Sociocultural Learning: A Perspective on GSS-Enabled Global Education

Virtual teams are developing rapidly in organisations of the new economy. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that our students are appropriately prepared for work in the virtual workspace, where teams may cross time, geographical, and cultural boundaries. In this article, the culturally sensitive theory of sociocultural learning is combined with GSS (Group Support Systems) to illustrate how cross-cultural, globally distributed virtual teams of students located in The Netherlands, Greece, and Hong Kong work on vested interest projects. Finally, a set of critical success factors that inform virtual learning contexts is derived from our findings and recommendations are made for operational practice in the virtual work space.