Distributed Work Teams Research Articles

Radiologist Well-Being and Professional Fulfillment in the COVID-19 Era: Fostering Posttraumatic Growth.

The acute consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted wellness strategies aimed at mitigating the pre-existing epidemic of burnout in radiology. Specifically, safety measures including social distancing requirements, effective communications, supporting remote and distributed work teams, and newly exposed employment and treatment inequities have challenged many major efforts at fostering professional fulfillment. To get our wellness efforts back on track and to achieve a new and perhaps even a better "normal" will require refocusing and reconsidering ways to foster and build a culture of wellness, implementing practices that improve work efficiencies, and supporting personal health, wellness behaviors, and resilience. Optimizing meaning in work is also critical for well-being and professional fulfillment. In addition to these earlier approaches, organizations and leaders will need to reprioritize efforts to build high-functioning cohesive and connected teams; to train, implement, and manage peer-support practices; and to support posttraumatic growth. This growth represents the positive psychological changes that can occur after highly challenging life circumstances and, when successful, allows individuals to achieve a higher level of functioning by addressing and learning from the precipitating event. Our practices can support this growth through education, emotional regulation, and disclosure, by developing a narrative that reimagines a hoped-for better future and by finding meaning through services that benefit others.

Developing virtual team performance: an integrated perspective of social exchange and social cognitive theories

The emerging trend toward physically distributed work teams has necessitated a critical inquiry into the nature and roles of psychological contract and leadership in virtual settings. This study proposes a model based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory to explain virtual team performance in the information technology industry. In the proposed model, virtual team performance is directly influenced by IT training fulfillment, transactional fulfillment, and knowledge-oriented leadership and also indirectly via the partial mediation of collective IT efficacy. This study adds to the burgeoning theoretical and empirical research on virtual teams by assessing the joint effects of psychological contract fulfillment and knowledge-oriented leadership. Empirical testing of this study at the team level, by surveying team members and leaders across two different points of time, confirms the integrated applicability of social exchange and social cognitive theories in understanding the development of virtual team performance.

Collective Creative Problem Solving in Information Technology Distributed Work Teams

Today's evolving business environment requires that organizations combine the talents of diverse and dispersed individuals to develop creative solutions to complex problems. One such emerging concept used by successful organizations to leverage the diverse talents of dispersed individuals is collective creative problem solving (CCPS) in distributed work teams. The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the nature and motivating factors of CCPS in geographically dispersed teams. This goal was accomplished through examining information technology (IT) distributed work teams in a U.S. federal IT organization. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 21 IT specialists to explore the perceptions and lived experiences regarding CCPS of team leaders and team members in IT distributed work teams. Five core themes emerged: (a) developing a strategy to facilitate CCPS in distributed work teams, (b) using team interaction to stimulate CCPS, (c) motivating team members to engage in CCPS, (d) leading CCPS from a distance, and (e) using technology to achieve CCPS in distributed work teams. Based on the conclusions drawn from the study's findings, recommendations are provided for leaders and practitioners to leverage the full capabilities of CCPS in dispersed work environments.

Virtual teams versus face to face teams: A review of literature

Today, concept of a team transcends the boundaries of distance, time, organizations and cultures. There has been an increasing emphasis on distributed work teams that operate in a virtual environment in a 24 hour cycle and tap the strength of diversity in terms of skills, experience, knowledge and expertise, all round the globe. Globalization and advances in Information and Communication Technology are a direct cause to it. The trend of distributed teams will not go way and will become the permanent work structures of the organizations. These global teams will profoundly reshape our world. But how effective are these teams compared to face to face teams? What are the differences between virtual teams and traditional teams? The paper extends knowledge on the growing importance of dispersed teams. The paper also builds on a comparison between virtual teams and face to face teams on the basis of certain dimensions such as group style, performance, satisfaction, trust, cohesion and conflict. Keywords- Face to face teams, collocated teams, dispersed teams, traditional teams, virtual teams

Coping with coping strategies: how distributed teams and their members deal with the stress of distance, time zones and culture.

