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SYMPOSIUM ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT MEETINGS
PHILADEPHIA AUGUST 3-8, 2007
Program Session #: 796 (OCIS, OB)
Scheduled: Monday, Aug 6 2007 12:20 PM – 2:10 PM Philadelphia Marriott: Room 405
COORDINATION COMPLEXITY IN GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTRIBUTED
COLLABORATION
Co-Chairs and Presenting Authors:
Presenting Authors:
Robert M. Verburg
Organizational Behaviour and Innovation
Delft University of Technology
Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft,
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 15 2787234
Fax: +31 15 2782950
Email: r.m.verburg@tudelft.nl
Deanne N Den Hartog
Dept of Management and OB
Universiteit van Amsterdam Business School
Roeterstraat 11, 1018 WB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 205255287
Fax: +31 205255281
Email: d.n.denhartog@uva.nl
J. Alberto Espinosa
Kogod School of Business
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016-8044
Tel. 202.885.1958
Fax. 202.885.1992
Email: alberto@amercian.edu
Joachim Schroer
Department of Psychology
University of Wuerzburg
Roentgenring 10
D-97070 Wuerzburg
Germany
Phone: (+49) 931 31 6062
Email: schroer@psychologie.uni.wuerzburg.de
Discussant:
Pamela J. Hinds
Center for Work, Technology, and Organization
Management Science and Engineering
Stanford University
Tel 650-723-3843
Email: phinds@stanford.edu
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Kevin Crowston
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
Tel (315)443-1676
Email: crowston@syr.edu
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Co-Authors:
Anne E. Keegan
Dept of Management and OB
Universiteit van Amsterdam Business School
Roeterstraat 11
1018 WB Amsterdam
Phone: 0031 205255287
Fax: 0031 205255281
Email: A.E.Keegan@uva.nl
Matti Vartiainen
Helsinki University of Technology,
Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management,
Laboratory of Work Psychology and
Leadership,
PO Box 5500 FI-02015 TKK, FINLAND
matti.vartiainen@tkk.fi,
Guido Hertel
Department of Psychology
University of Wuerzburg
Roentgenring 10
D-97070 Wuerzburg
Germany
Phone: (+49) 931 31 6060
Email: hertel@psychologie.uni.wuerzburg.de
William DeLone
Kogod School of Business
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016-8044
Tel. 202.885.1958
Fax. 202.885.1992
Email: wdelone@amercian.edu
Petra Bosch-Sijtsema
Helsinki University of Technology,
Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management,
Laboratory of Work Psychology and
Leadership,
PO Box 5500 FI-02015 TKK, FINLAND
Petra.Bosch@petrabosch.com
Gwanhoo Lee
Kogod School of Business
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016-8044
Tel. 202.885.1958
Fax. 202.885.1992
Email: glee@amercian.edu
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ABSTRACT
Globalization trends have increased the popularity of geographically distributed
collaboration and virtual teams. The potential benefits of working across virtual team boundaries
abound, but they come at substantial coordination costs, particularly when geographic
configurations and team tasks are flexible and complex. While research in this area has
flourished, we still don’t understand what the net benefits of geographically distributed
collaboration are, once all the respective coordination costs have been accounted for. Consistent
with the conference theme “doing well by doing good”, and to bring together multiple
perspectives on coordination benefits and costs in geographically distributed collaboration, we
have put together a collection of current research for this symposium. The contributions are from
European and US scholars with recognized expertise in research on coordination and
geographically distributed teams. The symposium aims to discuss the complexities of
coordinating work across multiple virtual team boundaries, and to bring together various
perspectives on the respective coordination benefits and costs in this context.
Divisions:
Key Words:
Organizational Behavior, Organizational Communication & Information Systems
Organizational Communication & Information Systems – Virtual Teams,
Coordination, Virtual Leadership
Organizational Behavior – group/team (characteristics, processes), Leadership,
Technology
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COORDINATION COMPLEXITY IN GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTRIBUTED
COLLABORATION
ROBERT M. VERBURG AND J. ALBERTO ESPINOSA
Symposium Overview
Global market developments and the large-scale use of diverse applications in the area of
information and communication technology have been key factors in the popularity of
geographically distributed collaboration, often carried out by virtual teams. Virtual teams enable
collaboration between people across traditional boundaries of time and place and offer
tremendous opportunities for various collaborative achievements. Organizations are no longer
tied to a single time location or time zone to conduct business and are able distribute task
activities to have easy access to clients and/or expertise, and in some cases take advantage of
time zone differences to carry out work activities like software development around the 24-hour
clock. The Internet as the almost universal medium for interaction across boundaries has created
an infrastructure that enables many organizations to launch virtual teams. However, despite the
potential benefits of geographically distributed collaboration, there is often substantial
coordination overhead associated with the complexity of the team’s geographical configuration.
Therefore, the costs and benefits of distributed collaboration need to be carefully evaluated
because what may appear to be a big advantage (e.g., ability to work on a task around the clock,
cheaper labor rates in outsourcing arrangements) may end up causing substantial disadvantages
(e.g., high coordination costs, increased effort, team member burnout).
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Technical obstacles for communication and collaboration across geographic boundaries
remain, as virtual team processes are supported by collaboration technology solutions, such as
groupware and other collaborative applications (e.g. videoconferencing, electronic blackboards).
Furthermore, these more fluid and virtual work environments create new challenges for
managers, who can no longer literally ‘oversee’ subordinates’ efforts. Observing, monitoring and
controlling, in other words direct supervision of tasks performed at various locations is no longer
possible. Thus, several questions remain unanswered: how then do managers lead and coordinate
subordinates’ efforts? How are organizational and technological changes affecting the process of
management at the group level? What are the complexities of collaborating in geographically
dispersed configurations? Which other discontinuities besides virtual team boundaries must be
overcome in order to coordinate effectively? This symposium addresses these questions through
presentations of recent research on leadership and coordination mechanisms within the context of
such complex virtual teams.
