Browsing by Subject "Virtual teams"
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Item Collaboration dynamics in virtual innovation teams : a longitudinal social network analysis(2016-08) Provost, Shannon Marie; Jarvenpaa, S. L. (Sirkka L.); Beath, Cynthia M; Gloor, Peter A; Margolis, Peter A; Martins, Luis D; Sager, Thomas WThere is a need for practical wisdom around innovative behaviors in modern organizations, in which online collaboration supports the creation of value and knowledge. Virtual teams – a strategy for innovation used increasingly in organizations – face challenges of knowledge integration and coordination across time and space. Collaborative structures and communication patterns that distinguish thriving virtual innovation teams are not well defined. With this dissertation, we explored how collaborative structures of virtual teams change over time and considered the extent to which these dynamics may impact innovation processes and performance. This longitudinal study of eleven virtual teams in the context of a health care system design project seeks new theoretical insights about innovation in distributed groups. Our primary data were collected from digital archives of project email correspondence over twenty-three months. We used social network analysis to observe structures and interactions in team email communication networks. We examined team centrality, structural dynamics, and participation equality as potential drivers of virtual innovation team outcomes, also considering how distinctive innovation process phases (e.g., design, testing, implementation) during the innovation team lifespan moderated these relationships. We found partial support for the six hypotheses tested. As predicted, participation equality was positively associated with work group performance and structural dynamics was positively associated with radical innovation. Contrary to what we predicted, team centrality was positively associated with performance and innovation. We observed interesting variation in these relationships across four innovation process phases. This research contributes to what is known about the temporality of virtual innovation teams and more generally about virtual team performance. Results from this study could inform the design and management of future virtual innovation teams and the ecosystems in which they are embedded.Item The influence of interpersonal behaviors and social categories on language use in virtual teams(2012-05) Erturk, Gamze; Peña, Jorge F.; Browning, Larry; Hancock, Jeffrey; McGlone, Matthew; Pennebaker, JamesAs increasing number of organizations are using virtual teams, communication scholars have started to pay more attention to these relatively new forms of work. Past studies explored interpersonal (i.e., trust, attraction) and group dynamics (i.e., conformity, subgrouping) in virtual teams. Despite the documented effects of interpersonal behaviors and social categories on virtual group dynamics, there is a substantial gap in how these two factors influence language use in virtual teams. To shed light on this neglected area of research, this dissertation examined how teammates’ interpersonal behaviors and social categories affected language use in virtual team collaborations. 164 participants interacted in four-person teams using a synchronous chat program. The age of participants ranged from 18 to 24. 58% of participants were female and 42% were male. Participants used Windows Live Messenger to complete Straus & McGrath’s (1994) decision making task. Upon completing the task, participants filled out social attraction and social identification scales to be used for manipulation checks. Decision making sessions for each group were saved and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program (LIWC) was used to examine language use. Linguistic style accommodation was measured using language style matching (LSM) metric. LSM measured the degree to which group members used similar language patterns. It was calculated by averaging the absolute difference scores for nine function word categories generated by LIWC. Similarly, linguistic markers such as word counts, negations, assents, and pronouns were acquired through LIWC output. The results suggested that having a dissenting member in the group was associated with higher linguistic style accommodation compared to having an assenting member. This result contradicted with the assumptions of communication accommodation theory (Giles, Mulac, Bradac, & Johnson, 1987), yet provided evidence for the validity of minority influence theory (Moscovici, Lage, & Naffrechoux, 1969) in virtual teams. Unexpectedly, there was no significant effect of social categories on linguistic style accommodation. The results also showed that negative behaviors were strongly associated with increased word counts, negations and the second person singular pronouns, whereas positive behaviors were associated with increased use of assents, tentative language, first person plural and singular pronouns.Item Managing performance barriers in virtual teams(2010-12) Palacios, Vanessa Michelle; Lewis, Kyle, 1961-; Ambler, AnthonyTechnological developments and the modern economy have changed the way teams operate. Most professionals today are mobile and equipped with everything they need to work from anywhere at any time, including blackberries, laptop computers, email, video conferencing and other personal productivity devices. Doing work this way, allows for a wide range of benefits such as flexibility, diversity and an increase in productivity. However, these virtual teams require specific conditions to help them reach their full potential. This paper will identify the four major characteristics of virtual teams (geographic dispersion, electronic dependence, dynamic structure and national diversity) and use a model of virtual team effectiveness to examine the three team processes (transactive memory, work engagement and collective efficacy) that are most strongly affected by these characteristics. It will further suggest ways in which leadership can help to overcome these process losses through the establishment of trust, psychological safety and conflict management.