Conclusions
In this study this application of SNA made it possible to conduct a more holistic cross-case and cross-attributes pattern analysis to reveal possible relationships and common themes. First, a comparison targeting the informal assessment of participants' prestige, activity and influence and their generic formal team functions, thus leadership, member and support roles has been carried out. Then, case-related types and quantities of brokerage positions, under consideration of team size and number of work locations, has been contrasted and discussed. Further, the seven main descriptive attributes, e.g. actor indices and network density, have been organised and systematically investigated to reveal general, thus case-independent, relationships and concepts. Finally, cross-variable structural equivalence (based on correlation results) focusing on project-related sharing networks has been assessed and general patterns and themes identified.
The results of the study contribute to our understanding of the emerging social networks within each virtual project team. SNA as a method in this study delivers information on diverse members' influence, prestige and specific team member-related brokerage roles. It highlights what boundary-crossing knowledge sharing activities they engage in and maps the knowledge and information flows between members of the virtual project teams within the companies.
Based on SNA results, five out of six cases included individual team members with a measurable difference between the potential accessibility of their knowledge and an incurred cost perceived by others of accessing their knowledge. Focusing on the aspects of vocabulary and language two-thirds of the participants experienced communication problems in their virtual projects and about half of the interviewees reported negative experiences or problems focusing on knowledge sharing and utilisation. Despite the identified communication problems, more than half of the participants claimed that they share a common language in their virtual project team - technically as well as personally. The participants indicated that although they were using English as a common language and all understood the concepts related to the particular project or relevant organisational phrases, some communication difficulties pertained to the reticence of participants to communicate, to ask for