Our proposed symposium contributes to the conference theme “doing well by doing
good” by showing that that traditional perspectives on coordination and performance indicators
do not suffice in virtual contexts, as output measures often includes both transactional and
voluntary actions of collaborating members of virtual teams. In geographically distributed
collaboration, what may appear to be beneficial – e.g., coordination effectiveness, reduced
production costs, access to expertise and global markets, round-the-clock production, etc. – may
carry substantial costs when all aspects of coordination are considered – e.g., additional
coordination costs, increased effort, weaker shared mental models, diminished ability to lead
team members, team member burnout, etc. To bring together these multiple perspectives, we
have solicited papers for this symposium from both, European and US scholars with recognized
expertise in research on coordination and geographically distributed teams. We have asked
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authors to contribute presentations that highlight their recent work focusing on two things about
geographically distributed collaboration: (1) the complexities of coordinating work; and (2) the
various aspects of coordination benefits and costs that need to be taken into account.
The proposed symposium will be a presenter symposium chaired by Alberto Espinosa
and Robert Verburg. They will begin the session by discussing current trends in collaboration
across geographical boundaries and the ensuing demands on leaders. Following the session
introduction, each of the following authors will present a summary of their research.
The Crowston paper examines factors affecting the relationship between virtual work
settings and work outcomes. The authors present a model of virtual work that differentiates
between boundaries and discontinuities. The importance of shared mental models for virtual
team coordination is highlighted in this discussion. A common research strategy for research on
virtual work has been to compare virtual work to non-virtual work. In order to move beyond
“either-or” dichotomies, several researchers have adopted the concept of boundaries to
characterize the multiple dimensions of virtuality. Boundaries are the “often imaginary lines that
mark the edge or limit of something”. In addition to boundaries, a number of researchers have
identified discontinuities such as relationship with an organization (e.g., permanent vs. selfemployed or temporary worker) and task. This paper shows the importance of looking more
closely at the process of working virtually to understand how it is actually experienced by virtual
workers.
Den Hartog and Keegan examine the limits to leadership in virtual contexts. Their
empirical work explores the changing role of leaders and the challenges that leaders face in more
organic, flexible and virtual contexts. While managers’ indicate that strong leadership is needed
in these contexts, many barriers exist. Such distal and virtual managers often experience
ambiguity in reporting relationships, are often less able to exercise the same influence over
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performance evaluation and careers, and less easily influence identification and trust as
compared to their co-located counterparts. If this is the case, the enthusiasm with which some
writers embrace the possibilities offered by more virtual, temporary, and flexible ways of
organizing may need to be tempered by the possibility that such work arrangements strain crucial
leader-follower relationships. Den Hartog and Keegan’s work contributes to the symposium by
examining these limitations of effective leadership in distributed contexts.
The paper by Schroer and Hertel provides an empirical assessment of voluntary
engagement of actors in an open web-based encyclopedia. Founded in January 2001, Wikipedia
has quickly become one of the 15 most popular websites worldwide and attracts more than 154
million visitors per month. As volunteers, many contributors invest a considerable amount of
time into researching and writing articles or maintaining the technical infrastructure without
receiving any financial compensation for their efforts. Little is known about the motivation of its
contributors. This study shows that the three most prominent categories of motives suggested by
Wikipedia contributors in the open questions were related to task enjoyment, information sharing
and generativity motives. The results both have implications for how to improve motivation and
contribution in Internet communities.
The Verburg, Bosch-Sijstma and Vartiainen paper examines why project managers are
willing to work in fully virtual settings. More and more research is performed on work in (to
some extent) virtual settings; however, few empirical studies discuss collaboration in fully
virtual settings in which no face-to-face contact is present. Furthermore, the reasons why project
managers are willing or are not willing to participate in fully virtual settings have not yet
received attention in research. The authors investigate which attributes (conditions of fully
virtual settings) increase decision-makers’ willingness to work in fully virtual projects, what the
perceived benefits of doing so are and which personal values lay behind the decisions to work
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virtually. Among other things, this study shows that accomplishment is an important value for
project managers and this is achieved by benefits of efficiency and conditions in virtual projects
of corporate support, clear communication rules and trust. This paper provides insight in the
motivation of managers themselves in such complex, virtual environments.
Espinosa, Lee and Delone propose a construct for virtual team boundary complexity in
order to get a better understanding of virtual team coordination. Coordination is about managing
dependencies among task activities. However, it are not the virtual team boundaries themselves
that make it more difficult to manage these dependencies, but the complexity of the virtual team
boundary configuration resulting from having to work across multiple boundaries. Therefore,
understanding this complexity is very important in figuring out how virtual teams can coordinate
their work more effectively. The authors draw upon data collected by themselves and colleagues
for two different research projects to support our arguments. They argue that the overall
communication effectiveness in the team and, therefore, its ability to coordinate “organically”
will generally be affected by the complexity of the team’s geographic configuration – i.e.,
number of different of types and number of boundaries spanned by the team, the alignment of
these boundaries and the dispersion of members across them.
Pamela Hinds, a world-renowned authority on the effects of technology on groups and
teams will serve as the session discussant. Dr. Hinds has authored several books and articles
addressing the effect of geographic distribution on work teams, cognitive and motivational
inhibitors to using and sharing expertise, and the effects of autonomous mobile robots in the
work environment, including workers' responses. Dr. Hinds will share her evaluation of the
research presented and suggest directions for future research and theory for coordination
mechanisms for geographically distributed groups.
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RELEVANCE OF THIS SYMPOSIUM TO THE SELECTED DIVISIONS
This symposium is proposed for the Organizational Behavior, and Organizational
Communication & Information Systems
Organizational Behavior: The Organizational Behavior division describes its domain
as the study of individuals and groups within an organizational context, and includes leadership
and group processes among its topics of interest. As the papers in this symposium addresses
effective leadership of and within virtual teams, the symposium’s theme is aligned well with the
division’s mission.
Organizational Communication & Information Systems. The Organizational
Communication & Information Systems division describes topics relevant to its mission as
addressing: the study of behavioral, economic, and social aspects of communication and
information systems within and among organizations or institutions. As the symposium
addresses coordination mechanisms for virtual teams, the symposium is well aligned with the
division’s objectives.
We have received signed statements from all intended participants formally agreeing to
participate in the symposium
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COORDINATING ACROSS BOUNDARIES AND DISCONTINUITIES
KEVIN CROWSTON
Syracuse University, School of Information Studies
Work has become increasingly virtual as diverse forms of electronic communication have
become ubiquitous in the workplace. However, our understanding of the consequences and
implications of virtual work lags its implementation. A particular problem for research is
understanding why seemingly similar virtual settings can have different consequences for the
coordination of virtual teams. To address this question, we differentiate between the effects of
boundaries and discontinuities (two common conceptualizations of virtuality).
