Rutgers Virtual Team Dynamics Midterm

Characteristics of a Group

- Goal Orientation

- Interdependent

- Interpersonal Interaction (Communication)

- Perception of Membership (Sense of Belonging)

- Structured Relations

- Mutual Influence

- Individual Motivation

Characteristics of Groups: Goal Orientation

People joining together for some purpose and to achieve some group *shared* goal

Characteristics of Groups:

Interdependent

People who have some type of relationship, see connections among themselves, or believe they share a common fate

Characteristics of Groups:

Interpersonal Interaction

People who communicate and interact with one another

Characteristics of Groups:

Perception of Membership

Recognition that there is a collective to which one belongs

Characteristics of Groups: Structured Relations

Roles, rules, and norms that control people's interactions

Characteristics of Groups: Mutual Influence

Impact people have on one another because of their connections

Characteristics of Groups: Individual Motivation

Satisfaction of personal needs through membership in the group

Psychological Perspective

Two Processes define a group:

- Social Identification

- Social Representation

Social Identification

- the recognition that a group exists separately from others

- 'us' (Positive) vs 'them' (Negative)

-Both a cognitive process (classifying the world into categories) and an emotional process (viewing one's group is better than other groups)

Social Representation

- shared values, ideas and beliefs people have about the world

developed through member interactions

- Interactions helps develop the worldview

ex. human rights watch associates/wall street stockbrokers

Characteristics of Teams

- Narrower range of size than groups (3-12 people)

- Complementary skills

- Interact directly

- Performance and Mutual Accountability

- Integration, coordination, and cooperation

Groups vs. Teams

- Team is a special type of structured group

- Distinction between two are fuzzy

- Groups are more inclusive than Teams

- Teams have common goals that require coordinated interactions and accomplish certain tasks.

- Team members are held accountable

- Team members have applied functions (Assigned Roles) (ex. sport teams/work activity related to tasks)

- Teams are part of larger organization

Why do we need teams?

*Teams are important when:*

~Goal is to improve product/service

~Rapid change is necessary

~Job is complex

~Customer service and quality are important

*Shift to Teams due to:*

- Changes in Job characteristics

- Changes in Organizational characteristics

Changes in Job Characteristics

- Encourages the need for teamwork

- Non-routine --> uncertainty, complexity, interdependence, variety, change

- Need the various expertise of diverse workers to get a goal done

Changes in Organizational Characteristics

- Rate of change in business is exponential

- Comm tech helps organizes companies to create new ways to integrate their operations

- Teams provide a new way to integrate and coordinate various parts of an organization

- Companies change to meet contemporary demands

- Teams replaces managers and carry out traditional management functions

Historical Background of Team Research

- Working in small groups was common before the Industrial Revolution

- Scientific management simplified jobs and created hierarchical work systems.

- The Hawthorne studies of the 1930s demonstrated the importance of understanding the aspects of work related to social relations

- Following World War II, researchers began to experiment with work teams.

- Sociotechnical Systems during the 1960s presented a way to analyze work and identify the need for teams.

- However, it was the rise of Japanese manufacturing teams during the 1980s that led to the increased use of teamwork in the United States.

- Paralleling this growth in the use of teams, the social sciences developed the field of group dynamics, which focuses on understanding how groups operate.

- Today, group dynamics is a scientific field that provides information useful in improving the operations of teams.

Team and Self-Efficacy

- Self: an individual's belief in his or her innate ability to achieve goals (I can do it!)

- Team: perception that the team is capable of performing well at a given task

- Increasing a sense of team efficacy helps increase motivation.

- Successful performance increases team efficacy and vice versa

Team Motivation

Team Motivation:

The collective work of a group of people is more than its individuals could accomplish separately

-Working together causes a decrease in motivation that may be due to social loafing

Social Loafing

- People reduce of individual contributions knowing that there's other people in the group to do the work

- Two Types: free riders and the sucker effect

-Sucker Effect: People slack off in teams because they do not want others to take advantage of them

- Free Riders: People who perform little in a group because they do not believe their individual efforts are important, and they know they will receive their share of the group's reward regardless of their efforts

Factors:

- No need for group to perform in coordinated ways

- Individual performance can be hidden in the team's collective effort

- Members are unaware of others efforts

Preventing Social Loafing

- Team needs challenging tasks

- Rewarded for team success

- Identifiable individual performance indicators

- Commitment to the team

Increasing Team Motivation

*Depends On:*

- Task performed

- How performance will be evaluated and rewarded

- Team Efficacy: Team's belief in its ability to succeed

- Team's sense of commitment and cohesion (belonging)

