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Learning together and working apart: routines for organizational learning in virtual teams
Abstract
Purpose
Research suggests that teaming routines facilitate learning in teams. This paper identifies and details how specific teaming routines, implemented in a virtual team, support its continual learning. The study’s focus was to generate authentic and descriptive accounts of the interviewees’ experiences with virtual teaming routines.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study gathered concrete, practical and context-dependent knowledge about virtual teaming routines in a specific environment. The main source of data was narrative expert interviews with working members of the team.
Findings
This study illustrates how a mix of face-to-face and virtual routines can ensure organizational learning in virtual teams.
Research limitations/implications
This case study is limited to one virtual team in the information industry. Future research could build on this research to study virtual teams in other industries.
Practical implications
This research offers specific examples of teaming routines that managers of virtual teams might adapt in managing their own teams.
Social implications
Given that the use of virtual teams is a growing phenomenon, understanding how to help those teams learn effectively is a critical issue.
Originality/value
This case study extends the research on teaming routines to virtual teams.
... Til slutt ses det på hvordan trivsel, motivasjon og mestring oppleves og ivaretas fra hjemmekontoret. Dette gjøres i lys av selvbestemmelsesteori (Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017 og med perspektiver fra meningsledelse (Hernes, 2016). ...
... Vi ser av undersøkelsen at ledere og ansatte rapporterer behov for autonomi. Ifølge Ryan & Deci (2000;2017) er autonomi viktig for fleksibilitet på den ene siden, som også er en forutsetning for indre motivasjon, og på den andre siden behovet for å legge til rette for effektiv samhandling, aktivt i samhandlingen. Det er derfor naturlig å anta at den psykologiske tryggheten har variert ut fra oppgavens art og hvem man skal løse oppgaven med. ...
... De fleste oppgavene som løses i temporaere team i Fremtind, som eksempelvis prosjektteam, krever kompleks samhandling. For team som uansett må basere seg på digital kommunikasjon, synes det viktig å legge til rette for møter ansikt til ansikt i oppstarten for å bygge psykologisk trygghet i teamet (Gilson et al., 2015;Dixon, 2017). ...
Denne studien belyser hvordan innramming, samhandling og samhandlingsmønstre har endret seg som følge av langvarig pålagt hjemmekontor, og hva vi kan lære av disse erfaringene for å definere den nye normalen post covid- 19. Følgende forskningsspørsmål er stilt: Hvordan har samhandlingen vært med hjemmekontor under nedstengningen i covid-19? For å finne svar har vi gjennomført en enkeltcasestudie ved innsamling av kvalitative data i en tverrsnittsundersøkelse med semistrukturerte intervju med et strategisk utvalg på totalt ti intervjupersoner. Følgende tema ble identifisert: (1) Psykologisk trygghet og terskel for aktiv deltagelse i samhandlingen. (2) Mening og felles retning. (3) Komplekse samhandlingsoppgaver med behov for visuell samhandling. (4) Autonomi og fleksibilitet balansert opp mot effektiv samhandling. Studien argumenterer for at det i videre arbeid bør klargjøres noen prinsipper som ivaretar balansen mellom effektiv samhandling og den økte autonomien og fleksibiliteten som fjernarbeid muliggjør.
... Pour Ruiller et al. (2017), le maintien du bien-être en situation de télétravail doit être une priorité, afin de maintenir un sentiment de proximité sociale, malgré la distance physique (Wilson et al., 2008). Ainsi, le travail collectif à distance doit être basé sur une confiance réciproque, et nourri par des échanges délibératifs, qui permettent la participation de tous (Dixon, 2017 ;Kurland & Bailey, 2002 ;Marrauld, 2012 ;Taskin, 2006 ;Vayre, 2019). Pour cela, le manager doit nécessairement faire preuve d'un investissement exemplaire pour être source de motivation et d'implication pour ses collaborateurs (Ruiller et al., 2017). ...
... Pour cela, le manager doit nécessairement faire preuve d'un investissement exemplaire pour être source de motivation et d'implication pour ses collaborateurs (Ruiller et al., 2017). À la lecture de ces travaux, les styles de leadership favorables au bien-être en situation de télétravail semblent s'articuler autour de quatre dimensions : le soutien social (Hager, 2018 ;Karasek & Theorell, 1990 ;Kowalski & Swanson, 2005), la participation aux décisions (Dixon, 2017 ;Kurland & Bailey, 2002 ;Taskin, 2006), l'attention portée à chacun (Brunelle, 2010 ;Felstead et al., 2003 ;Morgeson et al., 2010) et l'exemplarité (Ruiller et al., 2017). ...