A number of researchers have adopted the concept of boundaries to characterize multiple
dimensions of virtuality. Boundaries are the “often imaginary lines that mark the edge or limit of
something” (Espinosa et al., 2003). Distance is the most obvious boundary that is encountered in
virtual work but the point of this argument is that people working virtually encounter numerous
boundaries that are not present to the same extent in conventional work settings. Espinosa et al.
(2003) found five boundaries in studies of field-based virtual teams: geographical, functional,
temporal, organizational and identity (team membership). Orlikowski (2002) found boundaries
to be particularly important in understanding how work was conducted in a geographically
dispersed high tech organization. She identified seven boundaries that “members routinely
traverse in their daily activities” (p. 255): temporal, geographic, social, cultural, historical,
technical and political.
However, characterizing virtual settings in terms of boundaries provide only a partial
description of the complexities of virtual work. In particular, boundaries are usually seen as
being fixed and objective—geography is geography, distance, distance—yet their effects may
differ from group to group or even within the same group over time. For example, Orlikowski
(2002) notes that the members of the organization she studied adapted their behaviors regularly
in order to deal with the multiple boundaries they encountered in their daily work activities, as
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the meaning of the boundaries were “reconstructed and redefined” (p. 11). To understand these
variable effects, we need a deeper examination of the effects of boundaries on coordination.
To conceptualize coordination across boundaries, Watson-Manheim, Chudoba and Crowston
(Under review) drew on Nijkamp, Rietveld & Salamon’s (1990) analysis of the effects of borders
on physical flows of goods. Those authors noted that the existence of a border creates a
discontinuity in the marginal cost of such flows at the point where they cross a border. For
example, moving products from one country to another may incur costs due to waiting time and
administrative activities at the border. The result is a discontinuity in costs, which rise smoothly
with increased distance but jump discontinuously at the border, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A border creates a discontinuity in the cost of transport.
Applying this model to a virtual work setting, boundaries may pose difficulties that
increase the effort needed to coordinate work, thus posing discontinuities in the cost of
coordination. In this case, the boundary implies differences that must be articulated, negotiated
and resolved, leading to a rise in coordination costs. However, not all boundaries create
discontinuities. For example, the boundary between two US states is still a boundary, but
generally poses little or no discontinuity in the cost of transport. Similarly, boundaries in virtual
work may or may not create coordination problems for workers. Therefore, we turn next to the
question of why some boundaries may create problems for coordination while others do not.
Previous research has noted that while distance objectively exists as a boundary between virtual
team members, the actual effect that distance has on coordination of work activities depends on
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how it is perceived by the team members. Espinosa et al. (2003) found that “prior knowledge of
colleagues and contexts across sites offset many of the problems with distance” (p. 163),
indicating that negative effects of distance may be mitigated by experience. More specifically,
we suggest that discontinuities arise when expectations of the joint work are not met, creating the
need for additional work to make sense of a confusing situation. Expectations can be understood
as part of an individual’s mental model of the situation, an internal representation of reality that
guides thinking and acting (Spender, 1998). The role of expectations is critical to organizational
functioning as they allow individuals to assume different roles while still adopting their activities
and meanings appropriately for the situation (House et al., 1995). In addition, expectations
enable individuals to deal with ambiguity in well-practiced ways by associating them with prior
experiences, and therefore enabling them to predict what should happen next (Matlin, 1998).
Furthermore, humans experience the world with others, sharing and interpreting common
experiences. As Schutz and Luckman (1973) put it, “The life-world is not my private world nor
your private world, nor yours and mine added together, but rather the world of our common
experience.” (p. 68). Therefore, the expectations of the joint work have to be shared to be
effective. Research suggests that shared mental models help improve performance in face-to-face
(Rentsch & Klimoski, 2001) and distributed teams (Sutanto et al., 2004). Without shared mental
models, individuals from different teams or backgrounds may interpret tasks differently based on
their individual backgrounds, making collaboration and communication difficult (Dougherty,
1992). The tendency for individuals to interpret tasks according to their own perspectives and
predefined routines is exacerbated when working in a distributed environment, with its more
varied individual settings. On the other hand, well-developed shared mental models can enable
teams to coordinate their activities without the need for explicit communications (Crowston &
Kammerer, 1998; Espinosa et al., 2004). For example, Crowston & Kammerer (1998) describe
how the development of “collective mind” supported coordination of requirement analysis in
software requirements analysis. Of course, some effort will always be needed to coordinate
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work, but with a well-developed set of shared expectations, the effort may be comparable in both
virtual and conventional groups.
To develop shared expectations, more than communications is needed. As Boland and
Tenkasi (1995) put it, “the problem of integration of knowledge in knowledge-intensive firms is
not a problem of simply combining, sharing or making data commonly available. It is a problem
of perspective taking in which the unique thought worlds of different communities of knowing
are made visible and accessible to each other” (p. 359). As differences emerge, communication
partners need to have enough common ground to quickly negotiate differences without
perceiving extraordinary effort. For example, Katzy & Crowston (2000) found a shared national
culture and shared professional culture held a virtual group together so that it could function
successfully. Similarly, Kumar et al. (1998) found that standardized supply chain management
procedures and a strong social network substituted for what would have been in place if all
production had been done in one company.
The role of shared mental models in shaping discontinuities in virtual work can be seen in
the setting of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development. Most FLOSS software is
developed by dynamic self-organizing distributed teams comprising professionals, users and
other volunteers working in loosely coupled teams. These teams are close to pure virtual teams in
that developers contribute from around the world, meet face-to-face infrequently if at all, and
coordinate their activity primarily by means of computer-mediated communications (CMC). The
literature on software development emphasizes the difficulties of distributed software
development, but the apparent success of FLOSS development presents an intriguing counterexample. We argue that while the work of FLOSS developers is characterized by many
boundaries (space, time, organization, national culture, language among others), but few
discontinuities because of the understandings of the work shared by the developers.
In summary, while boundaries will always be present in virtual work, discontinuities may
come and go. Research on virtual work therefore needs to look deeper to determine how or if the
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apparent borders are problematic to the coordination of work. Furthermore, research should
recognize that what is problematic at one point in time may not always be so. Therefore, it is
important to look more closely at the process of coordinating virtual work to understand how it is
actually experienced by those workers.