Group Cohesion

The interpersonal bonds that hold a group together

The Impact of Group Cohesion

- Reduces stress

- Positive impact on group performance

- Members accept group goals, decisions and norms

- Social interaction & Conflict resolution

- Building cohesion (isolated, smaller, & group incentives)

- Also (-) Factor of Groupthink

- Creates an environment that limits internal dissension and criticism

ex. an hostile environment that prevent open communication

Models of Team Learning Process

*Team Mental Model:*A common understanding by team members about the team's tasks and the operation of the team.

-Knowledge about how to operate as a team to complete a task

-Related to the type of task, not the specific members of the team

-Focus on the shared or common memory ("on same page", know member's roles, common explanation of how team operates)

*Transactive Memory System:* Includes both the knowledge that particular team members possess and awareness of who knows what

-Awareness of the knowledge possessed by the members of the team.

-Develops over time through interactions within a team and is specific to the team.

-Task knowledge that individual team members possess

Communication Process

*Sender* --> Message --> *Receiver*

Sender

_2 characteristics:_

*Credibility*

- More credible the communicator → more audience will believe the message

- Has knowledge of expertise and has no motive to deceive

- Trustworthiness → not persuading the audience and will not personally benefit the communication

*Attractiveness*

- Not physical appearance: Tend to find people more attractive if they are similar to us in appearance, background, attitude, ideas, lifestyle, etc.

- People we want to be like or high status people → we find attractive

Receiver

*Varies in ways that affect the influence of the communication*

Ex. Personality characteristics of receivers - intelligence, language skills, and self-esteem affect communication

- Intelligence and language skills of audience determines wording of the communication

- Credible communicators are easily able to influence those with low self esteem

*Complex communication in teams are good, but can leave other people out of the conversation*

- To avoid misinterpretation, miscommunication, and team barriers

- Language should be simple and clear in mixed audiences

*Differ in relationship to the message*

- Ex. easy to comm someone who already agrees with message;

- If someone is against the message, communicators need to be careful how to frame the message

- Low levels of disagreement - produce discomfort, change opinions

- High levels of disagreement - not credible, discounts the message

- People are more open to arguments that are within range of acceptability

- Highly credible people can get away with supporting unpopular opinions

Emotional Intelligence

4 Parts:

1. Self-Awareness: ability to ID and understand one's emotion

2. Empathy: ability to perceive, experience, and recognize others' emotions

3. Emotional Regulation: ability to regulate one's emotions and control the expression of emotions

4. Relationship Management: ability to respond to other's emotions with respect and concern for the relationship

- EI can be improved by

*Modeling appropriate behavior

*Experiential activities

*Develop behavioral norms

*Team-based learning approaches

Emotional Awareness Norms

Taking time to get to know each other to increase interpersonal understanding and ensuring equal participation so that all perspectives can be considered

Facilitator's Role

-Facilitators are needed to manage the group process in order to equalize participation

-Facilitators = some structure/regulation/plan

Team Communication

-Communication Climates

(Supportive

-Psychological Safety

-Information Processing

-Trust

Communication Climate

Communication climates influence the level and style of communication within a team.

*Supportive* climates:

-Encourage people to focus on the message; -Allow diverse ideas and expressions of both agreement and disagreement.

-Because of their emotional comfort, team members are better able to focus on the task.

*Defensive* climates:

-Negative communication climates

-Closed, alienating, blaming, discouraging, and punishing.

Psychological Safety

Establishing a safe communication environment encourages team members to express their opinions and feelings in difficult situations.

Information Processing

Interpersonal processes influence the willingness of team members to share information in team discussions.

(Building) Trust

Trust provides the foundation for open and honest communications in the team.

Four Communication Skills

1. Ask Questions

2. Listen Actively

3. Give Constructive Feedback

4. Manage Feelings

Media (Technology) Characteristics

1. Speed: How fast you receive the message

2. Interactivity: How often are two or more people are working together or influencing one another?

3. Richness: relates to the speed of feedback, the number and type of sensory channels, and the degree to which the source seems personal

4. Reach: How many employees receiving the communication

5. Social Presence: the degree to which using the technology resembles the experience of communicating with another person

6. Document Message: Capability of communication technologies to document a message may inhibit managers from using them

Factors of Media Richness

Media richness theory advocates for richer technologies w/:

- feedback

- multiple cues

- personal focus

in order to better process equivocal information and facilitate understanding.