... D'autre part, nos résultats montrent que le besoin d'inclusion dans la prise de décision et la mise en oeuvre d'un leadership participatif est d'autant plus fort que l'on est régulièrement en télétravail, ce qui vient à la fois confirmer l'importance de la dimension participative à distance (Dixon, 2017 ;Kurland & Bailey, 2002 ;Taskin, 2006), mais aussi montrer la nature progressive et croissante de ce besoin avec la fréquence de télétravail. Pour illustrer ce constat, Fana et al. (2020, p.9) évoquent la vision post-fordiste, c'est-à-dire que le télétravail introduit avec la mise à distance et la prise d'autonomie mécanique, des « procédures de contrôle plus démocratiques, fondées principalement sur la confiance réciproque et l'autocontrôle ». ...
En réponse aux risques sanitaires liés à l’épidémie de Covid-19, des milliers d’organisations ont mis en place la pratique du télétravail à domicile de manière massive pour leurs salariés. Certains se sont retrouvés en télétravail permanent, d’autres ont alterné avec une ou deux journées sur site, pendant qu’une moindre proportion est restée entièrement en présentiel. Dans ce contexte, la question du maintien du bien-être au travail s’est avérée un enjeu central pour les directions et leurs lignes managériales. Elles ont dû faire face aux risques d’isolement, de pression accrue, de charge mentale, d’épuisement ou encore de brouillage des frontières entre la vie professionnelle et la vie privée de leurs collaborateurs. Cette situation nous amène à nous demander si les travailleurs ont des besoins différents en termes de styles de leadership pour favoriser leur bien-être, en fonction de leur situation de travail. Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons mené une enquête par questionnaire auprès de 2968 salariés d’une grande organisation de la Sécurité Sociale aux mois de novembre et décembre 2020. Nos résultats montrent que, si toutes les formes d’organisation du travail ont un besoin de soutien managérial, la situation de télétravail requiert plus d’exigences envers le supérieur hiérar- chique. Le télétravail alterné avec le travail sur site nécessite une prise de décision plus par- ticipative, à laquelle s’ajoute un besoin d’exemplarité du manager en situation de télétravail permanent. À la lumière de ces résultats, le manager à distance apparaît comme un manager augmenté.
In response to sanitary risks caused by Covid-19 pandemic, thousand companies have widely established teleworking at home for their employees. Some of them ended up with full-time teleworking, some others alternated between on-site working and teleworking, while a little part stayed on-site all the time. In this context, matter of well-being preservation at work tuned out to be a central issue for leaders and supervisors. They have coped with many dangers: isolation, increased stress, mental workload, moral exhaustion, or else, blurring of work-life balance of teleworkers. This situation brings us to wonder whether workers have different needs in terms of leadership to preserve well-being, depending on their work configuration. To answer to this question, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 2968 employees in a French public organization between November and December 2020. Our results show that all work configurations require social support of supervisor, whereas teleworking configuration request more implication from him. Alternation between teleworking and on- site working call for a participative decision making, to which is added a need of manager’s exemplarity for full-time teleworking. In view of the results, a remote supervisor appears as an expanded supervisor.
... It is important to stress that collective learning and knowledge sharing in virtual teams are not new phenomena and have been studied even before the pandemic. For instance, in her study of collective learning conditions in virtual teams, Dixon (2017) highlights the significance of clear routines for organisations' learning ability. In addition, she points out that virtual teams need to change and re-establish their routines in response to changes in the external environment (Dixon, 2017). ...
... For instance, in her study of collective learning conditions in virtual teams, Dixon (2017) highlights the significance of clear routines for organisations' learning ability. In addition, she points out that virtual teams need to change and re-establish their routines in response to changes in the external environment (Dixon, 2017). In addition, Ren (2020) argues that a lack of shared understanding resulting from a lack of social presence is a severe challenge to virtual teams. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how a social entrepreneurial organisation in Sweden collectively learned to adapt itself to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an abductive approach, this study conducted single case fieldwork on a social entrepreneurial organisation called SFE. The following research questions were asked: What are the changes in collective learning conditions that SFE has to face during the pandemic? What are the outcomes of collective learning during the pandemic in SFE?