The changing world of work is increasing demands on workers through greater need for flexibility in global collaboration. This multiple-case study uses a qualitative research approach to study context-specific job stressors and coping in ten geographically distributed work teams. Results demonstrate the complex and dynamic nature of the stress-coping process and how coping strategies, adapted to manage stress-evoking uncertainty and ambiguity in distributed work, created secondary sources of psychological strain to individuals. The main strategies for managing the uncertainty and ambiguity in the studied teams were extensive emailing, travelling to face-to-face meetings and extending workdays to collaborate simultaneously across time zones. Continuously used, these coping strategies created work overload and strain. Experienced workers, who had good self-management skills, succeeded in coping with these secondary sources of strain by prioritizing and setting clear limits for workload. Less-experienced workers were overloaded and needed more social support from their leaders and teammates. The study proposes that distributed team members rely heavily on individual coping resources, because spatial and temporal distance hinders or even precludes the mobilization of social resources related to emotional, instrumental and informational social support.

Moderating Effect of Team Distributedness on Organizational Dimensions for Innovation Project Success

This article addresses the issue of geographically distributed work teams that carry out new product development projects. These are task-oriented, goal-driven, temporary teams that use ICTs. This exploratory study measures the moderating affect of team distributedness on the relationships between organizational and workforce management best practices and two measures of project success (efficacy and effectiveness). Data were obtained from real teams working in Canadian companies in diverse high-tech industries. The results show a moderating effect of team distributedness, which is interesting in that the distributedness factor is examined from a different perspective, that is, as a moderating rather than an explanatory dimension.

How Cadforce makes quality part of the bottom line for its distributed work teams

AbstractWhen state‐of‐the‐art technology and explicit work processes could not assure the quality of its deliverables, a drafting outsourcing firm turned to other tools to bridge critical learning and communication gaps between project teams on opposite sides of the world, as well as making the client part of the quality equation. Cadforce eliminated a layer of onshore project management and clarified accountabilities for quality; made training a core part of the project work flow; and synchronized onshore and offshore work cycles through a results‐oriented work environment that incorporates new media, supplemented with a “human touch,” to enhance collaboration and expedite communication between teams. Cadforce also involved clients in trade‐off decisions by making the cost of quality an explicit part of its pricing strategy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Research on Process Structure for Distributed, Asynchronous Collaborative Writing Groups

This paper investigates using higher levels of scripted process structure (procedural explicitness) to improve outcomes of distributed, asynchronous collaborative writing (CW) teams that work on the Internet. This paper reports preliminary results of a one-and-a-half month field experiment on asynchronous collaborative writing using 550 participants. It is found that the highest levels of process structure provide the most benefits to the examined distributed work teams, which has important implications for optimizing distributed group work.

An analysis of trust among globally distributed work teams in an organizational setting

AbstractRegardless of whether a project team is located in the same workplace or distributed around the world, trust remains an important element deemed necessary to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative work. At the same time, distribution across sites presents challenges to trust building that are not present among co‐located teams. A further complicating factor in trust building among distributed teams is national culture. As we demonstrate, the impact of nationality can be increased when organizations put the distributed sites in a competitive frame. Using the Newell and Swan threefold typology of trust, this paper analyzes trust among IT work teams whose members are located at sites that are distributed in the United States, Ireland, and India. Our case analysis confirms the problematic nature of trust building among globally distributed teams. Specifically, we found that due to situational factors and socio‐psychological dynamics an ‘Us versus Them’ attitude prevails among the distributed sites. This paper concludes that the traditional approaches used by organizations to address the challenges of global collaboration are insufficient and that trust building in an organizational setting requires project managers to actively work on relationship management to minimize the impact of an inter‐group perspective. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Rules of Virtual Groups: Trust, Liking, and Performance in Computer-Mediated Communication

Research on virtual groups reflects concerns about the development of trust and liking and about the performance of partners who do not see each other or work proximally. Previous studies have explored behaviors leading to subjectively experienced trust and/or liking, or trusting behaviors associated with group output, but have not linked behaviors, subjective affect, and output quality. Deriving principles from the social information processing theory of computer-mediated communication, this research identified and tested six communication rules for virtual groups. Employing a quasi-experimental procedure to maximize the variance in rule-following behavior, some distributed groups in a cross-university course were assigned to follow rules as part of their grades on group assignments conducted using computer-mediated communication from which messages were collected and later coded. Through self-reported measures of rule following and affect, results reveal correlations between each rule with trust and liking. Less consistent are the relationships between rule following, specific observed behaviors, and actual performance quality. Interpretations suggest that a powerful set of collaboration rules has been identified or that the mere following of any rules and norms reduces uncertainty and enhances trust in distributed work teams.