- Media Richness describes a communication medium's ability to reproduce the information sent over it without loss or distortion.

- High richness - Skype, Video conferences

- Low richness - Letter, Memo

Mediated Communication's Impacts

1. Status Differences

2. Anonymity

3. Miscommunication

- Some of the changes are due to a lack of communication norms

Status Differences (+/- outcomes)

(+) Status differences are reduced in a virtual setting

-Equalized participation in virtual groups

-Interaction is more democratic

-Social cues are reduced

-People communicate on the basis of their knowledge or opinions rather than on their social status.

(+/-) Still possibility of a hierarchy on virtual setting

- Virtual teams may limit the effects of status because status cues are not as easily seen as they are in face-to-face communications.

- But, team members are aware of the status of the other communicators regardless of the technology used.

(-) Status differences have a mixed effect on performance

- If status differences is on ability to work/competence, then higher status individuals will be more influential

- If status differences is on cultural stereotypes, then status can disrupt team decision making.

Anonymity (+/- outcomes)

(+) Anonymous Group Support Systems

- Members are more willing to participate and generate more problem solving Ideas

- Electronic brainstorming generates more creative ideas than face-to-face brainstorming.

(+/-) Saying what's on your mind on virtual setting

- People are more willing to say things they would not say in face-to-face interactions --> Participation

-Flaming = uninhibited negative remarks (ex. criticism in comments section, personal attacks)

(-) Deindividuation

- Less Self-Awareness and Self-Evaluation Apprehension caused by feeling anonymous

- More likely to engage in social loafing in groups

(-) Creates less pressure to agree in virtual teams (so members won't feel pressured to agree with the rest of the team, and they will not be criticized for it, but this can lead to lots of conflict)

-Virtual teams have higher levels of conflict and less likely to reach a consensus

-Due to lack of social pressure, it decreases people's willingness to agree and seek compromises during disagreements

Miscommunication (+/- outcomes)

(-) Misunderstandings and Reduced Communication

-Faulty assumptions can be made about the characteristics of the communicator

-Communication through some media can distort some patterns of communication

Ex. Japanese v USA team members

(-) Virtual teams have difficulty establishing and maintaining mutual knowledge

-Lack of contextual cues during communications

-It is more difficult to know whether fellow members of virtual teams have adequately understood a communication

-Difficult to communicate emotions

(-) Videoconferencing

-Don't see eye-to-eye, though you can see the face

-It does not have the interactive quality of a face-to-face communication because of limited nonverbal cues

Communication Norms

Takes Time, Experience to:

-Overcome communication problems

-Operate as in person teams

-Develop social relations

Challenges in Virtual Team Processes

2 Main Challenges Facing Virtual Teams:

-Dealing with communications problems

-Creating effective interpersonal relationships

Others include:

-Hacking in company's system

-Lose/lack of accessibility to wifi

-Social Loafing

-Conflict can be particularly difficult when discussed online

Dimensions in Virtuality?

'Beyond Technology' - Future of Virtual Teams?

When/Why is *competition* needed?

*Competition:* Individual view others as a limitation, especially when goals are not shared

-Team members work against one another when their individual goals become more important than the team goal

-The goal is to do better than others

*Why:* 3 Reasons

*Culture

-Individualist-Collectivist Dimension

*Personality (Types)

-Individual Perception of situations defines differences in personalities

-Affect how people interpret the situations they are in and how they define success.

-Difficult to change personality traits

*Organizational Rewards

-Performance evaluations are based on individual performance, and evaluation is relative to the performance of the other employees

-"Best" employee gets rewarded; compete against each other for rewards (that cannot be shared)

*When:*

-Competition may be positive within an organization when jobs are independent rather than interdependent. (Internal)

ex. competition among sales staff and rewards best performer. sales staff do not depend on each other to do the work.

