Virtual Teams as Sociotechnical Systems

In this chapter, we adopt a sociotechnical systems approach to understand the challenges faced by members of an organizational unit that is not constrained by geographical, temporal, organizational, or national boundaries. Specifically, we examine virtual team performance within the context of an open sociotechnical system, highlighting the effects that the technological subsystem (e.g., collaborative information technology) and external environmental factors (e.g., lack of colocation) have on the personnel subsystem (i.e., virtual team members) within the organization. The organizational psychology literature on group productivity, motivation, and shared mental models is reviewed to, first, better understand team performance within the context of distributed environments, and second, offer guidelines and interventions for organizational practice. 2 Cuevas, Fiore, Salas and Bowers Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. VIRTUAL TEAMS AS SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMS Despite their rising popularity, a number of issues exist surrounding how it is that virtual teams can productively coordinate their resources, activities, and information, often in dynamic and uncertain task environments (Fiore, Salas, Cuevas, & Bowers, in press1; Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). With the structure of teams in organizations increasing in complexity to include both colocated and virtual team members, explicit linkages between theory and practice are critically needed to mitigate the negative effects that technologymediated interaction may have on virtual team productivity. In this chapter, we attempt to integrate theories and principles from organizational psychology (e.g., Steiner, 1972) with the sociotechnical systems approach (e.g., Hendrick, 1997) to explore the unique challenges faced by this small, but growing, subset of teams. A Sociotechnical Systems Approach to Virtual Team Performance The radical change in organizational structure brought about through advances in technology represents a critical challenge for the appropriate application of organizational psychology principles in system design. Researchers and practitioners need to focus on system design issues not only at the individual or task level, but also at the team, and quite possibly, at the organizational levels. This involves conducting a system-level analysis of the sociotechnical factors that interact to shape organizational outcomes and may hinder the attainment of organizational goals (Hendrick, 1997). These sociotechnical factors include the following: (a) the personnel subsystem, comprised of the organizational unit’s members; (b) the technological subsystem, which represents the technology available to the organizational unit; and (c) the relevant external environmental variables that act upon the organizational unit (Hendrick, 1997). The technological component, in particular, is a key mediating role, because with it, limits upon the system’s actions can be set and new demands can be created that must be reflected in the internal structure and goals of the organizational unit (Emery & Trist, 1960). Taken as a whole, these subsystems collectively represent the organizational unit as a sociotechnical system. In addition, because this organizational unit acts on and is acted upon by external forces, it should more appropriately be referred to as an open sociotechnical system (Emery & Trist, 1960; Katz & Kahn, 1966). The organizational unit, therefore, can be viewed as a complex set of dynamically intertwined and interconnected elements, including inputs, processes (throughputs), outputs, feedback loops, and the environment in which it operates and interacts (Emery & Trist, 1960; Katz & Kahn, 1966). Virtual Teams as Sociotechnical Systems 3 Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. In distributed environments, the technological subsystem may potentially have a greater effect on team member interactions than would be expected in traditional colocated task environments. For the most part, virtual teams rely primarily on electronic communication processes to work together both synchronously (e.g., videoconferencing, Internet chat rooms) and asynchronously (e.g., e-mail, bulletin boards) to accomplish their tasks (Avolio, Kahai, Dumdum, & Sivasubramanium, 2001). Such technology-mediated interactions may potentially alter team processes and performance. For example, research in computersupported collaborative work emphasized the importance of team members’ abilities to monitor and track individual member’s actions and team members’ interactions, referred to as workspace awareness (Gutwin & Greenberg, 1998, in press). Similarly, research on performance in virtual environments highlights the need for telepresence (the degree to which contextual factors typically present in colocated groups, such as voice, gesture, and body language, are found with distributed groups) and teledata (the team and task artifacts, such as shared workspaces, that require effective collaboration) (e.g., Anderson, Smallwood, MacDonald, Mullin, Fleming, & O’Malley, 2000; Draper, Kaber, & Usher, 1998; Greenberg, 1991). The term social presence (de Greef & Ijsselsteijn, 2000) was used to describe how collaboration technology can adequately capture a sense of social interaction. We argue that technology-mediated interactions increase the level of abstraction forced upon teams — a phenomenon referred to as team opacity (for a detailed discussion, see Fiore et al., in press). Essentially, team opacity describes the experiences of increased ambiguity and artificiality (i.e., the unnatural quality) associated with interaction in distributed environments. This decreased awareness of team members’ actions, resulting from the distributed organizational structure, creates an environment lacking in the rich visual, auditory, and social array of cues normally experienced in colocated team member interaction, potentially altering the team processes that lead to workspace awareness, social presence, and other related constructs. Moreover, by limiting the use of implicit coordination and communication strategies, team opacity may further negatively alter team member interactions and impede the development of positive team attitudes (e.g., cohesion, trust) that are integral to successful team evolution and performance (e.g., Morgan, Salas, & Glickman, 1993). Fiore et al. (in press) explored these factors within the context of a sociotechnological framework they labeled a distributed coordination space. The primary components of this framework are composed of the attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions of virtual teams that may emerge at various phases of interaction among team members. In particular, Fiore et al. (in press) suggested that these factors occur not only during in-process interaction but also during preand postprocess interactions. Specifically, whereas in-process interaction 4 Cuevas, Fiore, Salas and Bowers Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. occurs during actual task execution, pre-process interaction involves preparatory pre-task behaviors (e.g., project planning session), where initial shared expectations are created in anticipation of team interaction (Fiore, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2001; Wittenbaum, Vaughan, & Stasser, 1998). Similarly, postprocess interactions would include post-task reflection on performance (e.g., after-action review, see Smith-Jentsch, Zeisig, Acton, & McPherson, 1998). Such antecedent or consequent behaviors may be critical to team development and the successful execution of team processes. Here, following a sociotechnical systems approach, we expand on two subcomponents of the distributed coordination space framework, specifically, team attitudes and behaviors. We examine virtual team performance within the context of an open sociotechnical system, analyzing the effects that the technological subsystem (e.g., collaborative information technology) and external environmental factors (e.g., lack of colocation) have on the personnel subsystem (i.e., virtual team members) within the organization. The organizational psychology literature on group productivity, motivation, and shared mental models is reviewed in order for us to better understand performance within distributed environments, highlighting how these theories can be applied to overcome the difficulties that may arise from this increasingly important organizational structure. We conclude with guidelines and interventions for organizational practice. Figure 1: Conceptual framework of group productivity in distributed environments. Team Performance Combination Processes Motivation Shared Mental Models Resources