虚拟团队指的是一个团队为了达到共同目标，拥有共同理想，达成共同利益而透过互联网以及传播科技来进行跨时空的合作，这种容许地域分散的团队让企业在挑选以及保留人才的弹性加大。虚拟团队的成员主要透过电子传播进行交互，也许这个团队的成员从未打过照面，但大多数的虚拟团队某些时候会需要碰面。虚拟团队跟电话工作者（teleworker）并不同，电话工作者主要指在家工作的人。虽然虚拟团队允许成员在家工作，但大多数拥有虚拟团队的企业还是会希望，虚拟团队的成员能够某些时间在不同地域的办公室中进行工作与交互。

A virtual team (also known as a geographically dispersed team, distributed team, or remote team) is a group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology. Powell, Piccoli and Ives define virtual teams in their literature review article "as groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks." Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S. & Taha, Z. in a 2009 literature review paper, added two key issues to definition of a virtual team "as small temporary groups of geographically, organizationally and/ or time dispersed knowledge workers who coordinate their work predominantly with electronic information and communication technologies in order to accomplish one or more organization tasks". Members of virtual teams communicate electronically and may never meet face-to-face. Virtual teams are made possible by a proliferation of fiber optic technology that has significantly increased the scope of off-site communication. Virtual teams allow companies to procure the best talent without geographical restrictions. According to Hambley, O'Neil, & Kline (2007), "virtual teams require new ways of working across boundaries through systems, processes, technology, and people, which requires effective leadership... despite the widespread increase in virtual teamwork, there has been relatively little focus on the role of virtual team leaders."