-Competition between organizations can help improve productivity (External)

-Competitors provide motivating goals and feedback about performance

Internal vs External Competition

*Motivation*

- How everyone feels if their work is valued and important to self and team POV

*Feedback*

-Helpful in understanding if either competition is working

*Independent versus Interdependent*

Individualist-Collectivist Dimension

*Individualists* = more competitive than collectivists

- Ex. US is an individualist culture → promotes competition (i.e., capitalism, personal success, Freedom)

*Collectivists* = combo of capitalism and cooperation

- Ex. Japan encourages cooperation and is highly rewarded

- Commitment and loyalty = key success in Japanese organizations

- Important for them to act cooperatively with their team members but also to act competitively with those outside of their group

Personality Types

Individual Concerns of:

*Competitors*

- Outperforming others

- They define success not in terms of their individual goals or the group's goals but rather relative to others' performances

*Cooperators*

- Group's Success

- They are concerned with both their own outcomes and those of others.

*Individualists*

- Personal Success, and may or may not care about Group's Success

- They do not evaluate their performance relative to others

Mixed-Motives

Team members are both cooperative and competitive at the same time

When/Why is *cooperation* needed?

*Cooperation:* Essence of teamwork where team members work towards a common goal

*Why:*

- Working together to reach common goals

- To increase productivity

- To improve job satisfaction

- To create an open and supportive communication climate

*When:*

- When team members believe their contributions to the team are valuable and important, they are more likely to contribute

Constructive Controversy (Cooperation) (Trust, & Communication)

- Cooperation, trust, and safety are preconditions for allowing constructive controversy to occur

- Cooperation encourages Constructive Controversy

- Constructive controversy allows for open feedback, the raising of questions, and increased communication.

6 Rules of Constructive Controversy

1. Establish openness norms.

Encourage all team members to express their opinions and feelings. Do not dismiss ideas because they appear at first too impractical or undeveloped.

2. Assign opposing views.

Assign a person or subgroup the role of critically evaluating the group's current preferences.

3. Follow the golden rule of

Discuss issues with others the way

controversy.

you want issues discussed with you. If you want others to listen to you, you should listen to them.

4. Get outside information.

Search for information from a diverse set of outside sources to help the group make a decision.

5. Show personal regard.

Criticize ideas, if you want, but do not attack a person's motivation or personality.

6. Combine ideas.

Avoid either/or thinking, and try to combine ideas to create alternative solutions.

Benefits/Problems of Cooperation

(+)

- Motivated by team goals

- Higher performance: The high performers spend time helping others, and they learn from this experience.

- Encourages supportive communication

- Focused on Task objectives: ambiguous, complex, or changing

- Foundation for social relations; Builds trust

- Good for Conflict management

(-)

*Conformity* (i.e. everyone MUST agree/accommodate to norms and values)

- Self-Rewarding: It rewards contributions and discourages behavior that is not accepted by the team. This means that the team demands conformity from its members.

- Resistant to changes/outside influence: Team thinks they are better than others, so they're resistant to changing the way it operates)

*Unhealthy Agreement*

- e.g. Groupthink = Poor decisions caused by everyone agreeing w/o taking into consideration other creative options

-Avoid conflict by agreeing

-Symptoms:

*Team members feel angry about the decisions the team is making.

*Team members agree in private that the team is making bad decisions.

*The team is breaking up into subgroups that blame others for the team's problems.

*People fail to speak up in meetings or to communicate their real opinions.

Norms in Relationship-Based Organization?

Two Types of Reward

1. *Competitive rewards* are effective in motivating individual performance

2. *Cooperative rewards* promote trust, cohesiveness, and mutual support, which in turn promote team performance.

What is Conflict?

- the process by which people or groups perceive that others have taken some action that has a negative effect on their interest.

-Viewed negatively, but normal & healthy sign

-Conflict changes as team develops

-Conflicts may not be fully resolved

Task Conflict

Has 2 Parts

1. *Task conflict* occurs when people are performing nonroutine tasks

- Conflicts about what is the best approach

- Usually has a positive effect on team performance

-Tasks are new, complex, unclear, unfamiliar...

2. *Process conflict* occurs when people who are performing routine tasks have differences over how the team is managing the tasks and coordinating the role assignments of the members

- Critiques the job's process is a poorly defined job, or has poor procedures.

-Often create disagreements among team members about their roles, which can devolve into relationship issues.

-B/c of this, process conflicts often have negative effects on team member satisfaction and team performance.

