Amant*

*East Carolina University *(email: stamantk at ecu.edu)



Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) allow individuals
located in different nations to collaborate almost as easily as if they
were located in the same physical office. As a result, *globally
distributed virtual teams *now support the work of organizations across the
spectrum of products and services. Such teams are used by a range of
for-profit and non-profit organizations including businesses, government
organizations, military, and educational institutions. These organizations
are increasingly employing individuals located in different nations to
engage in various types of collabora­tive work via ICTs.



As a result of such factors, much of the *modern workforce *is now
migrating toward a virtual model of work, and forces associated with
globalization are changing the nature of competitiveness in the new
economy. *Individuals*, in turn, must often adapt rapidly to virtual
environments and do so with little or no formal preparation in the types of
professional communication practices essential to success in such contexts.
As a result, individuals working in internationally distributed teams must
generally learn from their mistakes, an effective but often costly
approach. Moreover, individuals must also often adapt to working in an
environment in which they are regularly paired with new colleagues and
clients from different nations, cultures, and language groups.



Thus, the modern distributed workplace requires employees to account for
and address three central factors—*technology, culture, and language*—in
order to succeed in most work-related tasks.  An all-important question
arising from this situation is, *“How can we better prepare these
individuals for this international, online context?”*



A 2012 *IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication *special issue on
global training reveals, however, that very little information on
training—particularly global virtual communication training—has been
published in the major pro­fessional communication journals in the last ten
years. Such a gap needs to be closed if educators and trainers alike wish
to prepare adult learners to be suc­cessful participants in current (and
future) business practices and processes.



This special issue on education and training for globally distributed
virtual teams seeks to address this topic through *articles on how best to
prepare individuals to succeed in this new workplace*.



In particular, the editors are interested in articles that answer questions
such as:

•         What types of education and training are most desired by managers
and participants of global virtual teams?

•         How can organizations best prepare virtual team members for
working across boundaries of language? What issues affect translation and
terminology? What do team members most need to know about World Englishes,
English as a Second Language, or English for Specific Purposes?

•         How can organizations better prepare employees to collaborate and
cooperate online and across cultural boundaries?

•         How can social media be used to prepare individuals for working
in intercultural online contexts?

•         What legal issues can affect or should be included in global
virtual team training? What should participants in global virtual teams
know about proprietary information and privacy?



In addition, the editors of this special issue welcome articles such as:

•         Industry commentaries (refer to “types of articles” below).

•         Critical analyses of the many published task/technology models
that support global virtual teams.

•         Critical analyses of virtual team studies in areas such as
technical training, adult education, human resources development,
educational technology, human performance technology, technical
communication, and user experience design.

The guest editors are also interested in discussing other prospective
topics with potential contributors.



Types of articles

*connexions *publishes four types of articles:

•         Original research articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words in length

•         Review articles of 3,000 to 5,000 words in length

•         Focused commentary and industry perspectives articles of 500 to
3,000 words in length

•         Teaching cases of 3,000 to 5,000 words in length



Submission Guidelines

Interested individuals should send a 150-200 word proposal to
connexionsspecialissue at gmail.com



Proposals should be sent as a .docx, .doc, or .rtf file attached to an
email message with the subject line:

“Proposal for Special Issue on Globally Distributed Virtual Teams.”



All proposals should include the submitter’s name, affiliation, and email
address as well as a working title for the proposed article.



Production Schedule

The schedule for the special issue is as follows:

•         15 Jan. 2014 –Proposals due

•         15 Feb. 2014 – Decisions on proposals sent to proposal submitters

•         15 June 2014 – Manuscripts due

•         15 Aug. 2014 – Reviewer comments to authors

•         15 Oct. 2014 – Final manuscripts due to editors

•         Dec. 2014 – Publication of special issue



Contact Information

Completed proposals or questions about either proposal topics or this
special issue should be sent to Pam Estes Brewer and Kirk St.Amant at
connexionsspecialissue at gmail.com



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