References
Boland, R. J., & Tenkasi, R. V. (1995). Perspective making and perspective taking in
communities of knowing. Organization Science, 6(4), 350–372.
Crowston, K., & Kammerer, E. (1998). Coordination and collective mind in software
requirements development. IBM Systems Journal, 37(2), 227–245.
Dougherty, D. (1992). Interpretive barriers to successful product innovation in large firms.
Organization Science, 3(2), 179–202.
Espinosa, J. A., Cummings, J. N., Wilson, J. M., & Pearce, B. M. (2003). Team boundary issues
across multiple global firms. Journal of Management Information Systems, 19(4), 157–
190.
Espinosa, J. A., Lerch, F. J., & Kraut, R. E. (2004). Explicit versus implicit coordination
mechanisms and task dependencies: One size does not fit all. In E. Salas & S. M. Fiore
(Eds.), Team cognition: Understanding the factors that drive process and performance
(pp. 107-129). Washington, DC: APA.
House, R., Rousseau, D. M., & Thomas-Hunt, M. (1995). The meso paradigm: A framework for
the integration of micro and macro organizational behavior. In L. L. Cummings & B. M.
Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 17, pp. 71–114). Greenwich, CT:
JAI Press.
Katzy, B. R., & Crowston, K. (2000). A process theory of competency rallying in engineering
projects. Munich, Germany: CeTIM.
Kumar, K., van Dissel, H. G., & Bielli, P. (1998). The Merchant of Prato revisited: Towards a
third rationality of information systems. Management Information Systems Quarterly,
22(2), 199–226.
Matlin, M. W. (1998). Cognition. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace, & Company.
Nijkamp, P., Rietveld, P., & Salomon, I. (1990). Barriers in spatial interactions and
communications: A conceptual exploration. Annals of Regional Science, 24(4), 237–252.
Orlikowski, W. J. (2002). Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed
organizing. Organization Science, 13(3), 249–273.
Rentsch, J. R., & Klimoski, R. J. (2001). Why do ‘great minds’ think alike?: Antecedents of team
member schema agreement. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(2), 107–120.
Schutz, A., & Luckman, T. (1973). The Structures of the Life-World (R. M. Zaner & H. T.
Engelhardt, Jr., Trans. Vol. 1). Evanston: Northwestern University.
Spender, J.-C. (1998). The dynamics of individual and organizational knowledge. In C. Eden &
J.-C. Spender (Eds.), Managerial and organizational cognition: Theory, methods and
research (pp. 13–39). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sutanto, J., Kankanhalli, A., & Tan, B. C. Y. (2004). Task coordination in global virtual teams.
Paper presented at the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Information Systems,
Washington, DC.
Watson-Manheim, M. B., Chudoba, K. M., & Crowston, K. (Under review). Distance Matters,
Except When It Doesn’t Academy of Management Conference. Philadelphia, PA.
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LEADING IN VIRTUAL CONTEXTS
DEANNE N. DEN HARTOG AND ANNE E. KEEGAN
University of Amsterdam
Globalization and the developing information technology are enhancing the need for and
possibilities of virtual collaboration. Virtual work is often performed in teams that come in many
forms, with differing objectives, membership criteria, and levels of dispersion or diversity
(Zigurs, 2003). However, working virtually also often implies more flexible, adaptive or projectbased structures; in other words, organizational structures that are more complex and “organic”
(cf. Burns & Stalker, 1961). Leaders in these settings can no longer literally ‘oversee’
subordinates’ efforts. Observing, monitoring, and controlling, in other words direct supervision
of tasks performed at various locations at different times is difficult (Den Hartog & Koopman,
2001). The research presented here explores the changing role of leaders and the challenges that
leaders face in more organic, flexible and virtual contexts.
What is the role of leaders? As organizations increasingly rely on temporary
arrangements, such as project teams working together virtually for a specific task for a limited
duration, leadership may also become a temporary arrangement. Any member with relevant
knowledge and experience could lead a specific project and people may work in multiple teams
simultaneously, as leader in one and as member on another. The leadership role may also be
divided and performed by many or all team members simultaneously or sequentially, as
suggested in self-management or shared leadership models (e.g. Barker, 1993). The increasing
use of computer-mediated technologies may emphasize cognitive elements of the leadership role
(e.g. managing information flow) and reduce social/emotional elements (Shamir, 1999). The
study among managers in different virtual, complex, and project-oriented firms presented in this
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paper suggests problems with these scenarios, including the potential for conflicting demands,
role ambiguity, and issues around ensuring sufficient identification.
For example, in our qualitative study we find that having multiple different (virtual)
leaders may place conflicting or unclear demands on employees. Our interviewees describe that
when people report to multiple leaders performance evaluation can be difficult (this held both for
having different virtual leaders or other combinations, such as a virtual project manager and a colocated line manager). The information available for evaluating performance at a distance is
limited. Criteria for performance evaluation may be ambiguous if multiple leaders are involved
and who should evaluate employees’ performance may also be unclear in virtual, often projectoriented structures. For example, a manager of a world-wide IT firm indicates that in their virtual
teams it is often the local managers who do the performance evaluations whereas their
employees work for multiple international projects and project managers are the ones doing the
day-to-day management. Similarly, a manager of one of the companies involved in the project
organization formed to build a high-speed train network explains that in this organization,
workers report to a project manager who leads them on a day-to-day basis. Although the
employees do not necessarily see their line manager at the mother company at all, performance
evaluations, training needs analyses, and career decisions mainly remain the responsibility of
their ‘home’ company line manager.
A related risk that is sometimes mentioned is that when employees become involved in
too many different virtual teams at the same time they may become less and less visible for
management. Managers indicate that in a virtual context, people working in multiple teams can
often more easily hide from their (team) responsibilities if they choose to do so, as virtual
meetings are generally limited to one-hour conference calls. In other words, managers experience
problems with their lack of direct supervision. Complicating factors the managers mention
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include that virtual work often involves people from different countries working together (which
means that ambiguities due to language problems and cultural differences regularly occur) and
that the leader often has not personally selected (international) team members. For example, in
the aforementioned IT firm, international teams tend to be formed without the leader’s
involvement in the selection of the members from other countries. This may hinder the
development of trust and increase ambiguity about reporting relationships.