Findings
This study results indicate that collective learning conditions were changed by restructuring the organisation’s design and teamwork during the pandemic, which facilitated sharing of knowledge and experiences. This collective learning helped the organisation develop new virtual projects during the pandemic. Another result of this collective learning was the members’ new shared understanding of the organisation’s vision.
Research limitations/implications
This study hopes to broaden the understanding of the relationship between collective learning in organisations and organisational adaptation in times of crisis.
Practical implications
This study can help leaders of social entrepreneurial organisations understand what changes are necessary to create a team that collectively learns.
Originality/value
The data had the advantage of being gathered as a real-time process, and the researcher witnessed how the organisation achieved adaptation as it happened and not just through its members’ reflection of it as a past phenomenon.
... To overcome these team challenges, managerial support is decisive for team member performance and commitment in the FWA context (Gan et al. 2022; Van der Lippe and Lippényi 2020). Leaders must establish routines to enable team members to make decisions autonomously and 'without the feeling that someone is looking over their shoulder' (Dixon 2017). When employees work out of sight, leaders tend to apply more output-oriented control routines (Felstead et al. 2003); i.e., leaving more discretion to the employees for organising their workload. ...
Literature suggests that employees reciprocate the ‘privilege’ for flexible working arrangements (FWA) with higher effort. Drawing on social exchange theory, our interview study investigated how leaders shape members’ beliefs about the need to reciprocate the access to FWA. Based on 20 interviews nested in ten teams from two organisations, we analysed how FWA are perceived and negotiated between team leaders and their members, and whether low or high prevalence of FWA in teams plays a role for establishing social exchange relationships. The interviews took place prior to Covid-19. While in one organisation access to FWA was negotiated individually only due to a specific need, in the other organisation it was facilitated more easily and granting FWA had evolved as a social norm. Our findings indicate that in both contexts FWA indeed initiated social exchange relationships, as team members often tried to return the favour for access to FWA by maintaining the performance and/or by showing high flexibility. When FWA were granted to selected members only (low prevalence), ‘score-keeping’ and ‘quid-pro-quo exchanges’ were mentioned as important exchange rules in the accounts. In the organisation with high FWA prevalence, cooperative team routines showed that members felt the need to reciprocate the favour to other team members or the organisation rather than directly to the leader. However, even in this organisation, leaders were able to establish employees’ belief in privilege and their obligation to reciprocate in order for them not to lose access to FWA. Our findings show the role of the leader in shaping and instrumentalising FWA. The study has high practical relevance for hybrid teams and discusses the essential role of leaders in FWA.
... Entrepreneurs are an important group to study in connection with learning since the knowledge they acquire and apply makes a major contribution to economic growth and employment (Brush 2000;Minniti 2010; Klapper and Parker 2010). In addition, entrepreneurs are an interesting group to study in this respect as they tend to be highly motivated learners (Sarri 2011;Boeren 2011;Fayolle 2013;Czerkawski 2016;Dixon 2017). One of the things entrepreneurs learn is something that can be described as 'entrepreneurship education' because it is tailored to their needs as entrepreneurs. ...
This paper reports on a study of women entrepreneurs running MSMEs in South Wales, a region characterised as having a weak entrepreneurial culture compared to other parts of the UK (Fotopoulos and Storey 2017). One reason for this weakness is perceived to be a lack of entrepreneurship education and in this paper we investigate the hypothesis behind this -that more entrepreneurship education has a positive effect on business success. The investigation consisted of three parts; a set of 59 questions (n=150), followed by a series of face-to-face interviews (n=37), and finally some detailed discussions (n=5). The main finding is that the hypothesis that entrepreneurship education makes a positive contribution to the success of women entrepreneurs needs to be modified to reflect the fact that it is entrepreneurial learning through technologically enabled networks that has such an effect, as it no longer makes sense in the age of social media to separate education from asynchronous networked learning, or to separate the technology from the networking within that learning. The practical implication of this research is that enterprise education courses and programmes designed to support female entrepreneurs need to take better account of the way such women learn. The limitation of the research is that the sample is from a relatively technologically enabled population.