The Rules of Virtual Groups: Trust, Liking, and Performance in Computer-Mediated Communication

Research on virtual groups reflects concerns about the development of trust and liking and about the performance of partners who do not see each other or work proximally. Previous studies have explored behaviors leading to subjectively experienced trust and/or liking, or trusting behaviors associated with group output, but have not linked behaviors, subjective affect, and output quality. Deriving principles from the social information processing theory of computer-mediated communication, this research identified and tested six communication rules for virtual groups. Employing a quasi-experimental procedure to maximize the variance in rule-following behavior, some distributed groups in a cross-university course were assigned to follow rules as part of their grades on group assignments conducted using computer-mediated communication from which messages were collected and later coded. Through self-reported measures of rule following and affect, results reveal correlations between each rule with trust and liking. Less consistent are the relationships between rule following, specific observed behaviors, and actual performance quality. Interpretations suggest that a powerful set of collaboration rules has been identified or that the mere following of any rules and norms reduces uncertainty and enhances trust in distributed work teams.

Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research

This review summarizes empirical research on the management of virtual teams, i.e., distributed work teams whose members predominantly communicate and coordinate their work via electronic media (e-mail, telephone, video-conference, etc.). Instead of considering virtual teams as qualitatively distinct from conventional teams, the degree of “virtuality” of teams is understood as a dimensional attribute. This review is guided by a lifecycle model in which five phases are distinguished in the management of teams with high virtuality: Preparation, launch, performance management, team development, and disbanding. The main focus of the review is on quantitative research with existing virtual teams in organizational contexts. However, experimental research and case studies are considered when no field studies are available. The major research results are summarized for human resource management tasks within these phases, and recommendations for practitioners are derived.

The Potential of Group Support Systems (Gss) to Enhance Systems Analysis and Design Processes and Outcomes

This paper focuses on how Group Support System (GSS) can be combined to effectively improve the Systems Analysis and Design (SA&D) process. The objective is to demonstrate the potential benefits of using GSS with SA&D, especially when used with JAD, CASE, data modeling, process modeling, and BPR. Bringing off the benefits of GSS used with SA&D, several limitations and issues are also explored. Finally, future research areas of using GSS with SA&D are explored in relation to culture, distributed work teams, and artificial intelligence.

Design Requirements for Collaborative Writing Tools for Distributed Work Over the Internet

This paper proposes requirements necessary for designing future collaborative writing tools to support distributed work teams on the Internet.Requirements are proposed from literature, and then compared to previous and existing CW tools such as Microsoft Word(TM). Because no tool adequately addresses the needs of distributed CW teams, a new CW tool called Collaboratus is proposed and reviewed.

Design Concepts for Distributed Work Systems: An Empirical Investigation Into Distributed Teams in Complex Domains

Coordination and collaboration across distributed teams during planning and execution activities present many challenges to organizations and operations, including military command and control. With the increase in spatially and temporally distributed work teams, it is essential to achieve an understanding of how distributed work can be effectively supported. In this paper, we discuss issues surrounding distributed work systems that were gained through a series of investigations, including (a) field studies, (b) structured interviews, (c) critical incident reports, (d) participation in concept experiments, and (e) literature reviews. Characteristics held in common by the domains explored include the following: high cognitive complexity, distribution of the work (and associated responsibilities) among many people, distribution of data and knowledge among many people, uncertainty about how scenarios will actually play out, and geographic and temporal distribution of the participants. The results of these investigations presented in the form of case studies, and design concepts to support distributed work systems are suggested.

Support for Communication-Based Work Processes in Virtual Work

Distributed work teams are increasingly being implemented to enhance organizational flexibility and competitiveness in today's complex and rapidly changing work environment. Though an increasing number of employees work cooperatively with individuals in a variety of different locations and types of virtual work environments, there is little investigation of the performance of communication-based work processes and their effect on team performance in these distributed environments. The objective of this research is to investigate the various communication-enabled work processes necessary in different distributed work teams, and the ways in which different types of communication modes can be used most effectively to support these processes. Our study takes into consideration individuals' multiple and often overlapping memberships in different team structures. In this paper we report initial findings from the research, which was conducted through interviews in two sales divisions of service units of two major companies in the information technology industry.