The literature suggests a crucial role for trust-building and identification processes at
work. Identifying with a group implies adherence to a pattern of values shared within such a
group. Having a sense of belongingness increases commitment to a group and its goals and with
that enhances a willingness to go the extra mile for the group (e.g. Den Hartog, De Hoogh &
Keegan, 2007). In other words, identification with a group raises effort people are willing to take
on behalf of the group. However, creating belongingness and identification is important but
problematic in virtual and flexible settings and belonging to multiple, temporary groups with
unclear boundaries may lead to identity problems, reduced commitment and reduced willingness
to take on extras or help others. In the project organization working on the high-speed link,
managers want workers to identify with the project organization itself as well as the respective
‘home’ companies to which different workers return once their part of the job is done. The
managers find that the latter can be difficult when project workers don’t have any tangible link to
their home company for extended periods of time. One manager also warns against the
development of a “grey” culture in project firms where different firm cultures are mixed to a
bland whole in which specific and colourful elements of individual company cultures are lost.
In sum, virtual working may create ambiguity and a lack of belongingness and undermine
the identification and trust-building processes that are seen as crucial for effective leadership.
Thus, virtual, flexible organizations need leaders to perform integrative functions (Shamir,
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1999). A top manager of a large organization in the engineering sector describes that project
managers in their firm basically run a small enterprise within the company. They need to be able
to grasp opportunities, while managing the substantial financial risks. Strong leadership is
crucial. In his words: “You need strong people management. If you don’t get the maximum out
of the team, you don’t get the maximum for the company. So apart from being tough and holding
your team members accountable, and must be able to treat Bill differently from Paul, and Harry
differently even again”. In line with this, Cascio and Shurygailo (2003) conclude that research
shows that leaders make a critical difference for (traditional) team performance. They also state
that: “these findings are just as applicable to virtual teams as they are to teams that interact
physically” (p.362). Although integrative leadership roles thus seem important, we do not yet fully
understand whether strong, integrative roles of leaders also be performed ‘temporarily’ and ‘at a
distance’. Do temporary virtual leaders affect followers as strongly as their more ‘traditional’
counterparts?
One integrative form of leadership is transformational leadership (e.g. Bass, 1985; 1997).
Keegan and Den Hartog (2004) tested whether the role of transformational leadership in
employee affect and attitudes found in more traditional contexts also holds when leadership is a
temporary arrangement rather than a permanent one. They found that perceived transformational
leader behaviour correlated positively with commitment and motivation and negatively with
stress in teams led by line managers, but not in project teams led by project managers. These
results suggest that in a temporary project based work arrangement, leadership may have less
impact on followers. Our study adds that while managers’ indicate that strong leadership is
needed in these contexts, many barriers exist. Such distal and virtual managers often experience
ambiguity in reporting relationships, are often less able to exercise the same influence over
performance evaluation and careers, and less easily influence identification and trust as
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compared to their co-located counterparts. If this is the case, the enthusiasm with which some
writers embrace the possibilities offered by more virtual, temporary, and flexible ways of
organizing may need to be tempered by the possibility that such work arrangements strain crucial
leader-follower relationships.
References
Barker, J.R. (1993) Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams.
AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 38: 408-437.
Bass B.M. (1985) Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press.
Bass, B.M. (1997). Does the transactional - transformational paradigm transcend
organisational and national boundaries? American Psychologist 1997; 52(2): 130-139.
Burns, T. & Stalker G. (1961).The management of Innovation. London: Tavistock.
Cascio,W.F. & Shurygailo, S. (2003). E-leadership and virtual teams. Organizational
Dynamics, 31(4), 362-376.
Den Hartog D.N., De Hoogh, A.H.B. & Keegan, A. E. (2007) Belongingness as a moderator
of the charisma – OCB relationship. Journal of Applied Psychology, in press.
Den Hartog, D.N. & Koopman, P.L. (2001). Leadership in organizations. In: Anderson, N.,
Ones, D.S., Kepir – Sinangil, H. & Viswesvaran, C. (eds.). Handbook of industrial,
work and organizational psychology, volume 2. London: Sage.
Keegan, A.E. & Den Hartog, D.N (2004). Transformational leadership in a project based
environment: a comparative study. International Journal of Project Management,
22, 609-617.
Shamir, B. (1999). Leadership in boundaryless organizations: Disposable or indispensable?
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8, 49-71.
Zigurs, I. (2003). Leadership in virtual teams: Oxymoron or opportunity? Organizational
Dynamics, 31(4), 339-351.
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VOLUNTARY ENGAGEMENT IN AN OPEN WEB-BASED ENCYCLOPEDIA:
WIKIPEDIANS, AND WHY THEY DO IT
JOACHIM SCHROER AND GUIDO HERTEL
University of Wuerzburg
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, completely written and maintained by volunteers
who collaborate via the Internet (Wikimedia Foundation, 2006). Founded in January 2001,
Wikipedia has quickly become one of the 15 most popular websites worldwide (Alexa Inc.,
2006) and attracts more than 154 million visitors per month (comScore Networks, 2006). Despite
the huge success of Wikipedia, however, little is known about the motivation of its contributors,
usually called Wikipedians. As volunteers, many contributors invest a considerable amount of
time into researching and writing articles or maintaining the technical infrastructure without
receiving any financial compensation for their efforts. Moreover, in contrast to other Internetbased collaboration projects based on voluntary work engagement (e.g., Free and Open Source
software development, Hertel, Niedner, & Herrmann, 2003; Moon & Sproull, 2002), Wikipedia
has no established public recognition system that might be used as reference in job applications
(such as “credit files” in Open Source Software development; cf. Voss, 2005). Thus, the question
arises how to explain the high motivation of contributors to Wikipedia.
Two theoretical models were integrated to explain the motivation of contributors to
Wikipedia. The first model builds on research on social movement participation and civic
engagement (Klandermans, 2003; Stürmer & Simon, 2004) and was successfully applied in the
context of Free and Open Source Software development (Hertel et al., 2003). The second model
builds on research on task characteristic as antecedents of intrinsic motivation and work
satisfaction (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1980). Because contributors of Wikipedia receive
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neither financial compensation nor explicit public recognition as authors, task characteristics and
intrinsic motivation might be important factors to contribute to the project.