... (2003) описывают доверие как "клей", который подталкивает команду к успешному завершению проекта. Кроме того, доверие также включает в себя свободу проверять предположения, экспериментировать, совершать ошибки и говорить об них (Dixon, 2017). ...
A balance between economic, social, and ecological performance has emerged as a key concern for organisations around the world. The modern era emphasises achieving eco‐friendly business outcomes to drive social needs along with higher financial performance. However, hybrid organisations in developing countries frequently progress in ecological and economic terms but struggle with social innovation. Based on this backdrop, this study aimed to investigate whether or not technological readiness, organisational learning, transformational leadership, and sustainability orientation influence social innovation within hybrid organisations. Data from 447 hybrid organisations in Ghana are used in the study. Study findings reveal that transformational leadership promotes social innovation among hybrid enterprises, while sustainability orientation decreases it significantly. Technology readiness also reduced the social outcome associated with sustainability orientation by moderating their negative effects. To maximise social innovation outcomes, this study recommends managers of hybrid organisations to adopt policies regarding the efficient use of internal resources and processes through technological readiness. Furthermore, the organisation's future learning processes, leadership structures, and sustainability orientation policies should be aligned with its social innovation goals.
The digital transformation of work has long since arrived in our everyday lives. The crisis-driven digital transformation through COVID-19 undoubtedly accelerated many things and acted as a burning glass for processes that had not yet been digitally transformed. This dissertation is dedicated to the fundamental digital transformation of work and, with a total of fifteen research studies, to the framework of the crisis-driven digital transformation of work, among others. With reference to the framework concepts of "Transformation Governance", "Digital Leadership" and "Future Technology Management", approaches are identified on how to close the theoretical and practical gap regarding the digital transformation of work.
Organizational, individual, and technical approaches are identified as prerequisites for the successful digital transformation of work. The findings will enable future research to investigate current and emerging phenomena, such as issues of collaboration in virtual realities and fostering cohesion in purely virtual teams. Methodologically, established approaches such as interviews, case studies, surveys, experimental and mixed methods approaches are combined. Therefore, the dissertation can provide a starting point for discussion, but also for further research in the field of business informatics and in other disciplines. Furthermore, this work provides valuable insights and recommendations for action for experts, especially in SMEs, who want to face the digital transformation.
This paper presents the findings of the preliminary empirical research for mapping practices of organizational learning in organizations in North Macedonia. This research has a diagnostic character – its intention is to record emerging forms of organizational learning practices resulting from the approaches in treatment of human resources. Based on that, the team of authors will more realistically define the subject dimensions of the action research carried out by BAS Institute of Management – Bitola, titled "Effectiveness of Action Interventions for Systemic Introduction of organizational learning in the practices of organizations in North Macedonia." The intention of this action research is to test in real life circumstances the feasibility and effectiveness of our integrated model of organizational learning already presented at the 13th IFKAD conference in Zagreb in 2013. The paper provides a brief overview of current research on similar topics, focusing on the findings of the preliminary empirical research – the key findings from the distribution of organizational learning practices and their effects on Peter Senge’s Five Disciplines: personal mastery and organizational wisdom; team learning and effective teamwork; mental models and organizational culture in organizational change; shared vision and strategic thinking, and system thinking and organizational intelligence.
We consider how the literatures on organizational mindfulness and mindful organizing are relevant to research on organizational change and learning. We start with the tension between mindful and less mindful approaches, such as those that emphasize organizational routines, to change and learning. We posit that organizational routines are essential to mindfulness, but that this role is not elaborated in the mindfulness literature. Thus, we argue that further dialogue between these approaches is necessary and introduce a conceptual model with three dimensions to facilitate the conversation: (1) the periodicity with which learning occurs (i.e., rarely or often), (2) the extensiveness of the object of learning (i.e., local or global), and (3) the degree of cognitive intensity in the learning process (i.e., inert or reflective). The model explores how the different contexts or landscapes that organizations are embedded in influence their capacity for mindfulness, mindful organizing, and change.
