This final chapter demonstrates the values generated by the effective establishment of virtual teams.

Virtual Teams respond to the need for quicker, smarter, more flexible work groups in a sea of change. Even competitors can work together on projects, learn from one another, and become more skilled at what each does best.

Various companies and researchers have explored the world of Virtual Teams and the potential of trusting people and their competence. Here we profile leaders who have experienced the positive impact of developing social capital first hand.

Building trust is a key factor in building an effective virtual team. Of fundamental importance is trust in people and their competence. This competence will be demonstrated over time, and so proficiency can take longer to establish in virtual reality than in face-to-face.

Another way people generate trust is by their commitment to a unifying purpose and shared rewards. And people must also trust the information they receive, and their information channels.

Social Capital: teamwork generates a double bottom-line:

• Task success, the value of the results; and
• Social success, the value of the relationships.

This is the new wealth of organizations---both an enabler and an outcome of good teaming.

Historic Forms of Capital:

• Land Capital: Harks back to the Agricultural Era when land provided food
• Machine Capital: During the Industrial Age land remained fertile but technology dominated
• Knowledge Capital: Digital Cyberspace offers a vast new domain for this old source of new, powerful wealth
• Human Capital: Developed as a concept in the 1960s to describe the value of people in the work environment
• Social Capital: the community wealth that co-evolves when people work together.

Capital can now be accumulated on a virtual basis, across boundaries and platforms. And all virtual teams can increase human, social and knowledge capital in particular.

Shared knowledge will be the dominant productive source of 21st century economics with consequences we cannot now even imagine.

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