According to the model of social movement participation (Klandermans, 2003), the
motivation to participate in a social movement depends on subjective expectancy and importance
of several motives, which can be categorized into three classes, as well as identification
processes: Elements of the first class, norm-oriented motives, refer to expected reactions of
significant others, such as friends, family, or colleagues. More favorable reactions of significant
others should lead to a higher motivation to participate. The second class of motives, individual
costs and benefits include expected gains and losses that are associated with the engagement.
Losses in the context of voluntary engagement might be direct costs, such as a donation of
money. Moreover, opportunity costs might result from engagement, such as lack of time for
other activities or lack of income because the work done is not compensated as it would be in a
commercial context. Benefits might include learning, socializing with others, or getting to know
other people. The more favorable the expected overall relation of costs and benefits, the higher
the motivation to engage in a social movement should be. Third, collective motives refer to the
importance of the general goals of a social movement for the individual participant. The higher
the importance of the goals (for instance, “freedom of information”), the higher the motivation
should be. Fourth, social identification processes should complement these three classes of
motives and constitute an independent pathway to social movement participation (Klandermans,
2003; Stürmer & Simon, 2004). Because social identification processes are not part of the
original model developed by Klandermans (1997), we will refer to the four motivational
components described above as the Extended Klandermans Model (EKM; cf. Hertel, Niedner &
Herrmann, 2003). The components are assumed to contribute additively to the motivation of
participants in a social movement.
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Similarly, because the Job Characteristics Model (JCM; Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1980)
conceptualizes task characteristics as antecedents of intrinsic motivation (cf. Deci & Ryan,
2000), satisfaction, and performance in commercial work, similar process are likely to be related
to voluntary engagement for Wikipedia. Whereas constructs from social sciences have already
been explored in related Free and Open Source Software projects, task characteristics have not
been considered in research on voluntary engagement in web-based collaboration so far.
Method
A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted to explore the motives of contributors
to the German version of Wikipedia. The survey was based on an integration of the EKM and
JCM, and additional motives were collected for exploratory purposes that might extend the
current model. A total of N = 106 contributors to the German Wikipedia participated in our
survey. The predominant part (88%) of these participants were male, 10% were female, and 2%
did not specify their sex. The mean age was 33 years, with a standard deviation of 12 years, and
a range from 16 to 70 years.
Results supported the research model to a large extend. As expected, satisfaction with the
engagement for Wikipedia was largely determined by the net balance between costs and benefits,
identification with the Wikipedia community, and perceived task characteristics. Contrary to our
expectations, however, the relation between the net balance of costs and benefits and the extend
of engagement was negative rather the positive. In this case, causality might be reversed, such
that higher engagement leads to less favorable evaluations of costs and benefits. In other words,
tolerance for perceived opportunity costs is required for highly active Wikipedia contributors. On
the other hand, and consistent with our expectations, the extent of engagement was positively
related to intrinsic motivation, which partially mediated the effect of perceived task
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characteristics on engagement. Similar to research on task characteristics in volunteer civic
engagement (Wehner & Güntert, 2005), autonomy, task significance, feedback from others, and
skill variety most strongly characterized the overall task experience in Wikipedia engagement.
Thus, similar motivational processes seem to be involved in on-line and off-line volunteer work.
The three most prominent categories of motives suggested by Wikipedia contributors in the open
questions were related to task enjoyment, information sharing and generativity motives.
These results both have implications for theoretical work on antecedents of voluntary work
engagement in electronic (“virtual”) work contexts as well as for applied questions how to
improve motivation and contribution in Internet communities. Moreover, lessons learned from
successful Open Content projects such as Wikipedia might also provide innovative suggestions
for web-based knowledge management in business organizations.
References
Alexa Inc. (2006, October 20). Traffic ranking for wikipedia.org [WWW]. Retrieved October 20,
2006, from http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=wikipedia.org
Chin, W. W., & Newsted, P. R. (1999). Structural equation modeling analysis with small
samples using Partial Least Squares. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Statistical strategies for
small sample research (pp. 307-341). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
comScore Networks (2006, October 26). Worldwide ranking of top web properties [WWW].
Retrieved November 1, 2006, http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1049
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and
the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-268.
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 60, 159-170.
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign. London: Addison-Wesley.
Hertel, G., Niedner, S. & Herrmann, S. (2003). Motivation of software developers in Open
Source projects: an Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel.
Research Policy, 32, 1159-1177.
Klandermans, B. (1997). The social psychology of protest. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Klandermans, B. (2003). Collective political action. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy & R. Jervis (Eds.),
Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (pp. 670-709). New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
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Moon, J. Y., & Sproull, L. (2002). Essence of distributed work: The case of the Linux kernel. In
P. Hinds & S. Kiesler (Eds.), Distributed Work (pp. 381–404). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Stürmer, S. & Simon, B. (2004). Collective action: Towards a dual-pathway model. European
Review of Social Psychology, 15, 59-99.
Voss, J. (2005). Measuring Wikipedia. Paper presented at the 10th International Conference of
the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, Stockholm, Sweden.
Retrieved October 23, 2006, from http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00003610/
Wehner, T., & Güntert, S. T. (2005). Wie motivierend ist frei-gemeinnützige Arbeit? [How
motivating is voluntary non-profit work?] In GfA (Ed.), Personalmanagement und
Arbeitsgestaltung. Dortmund, Germany: GfA Press.
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (Ed.). (2006, October 19). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 19, 2006,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia&oldid=82498597.
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WHY ARE PROJECT MANAGERS WILLING TO WORK IN FULLY VIRTUAL
SETTINGS?
ROBERT M. VERBURG
Delft University of Technology
PETRA BOSCH-SIJTSEMA
Helsinki University of Technology
MATTI VARTIAINEN
Helsinki University of Technology
More and more firms organize their work through virtual teams in order to cross time zones and
distances more easily and to be closer to their customers and markets (Kirkman et al., 2002).
Furthermore, global firms experience the geographical distribution of expertise and knowledge
as a challenge, and virtual teams may enable them to organize work better and according to the
expertise of team members rather than to depend on the local availability of skills and knowledge
(Hertel et al., 2005). Collaboration technologies are an important enabler for working virtually.