Ten years ago, Martins, Gilson, and Maynard reviewed the emerging virtual team (VT) literature. Given the proliferation of new communication technologies and the increased usage of work teams, it is hardly surprising that the last decade has seen an influx of VT research. In this review, we organize the last 10 years of empirical work around 10 main themes: research design, team inputs, team virtuality, technology, globalization, leadership, mediators and moderators, trust, outcomes, and ways to enhance VT success. These themes emerged inductively because they either represent areas with consistent results, a large proliferation of studies, or a grouping of studies and results that differed from where the literature stood a decade ago. Following the review section, we turn our attention toward 10 opportunities for future research: study setting, generational impacts, methodological considerations, new and emerging technologies, member mobility, subgroups, team adaptation, transition processes and planning, creativity, and team member well-being. Some of these opportunities emerged from our review of the extant VT literature; others are grounded in the broader team literature, are unresolved theoretical issues, or were linked to insights discussed within the VT practitioner literature. Within the domain of VTs, technological innovation continues to advance the way team members interact and enable individuals who previously could not be connected to work together as a team. Accordingly, VTs provide great promise to organizations, and the field continues to be rich with research opportunities for the coming decade(s).
This paper discusses psychological safety and distinguishes it from the related construct of interpersonal trust. Trust is the expectation that others' future actions will be favorable to one's interests; psychological safety refers to a climate in which people are comfortable being (and expressing) themselves. Although both constructs involve a willingness to be vulnerable to others' actions, they are conceptually and theoretically distinct. In particular, psychological safety is centrally tied to learning behavior, while trust lowers transactions costs and reduces the need to monitor behavior. This paper proposes a model of antecedents and consequences of psychological safety in work teams and emphasizes the centrality of psychological safety for learning behavior. Drawing from field research in a variety of organizational settings, I describe different approaches to studying and measuring psychological safety in teams. I conclude with implications of this work including limitations of psychological safety in practice and suggestions areas for future research.
This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.
Over the past fifteen years, organizational routines increasingly have been investigated from a process perspective to challenge the idea that routines are stable entities that are mindlessly enacted. We summarize in this chapter what constitutes a process perspective on organizational routines, and document some of the major areas of recent inquiry, including change in routines, the role of artifacts in routine performances, and emergence of routines. Three other themes emerge from the various chapters that constitute this volume: (1) Zooming out to understand routines in larger contexts; (2) Zooming in to reveal actor dispositions and skill; and (3) Innovation, creativity, and routines in ambiguous contexts. The chapters also inspire future research that can extend a process perspective on routines by further zooming out and in, and by potentially using this metaphor to connect distinct findings by scholars studying routines from different perspectives.
In this paper we analyze how the spatiality of interactions influences trust creation in multi-site corporate innovation projects. By drawing on insights from the discussion on initial and gradual trust in combination with contributions from the field of economic geography, we examine factors influencing the creation of trust and their dependence on face-to-face interaction. We develop a conceptual framework that links the spatial constitution of relationships to the creation of both resilient and fragile trust in project work. In doing so, we illustrate the complexity of initial and gradual trust creation and the interplay between personality traits, group-based similarities, situational and institutional factors, reputational inference, and personal interaction. The empirical insights are based on two qualitative case studies on specific innovation projects in multinational companies. Our findings illustrate the need to incorporate spatiality as a facilitating factor in the analysis of trust development.
Ikujiro Nonaka e Hirotaka Takeuchi establecen una vinculación del desempeño de las empresas japonesas con su capacidad para crear conocimiento y emplearlo en la producción de productos y tecnologías exitosas en el mercado. Los autores explican que hay dos tipos de conocimiento: el explícito, contenido en manuales y procedimientos, y el tácito, aprendido mediante la experiencia y comunicado, de manera indirecta, en forma de metáforas y analogías. Mientras los administradores estadounidenses se concentran en el conocimiento explícito, los japoneses lo hacen en el tácito y la clave de su éxito estriba en que han aprendido a convertir el conocimiento tácito en explícito. Finalmente, muestran que el mejor estilo administrativo para crear conocimiento es el que ellos denominan centro-arriba-abajo, en el que los gerentes de niveles intermedios son un puente entre los ideales de la alta dirección y la realidad caótica de los niveles inferiores.
We present a problem-centered organizing framework of trust, in which prominent conceptualizations oi trust and distrust from the organizational and allied social sciences are categorized based on the questions they attempt to answer. The framework we outline here is intended to complement earlier typologies by suggesting alternative strategies for employing the diverse trust literature, identifying questions that could be profitably addressed through interdisciplinary research efforts, and distinguishing disagreements where debate and research would seem to be especially worthwhile from those where such activities would appear to be much less useful.