Download Building Effective Virtual Teams

Building Effective Virtual Teams
Dane M. Partridge, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Management
University of Southern Indiana
Presented to the River Cities Chapter of the
American Society for Training and
Development (ASTD)
February 2002
Building Effective Virtual
Teams
 Presentation based on research related to
Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education
Course Development Grant
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Web Based Team Training Module
Project Director, Nancy Kovanic, Lead
Consultant, OPD Group, USI
What Is Meant by Term
“Team”?
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Collection of individuals
Interdependent in tasks
Share responsibility for outcomes
See themselves and are seen by others as intact
social entity embedded in larger social system(s)
 Manage relationships across organizational
boundaries
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(Cohen and Bailey, 1997)
Threshold Work Design
Questions
 Is team necessary to accomplish task?
 If so, then what type of team?
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(Kline, 1999)
Organizational Context
 Performance management/reward system
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Must evolve from individually-based performance
appraisal process toward focus on team development,
team member contributions, and overall team
performance
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(Yeatts and Hyten, 1998)
Reward system must support team-based work design
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Skill-based, gainsharing
Team-based reward systems don’t always produce intended
results (e.g., Levi Strauss)
 (Orsburn and Moran, 2000)
Team Characteristics
 Goal Clarity and Adoption
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Helping teams set goals highly effective intervention in
team building (Kline, 1999).
 Role Clarity
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Role conflict (for example, being a member of multiple
teams), ambiguity (establish clear expectations as to what
each member must do by when).
 Team Efficacy
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Team’s belief in itself to accomplish work. Can be
increased by identifying team members’ capabilities,
identifying ways to better achieve goals, aligning team
goals with organizational goals (Kline, 1999).
Member Dispositions
(Individual Characteristics)
 Members do not necessarily have to like one
another to work well together.
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Kline (1999)
 Team-Player Ability
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Degree to which individuals positively predisposed to
working on team.
 Cooperativeness
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Positively related to attitudes and performance of project
teams
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(Cohen and Bailey, 1997).
Member Dispositions
 Team-Player Style
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Contributor (task-oriented, setting
goals, priorities, solving problems)
Collaborator (goal-oriented)
Communicator (team process)
Challenger
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Kline (1999)
Work Process Effectiveness
(Decision Making)
 Is team right size?
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Social loafing
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(Yeatts and Hyten, 1998)
 Does team have necessary interpersonal
communication skills?
 Does team have necessary task-relevant skills?
 Is there allowance for diversity of opinion?
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Team norms impact participation, communication,
conflict management, meeting management, problem
solving, and decision making
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999).
Work Process Effectiveness
(Decision Making)
 Does team assess alternatives before
accomplishing work?
 Are there understood performance norms?
 Does team assess work progress before
completion (goal accomplishment)?
 Does team allow for modifications in process
if alternative suggested?
Holding Effective Meetings
 Technical advances such as groupware can
assist teams in meeting without having to get
together in person.
 Increased use @USI of Blackboard (elearning software platform)
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Mngt 305, Management of Organizational
Behavior, virtual team projects
Effective Virtual Teams
 Importance of trust
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“People tend to trust others who perform
competently, act with integrity, and display
concern for the well-being of others”
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999, p. 140).
 Important to have members who have high
propensity to trust
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(Jarvenpaa et al., 1998).
Effective Virtual Teams
 Team Building
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Engage in team building activities as virtual team is
initially created so as to develop sense of trust,
cohesiveness, awareness of each other’s differences
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Virtual ice-breaker. First impressions especially
important in VTs
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(Kayworth and Leidner, 2000)
(Cascio, 2000)
May be cultural bias to common team-building activities
(e.g., sharing personal information, discussing results of
personality inventories, competitive games).
Uncomfortable for those from collective cultures?
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999).
Effective Virtual Teams
 Trust negatively impacted by
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lack of social introduction
lack of enthusiasm
unequally distributed communication
shallow ideas
lack of task focus
lack of individual initiative
little feedback
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(Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999)
Effective Virtual Teams
 Trust positively impacted by
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early social exchanges
predictable communication pattern
strong individual initiative (and initiative from
multiple members)
substantive feedback (responses to initiatives may be
even more important than initiatives themselves)
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(Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999)
 Timely follow-through on commitments
important to establishing perceived competence
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999)
Effective Virtual Teams
 Computer-mediated communication may alleviate
cross-cultural communication issues
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lack of nonverbal cues eliminates evidence of cultural
differences
asynchronous mode may reduce language errors
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(Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999)
 However, computer-mediated communication can
negatively impact perceived concern for others,
given that evidence indicates computer-mediated
groups communicate more negative messages than
face-to-face groups do
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999, p. 154)
Effective Virtual Teams
 Virtual Collaboration Behaviors
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Ability to exchange ideas without criticism
Develop working document in which various
members’ ideas are summarized
Exchange working document among members for
editing
Track comments in working document with initials
Agree on activities
Meet deadlines
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(Knoll and Jarvenpaa, 1998).
Effective Virtual Teams
 Virtual Socialization Behaviors [process norms?]
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Ability to communicate with other members immediately
Solicit feedback on process team is using to
accomplish tasks
Express appreciation for ideas and completed tasks
Apologize for mistakes
Volunteer for roles
Acknowledge role assignments
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(Knoll and Jarvenpaa, 1998)
Initiative, results orientation, and integrity highly
important
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(Jarvenpaa et al., 1998).
Effective Virtual Teams
 Virtual Communication Behaviors
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Given inherent lack of rich face-to-face communication,
groups must attempt to communicate frequently and
consistently with constant feedback from team leaders.
Setting specific agendas for discussion may be helpful.
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(Kayworth and Leidner, 2000)
Ability to rephrase unclear sentences to achieve clarity,
use e-mail typography to convey emotion.
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(Knoll and Jarvenpaa, 1998)
Effective Virtual Teams
 Perceived integrity of members
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Integrity of co-workers is evaluated on basis of
reputation, in the event actual performance cannot be
consistently observed.
Positive reputation is function of consistent actions,
fulfilled promises, consideration of others’ schedules, and
prompt responses to phone-mail and e-mail.
Persons working in teams, especially virtual teams, must
be attentive to way in which they are perceived by others.
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(Kezsbom, 1999).
Is this “virtual EQ”?
Effective Virtual Teams
 Self-limiting Behaviors
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Based on literature on teams in general.
Includes
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presence of someone with [perceived/proclaimed?] expertise
presentation of compelling argument
lack of confidence in one’s ability to contribute
pressures to conform to team’s decision [how is virtual
groupthink expressed?]
 Process observations from Mngt 305 students
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dysfunctional decision-making climate
 (Cascio, 2000).
 Re: OD: virtual process consultation?
Effective Virtual Teams
 Matching technology with task
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Technology: synchronous and asynchronous.
Tasks: generating ideas and plans, solving routine
problems, solving complex problems, negotiating
conflicts.
Technology also impacts personal connection,
information richness, and historical record of
interactions.
E-mail most useful for generating ideas and plans, and
collecting data; useful for routine problems; least useful
for complex problems and negotiations.
Face-to-face best for negotiations.
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(Duarte and Snyder, 1999)
Effective Virtual Teams
 Determinants of Outcomes: Satisfaction
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Some evidence that women more satisfied with
VT experience than men.
Possibly due to nature of computer-mediated
communication: lack of nonverbal cues and
structure allowed for more equal group
participation.
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(Lind, 1999)