Praeter Tech - Go Beyond Technology! - Go Beyond Technology

Since the very first telephone, developed by Alexander Graham Bell, communications technology has become an enabler to an ever-expanding globalization of business. With this expansion across time zones and continents, businesses face increasing time compression in product development, and have taken greater advantage of the varying economic climates to increase its competitive edge. As a result, the establishment of virtual team environments provides the necessary linkage within all the corporate functions throughout the globe. What becomes questionable is the effect modern technological innovation has on the reliability of information accuracy and the effectiveness relative to communication within virtual teams. One can argue, due to the widespread use and availability of email, Internet enabled databases, collaborative applications, and secure Internet based access to corporate resources, that technology has all but removed any barriers to the effectiveness of virtual teams. Technology increases the effective distribution of information and has created many communication tools, but unless maintained under carefully managed structures and guidelines, effective virtual team communication and information sharing will be suspect.

A virtual team is “an evolutionary form of a network organization enabled by advances in information and communication technology” (Miles and Snow). The concept of ‘virtual’ implies that project teams of individuals with differing competencies who are located across time, distance, and cultures can rapidly form, reorganize, and dissolve as the needs of a dynamic marketplace change. Communication within the virtual teams is comprised of both the need to transfer ideas, goals, tasks, processes and status but also to share information representing past or present documentation or research. Even though information sharing and communicating is often synonymously, it is important to note the differences between them in order to best understand technologies effect.

Information sharing is the act of taking stored managed knowledge and making it useful. With approximately 320 million people utilizing the Internet worldwide linked with corporations spending up to 1.3 trillion dollars to increase business infrastructure and data handling capabilities, in the form of voice/data/video. This information is made available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, can be retrieved with limited delay, and is plentiful (United States of America). The concern is there is a presumption that the information obtained is "knowledge" without a critical review of the information and its sources. In fact, we are creating a significant knowledge gap: "the escape into virtuality has evaded knowledge, which has been replaced with non-enlightenment information" (Breen). Although this type of “info glut" is indicative of the Internet, corporations equally experience this phenomenon with volumes of out-of-date information combined with current information mixed with information that maybe geographically and culturally specific.

It then becomes essential to understand the structural makeup of an organization to clearly identify and address best information management practices. There exists in organizations a small number of key people upon whom others rely heavily on for information. These key people, or information gatekeepers, differ from their colleagues in their orientation toward outside information sources (Allen). These gatekeepers become the key linkage between those in the virtual group and the outside groups within the organization. Katz states, “gatekeepers gain these roles not only due to their ability to gather, translate and encode external information for the team, but by their ability to clearly assimilate and communicate information outside their team.” (Katz)

What becomes apparent is the importance of effective communication in virtual teams, because it isn't enough to just transfer information. Communication can be defined as a process of using language and nonverbal cues to send and receive messages (between individuals) that are intended to arouse particular kinds of meanings. In this area, there have been many technological innovations enabling virtual teams to communicate anytime and anywhere. Whether it’s wireless with cellular phones, pagers, and wireless Personal Data Appliances (PDA's) or a traditional voice/data/video infrastructure providing Tera bytes (1,000,000,000 bytes) of data per second traveling over a single strand of fiber-optic cable. This enabling technology provides the framework for countless multimedia applications accessible from a large assortment of interfaces. Managed Collaboration brings intelligent and interactive features directly to consumers using their preferred media. It fosters a new realm of customer interaction with the capability to simultaneously share documents and Web content from geographically dispersed locations while sorting and presenting only that information which is pertinent to the specific individual.

You would think that technology has broken down all the barriers to successful communications within virtual teams, but the one constant variable is the human factor. What research surfaced was the issue of "trust" among virtual team members. In fact, "the higher the level of trust for a team, the greater the cohesiveness, satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness" (Jarvenpaa and Leidner). Allen’s research takes it one step further, stating the probability of communication is a direct function of the distance separating pairs of people and that it reaches this asymptote within 25 yards (Allen). This lends to the conclusion that the only way to gain the higher levels of trust would be in a face-to-face situation. In a follow on paper, Jarvenpaa, and Leidner show empirical evidence that not only can the network organization (in our case, the virtual team) be built on electronic networks, the virtual team can be effectively maintained (Jarvenpaa and Leidner). They also successfully challenge the prior notions that virtual communication eliminates "the type of communication cues that people would use to convey trust, warmth, attentiveness, and other interpersonal dimensions" (Jarvenpaa and Leidner). It is through the development of new means to pass communication cues (example… emoticons; little icons to relay facial expression and specialized typed language; “LOL” for Laugh out Loud) that some of the missed physical characteristics in facial expressions and body language can be shared. However, it is a fragile trust that must be reinforced by performance or else it will quickly erode. It also assumes that these new methods for sharing secondary cues are universally understood by all members of the virtual team and have uniform weight in relation to the individuals trust building.

All communication inevitably results in some level of conflict, whether it is a full blown disagreement or an event where you decide to compromise for what you would perceive to be a less than optimal outcome. It is the managing of conflict and its effects on the overall success of a virtual team that is important. Within the characteristics of healthy interpersonal relationships, trust remains an integral and important part in successful relationships both personal and professional. Trust is the means by which disconnects in communication can be easily overlooked, lessening the effects of the conflict. The weaker the trust, the greater the effect conflict will have towards successful communication within virtual teams. It then becomes a management imperative to address the conflict in order to return the virtual team to productivity.

Technological innovation is the catalyst from which globalization of business forces corporations to re-think how functional groups work together across time and distance. Tools like video conferencing, document sharing, Internet white boards and chat can bring together people from diverse work and cultural backgrounds, but technology does not solve the human factors associated with communication nor does it address the currency and viability of stored information. To solve these issues, an organization will require a thorough knowledge of their social, economic and cultural makeup. With this information, sets of communication norms (guidelines and procedures) need to be established to avoid situations where virtual team trust can deteriorate. Also, strict processes and procedures must exist to manage the source, availability, and currency of stored information. This established structure and diligence is key to successful communication and information sharing in virtual teams.

References

(Allen T J Communication Networks in R&D Labs 1971)Allen, T. J. "Communication Networks in R&D Labs." R&D Management 1 (1971): 14-21.

(Breen M Information Does Not Equal Knowledge 1997)Breen, M. "Information Does Not Equal Knowledge." Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 3.3 (1997): 29 Oct. 2005 . http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue3/breen.htm.

(Jarvenpaa S Leidner D Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams 1998)Jarvenpaa, S., and D. Leidner. "Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication and Organizational Science 14 (1998): 29-64.

(Katz Ralph Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation 1997)Katz, Ralph. The Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation. New York: Oxford, 1997.

United States of America. . The Digital Workforce: Skills at the Speed of Innovation. Berkley, CA: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2003.Miles, R. E., and C. C. Snow. "Organizations: New Concepts for New Forms." California Management Review 18.3 (1986): 62-73.