The developments in mobile and wireless information and communication technologies
especially create possibilities to work in any place and time. In addition to the technological
possibilities, a number of relevant business drivers, such as savings in real estate, travel costs and
working around the clock, have led to a wide diffusion of virtual teams (Grimshaw & Kwok,
1998; Wiesenfeld et al., 1999). However, a number of problems associated with working in
virtual teams remain. These problems include communication difficulties especially for complex
tasks, the quality of the technological support tools, issues of trust building among virtual team
members, and, numerous leadership issues (see Hertel et al., 2005; Martins et al., 2004 for
overviews). Another may lie in the motivation of managers in such contexts, which is what the
study presented here explores.
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Virtual teams are defined as groups of geographically dispersed employees with a
common goal carrying out interdependent tasks using mostly technology for communication and
collaboration (e.g., Bell & Koskowski, 2002; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1998). A vast literature is
available on the nature and elements of virtual teams. A large chunk of the literature on virtual
team work focuses on the team as well as the individual aspects of working virtually. Important
topics include the effective use of information technology, the importance of trust in the team,
team formation and self management issues. However, few empirical studies focus on the
context of virtual work and the reasons for organizing work in a virtual manner. There are also
only few studies available that report on fully virtual work within the growing number of global
companies. Many studies are conducted among student groups (e.g., Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1998)
or focus on the informal open source software development communities, such as the LINUX
community. In this paper we will present a study among 30 project managers who are
responsible for the output of work within fully virtual settings. The study focuses on the reasons
why those managers may opt for organizing their projects virtually.
Much work is done in partially rather than fully virtual contexts, although the latter is
increasingly found. Fully virtual settings are defined according to the following guidelines: (1)
there should be a very low frequency if at all of face-to-face contact between individuals or subgroups; (2) there should be many collaborating units, and (3) all members in a collaborating unit
should work through mediated communication. Many global firms work virtually in the form of
virtual projects (Rad & Levin, 2003). We define a virtual project as a virtual team with a limited
duration (temporality is important). In the study presented here, we collected data on these
virtual projects from project managers of global companies who have experience in working in
(fully) virtual settings and who have the decision power to design the project organization.
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Our research focuses on the attributes that increase decision-makers’ willingness to work
in fully virtual projects, i.e. what are the perceived benefits and the personal values behind the
decisions to work virtually. Values are defined as shared prescriptive or proscriptive beliefs
about ideal modes of behaviour and end-states of existence that are activated by the situation
(Rokeach, 1980). Values are seen as universal and as vital components for the management of
meaning (Cha & Edmondson, 2006). Based on a literature review of the motivations that drive
decision makers to work fully virtual, we study the attributes (or benefits) which are important
for managers in fully virtual settings. We also address the boundary conditions that managers
perceive (why do they want to work virtually and what do they need to do so successfully).
In order to link the defined attributes with the motivations of decision makers we apply a
Means-End-Chain methodology (MEC) (Reynolds & Gutman, 1988). MEC is a well established
method in marketing research to identify short-term benefits and their linkage to long-term
human motivations (individual values). This method provides insights into the roots of consumer
behavior and at the same time links it to practical attribute profiles of e.g. a product or service.
While the methodology is well accepted within the realm of consumer research it is hardly
applied for the study of organizational behavior.
Our data derives from a qualitative study we performed among extreme virtual teams.
Project managers (N = 30) with ample experience with working in extreme virtual teams were
interviewed. From these interviews we categorized a number of benefits that were important for
working in extreme virtual settings. Several different aspects emerged, which were categorised
into: corporate support, communication and trust, project leadership and individual aspects.
Examples of such benefits included visibility within the firm and balance in work and personal
life. The benefits were linked to individual values and the results of our study indicate that the
value of accomplishment was perceived as most important to project managers who had
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experience in working in fully virtual settings. The reason why accomplishment was found to
have such a central role might be based in the importance of performance and delivering results
of general project management theory (see Shenhar & Dvir, 1996). Furthermore, within global
companies, project managers are often rewarded according to their team’s performance. Project
managers are therefore likely eager to focus on team results. In order to reach the
accomplishment of goals it was necessary that a number of conditions were fulfilled. These
boundary conditions include the corporate support for working in a fully virtual setting, the
availability of multi-media support, trust within the team, and clear rules about communication
rules. The presence of these conditions will lead to benefits such as faster project conduct,
increased project control and alignment of shared goals within the virtual project. This empirical
study adds to the literature on virtual teams by assessing managers’ values as well as perceived
benefits and boundary conditions related to working in fully virtual projects. It also adds more
generally to the organizational behavior and virtual team literature by introducing the MeansEnd-Chain methodology that has been developed in marketing research to these fields.
References
Bell, B. S. & S. W. J. Kozlowski (2002) “A typology of virtual teams. Implications for effective
leadership,” in Group and organization management,, 27 (1): 14-49.
Cha, S. E. & A. C. Edmondson (2006) “When values backfire: Leadership, attribution, and
disenchantment in a values-driven organization,” The Leadership Quarterly, 17: 57-78.
Hertel, G., S. Geister & U. Kondradt (2005) “Managing virtual teams: A review of current
empirical research,” Human resource management review, 15: 69-95
Grimshaw, D. J. & F.T. S. Kwok (1998) “The business benefits of the virtual organization,” In
Magid Igbaria & Margaret Tan (Eds.), The virtual workplace. Idea group publishing:
Hershey, USA: 45-70
Jarvenpaa, S., L. & D. E. Leidner (1999) “Communication and trust in global virtual teams,”
Organization Science, 10 (6): 791-815
Kirkman, B. L., B. Rosen, C. B. Gibson, P. E. Tesluk & S. O. McPherson (2002) “Five
challenges to virtual team success: lessons from Sabre Inc.,” Academy of management
executive, 16(3): 67-79.
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Martins, Luis L., Lucy L. Gilson & M. Travis Maynard (2004) “Virtual teams: What do we
know and where do we go from here?” Journal of Management, 30 (6): 805-835.
Rad, P.F. & Levin, G. (2003) “Achieving project management success using virtual teams”,
Boca Raton, Florida: J. Ross Publishing.
Reynolds, T.J. & J. Gutman (1988) “Laddering theory, method, analysis, and interpretation,
Journal of Advertising Research, February/March: 11-31.
Rokeach, M. (1980) “Some unresolved issues in theories of beliefs, attitudes and values”. In H.E.
Howe, Jr. & M.M. Page (Eds.), 1979 Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.
Shenhar, A. & D. Dvir (1996) “Toward a typological theory of project management,” Research
Policy, 25: 607-632.