Sources of Conflict

*Healthy*

-Focus on task issues

-Legitimate differences of opinion about the task

-Differences in values and perspectives

-Different expectations about the impact of decisions

*Unhealthy*

-Competition over power, rewards, and resources

-Conflict between individual and group goals

-Poorly run team meetings

-Personal grudges from the past

-Faulty communications

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Resolution Approach

*Assertiveness vs Cooperativeness*

Assertiveness: Degree of how much your needs matter

Cooperativeness: Degree of how much others need matter

Integrated Solution

-Often useful for a team to either use an outside facilitator for a difficult conflict or receive training in facilitating conflicts

-Structure of negotiating conflict

1. Separate the people from the problem.

2. Focus on the shared interests of all parties.

3. Develop many options to solve the problem

4. Evaluate options using objective criteria

5. Try again.

team impacts

must have time to adjust using technology

more success in idea generation and problem solving tasks

virtual brainstorming= social loafing

trust is more important and difficult to create

conflicts are difficult to detect

decision making

members are more focused on the logic

more likely to research what they want to communicate

unique info share is more important to predict team performance

social relations

task focused and not enough time establishing social relations

occasional in person meetings are needed

selecting the right technology

1. characteristic of task

2. team members: social relations and characteristics

3. group process

4. whats the best pattern?

team needs self confidence about using the system

support for those that need to learn it

email or texting

technologies for tasks

keep team members informed and share info

videoconference

technologies for tasks

discuss issues and listen to presentations

shared databases

technologies for tasks

coordinate for technical aspects of projects

social media

technologies for tasks

to develop social relations

project management software

technologies for tasks

to monitor performances and manage projects as teams

group support systems

technologies for tasks

collaboration to support virtual meetings

media richness

it depends on the amount of information that can be transferred through the media

same time same place

type of meeting

face to face meeting

same time different place

type of meeting

video conferencing

different time same place

type of meeting

computer database

different time different place

type of meeting

intranet bullentin board

websites

virtuality

refers to the degree of electronic communication dependence among team members

criteria for communication methods

speed

reach

interactivity

media richness

ability to document message

matching technology to the team and task

team building for virtual teams

more to deal with problems

in person intital meetings

instant communication channels

development of communication norms

better training

appropriate leadership

challenge of virtual teams

communication problems

creating effective interpersonal relationships

does your team need team building

signs of an ineffective team:

decrease in team performance

increase of complaints from team members

evidence of unproductive conflicts among members

confusion about assignments, roles and relationships

decisions misunderstood or not enacted

lack of involvement from team members

lack of initiative, creativity, or effective problem solving

ineffective meetings with low participation

high dependency on the leader

goal setting

team building program

objectives are developed to further define the team's tasks and establish action plans to include team member assignments

signs you have a good team

clear and measurable goals

roles and assignments accepted by team members

climate of trust, psychological safety, and support

open and participate environment

effective problem solving and decision making

support leadership

constructive handling of conflict

support organizational culture and structure

ability to monitor performance and make needed changes

role clarification

team building program

team members need to be clear on both their own roles and the roles others perform

negotiation approach

team underusing certain behaviors and relying on a limited range of behaviors; info may be used to help improve team interactions

interpersonal process skills

team building program

simulated activities or exercises to perform to practice these skills and analyze the results

feedback from these outside observers is viewed a key in the learning experience

cohesion building

team building program

strengthens the team morale, increases trust and cooperation, and develops team identity

notice more similarities among fellow team members and more differences from outside groups

problem solving

team building program

problem identification and analysis

used to generate alternatives and develop solutions

action plan is developed

outside consultants often needed

action plan

problem solving approach

is developed for implementing the proposed changes in how the team operates

team training

development of the skills that the teams need to perform its task

members must understand roles, coordinate with others and understand actions

need to be trained together and have time to practice their new skills

action learning

type of training

develop teams that can analyze and solve important, real life problems in their organizations

encourages experimentation, allows mistakes and offers support and promotes feedback

create norms for these issues for team meetings

decisions

attendance

assignments

participation

meeting times

agendas and minutes

promptness

conversational courtesies

enforcement

stages for group development

forming

storming

norming

performing

adjourning

forming

stages for group development

orientation

members getting to know one another

storming

stages for group development

conflict

disagreement about roles and procedures

norming

stages for group development

structure

establishment of rules and social relationships

performing

stages for group development

work

focus on completing the task

adjourning

stages for group development

dissolution

completion of task and end of group

evaluations and rewards

team members may believe that rewards are based on individual performances rather than team effort

belief in outcome interdependence helps motivate members to work together

balance of individual and team based rewards is necessary for commitment and incentives