Wiesenfeld, B.M., S. Raghuram & R. Garud (1999) “Communication Patterns as Determinants
of Organizational Identification in a Virtual Organization,” in Organization Science, special
issue on communication processes for virtual organizations, 10 (6): 777-790.
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VIRTUAL TEAM BOUNDARY COMPLEXITY:
A TEAM COORDINATION PERSPECTIVE
J. ALBERTO ESPINOSA, GWANHOO LEE AND WILLIAM DELONE
American University
Given current globalization and outsourcing/offshoring trends, many technical projects
contexts can be characterized as very virtual and global. Technical projects increasingly employ
virtual teams working in complex, geographically distributed collaboration arrangements as
organizations seek to develop and implement effective systems for users and customers around
the world at lower costs by leveraging internal and external resources (Powell, Piccoli, & Ives,
2004). These virtual teams are divided by various boundaries, including distance, temporal,
organizational and cultural (Watson-Manheim, Chudoba, & Crowston, 2002; Orlikowski, 2002;
Espinosa, Cummings, Wilson, & Pearce, 2003; Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). These boundaries
often co-exist within a given team and the resulting complexity of collaborating across these
multiple boundaries becomes an important risk factor for project success.
The literature on virtual teams has started to address the concept virtuality or virtualness
in teams (Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003; Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005; Lu, Watson-Manheim,
Chudoba, & Wynn, 2006). While this is a step in the right direction, these constructs have
limitations in helping us study how teams coordinate their work across complex geographic
configurations in teams. Some examples of unanswered questions include: how does virtualness
change as the number of locations or time zones changes in a team or as the distribution of team
members across these locations or time zones varies? Or, more importantly, how does this affect
how teams coordinate their work? While the concept of virtualness is important to characterize
and study virtual teams, we suggest that the complexity of the virtual team boundary context
helps us better understand the coordination challenges faced by virtual teams.
In this research we develop and propose a construct for virtual team boundary complexity
that can help us understand how teams can coordinate their work more effectively across these
boundaries and suggest some measures to measure this complexity. Coordination is about
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managing dependencies among task activities (Malone & Crowston, 1994). We posit that it is not
the virtual team boundaries themselves that makes it more difficult to manage these
dependencies, but the complexity of the virtual team boundary configuration resulting from
having to work across multiple boundaries. Therefore, understanding this complexity is very
important in figuring out how virtual teams can coordinate their work more effectively. We draw
upon data collected by the authors and colleagues for two different research projects (Espinosa,
Lee, & DeLone, 2006; Espinosa & Pickering, 2006) to support our arguments.
Virtual Team Boundary Complexity and Coordination Effectiveness
Virtual team boundaries create barriers that make it difficult for members to
communicate and work together (Espinosa et al., 2003; Orlikowski, 2002; Watson-Manheim,
Chudoba, & Crowston, 2002). How these various boundaries are arranged within a team can
make a big difference. Take for example the familiar outsourcing relationship between a U.S.
and an Indian firm working together on a technical project. Team members in this context are in
only two locations, but the geographical boundary dividing this team aligns perfectly with
organizational, distance, time zone, cultural and language boundaries. This alignment of
boundaries creates a “fault line,” which has been argued to be very difficult to bridge (Lau &
Murnighan, 1998). However, one of our studies (Espinosa et al., 2006) found evidence that team
members in two such locations adjusted quite well and learned how to operate effectively with
each other because the location, time, organizational, cultural and language differences were well
understood by all, such that team members were able to implement effective coping mechanisms
(e.g., shift work hours, more detailed documentation, use of mobile communication devices, etc.)
to work together. In contrast, the other study (Espinosa & Pickering, 2006) found that when a
team operates in several locations spanning multiple time zones, cultures, languages, and
organizations things become more unpredictable and the team has a more difficult time finding a
rhythm to coordinate their work effectively. In fact, there were so many locations and time zones
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represented in one team we studied that team members shifted their work hours so dramatically
that some co-located team member had non-overlapping work hours. We refer to this diversity of
boundaries as “virtual team boundary complexity.”
Wood (1986) argued that task complexity increases when more information cues need to
be processed to carry out the task and indicated that tasks not only have a “structural” component
that is inherent to the task, but also have a “coordinative” complexity that is affected by the task
context. For example, when a task is carried out by many team members their actions need to be
coordinated, adding further complexity to the execution of the task. When the context makes it
difficult to exchange the information cues necessary to carry out the task – i.e., the task context is
more complex – it affects the team’s ability to coordinate the task, but this complexity is not
captured in the concept of virtualness. The virtualness dimensions proposed in the literature
include: physical distance among team members; level of technology support; percentage of
time apart in the task (Griffith et al., 2003); synchronicity – to distinguish between “real-time”
and “lagged-time” interaction (Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005); and workplace mobility – to capture
the extent to which team members work at various sites, telecommute and use mobile devices
(Lu et al., 2006). These dimensions are useful but have limitations in helping us understand
coordination, particularly when teams are dispersed in more complex geographic configuration
arrangements involving several sites. For example, some teams may be widely dispersed (i.e.,
balanced), while others may have the majority of members in one site with a few isolated
members in other sites (i.e., unbalanced) (O'Leary & Mortensen, 2005), and some teams may be
dispersed on a North-South axis with little time zone difference, while others may be dispersed
along an East-West axis with substantial time zone differences (Espinosa & Pickering, 2006;
O'Leary & Cummings, 2002).
We argue that coordination is affected when virtual team boundary arrangements make it
difficult to communicate – i.e., coordinate “organically” – because the team is forced to
coordinate “mechanistically” using task programming mechanisms like schedules, plans, and
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division of labor, which are not as effective when task conditions are less routine (March &
Simon, 1958). While each type of boundary will have its unique effects on communication, we
argue that the overall communication effectiveness in the team and, therefore, its ability to
coordinate organically will be generally affected by four dimensions: (1) the different of types of
boundaries spanned by the team; (2) the average number of boundaries present for each
boundary type; (3) the extent to which these boundaries align; and (4) the dispersion of members
across these boundaries. Consequently, we propose that these dimensions define a virtual team’s
boundary complexity. We base this proposition on the fact that these dimensions increase the
amount of information cues that needs to be processed by team members to coordinate their
work effectively (Wood, 1986). We now discuss why.
Members in teams that span more boundary types (e.g., distance, time zones,
organizational, cultural) need to keep in mind more information about their teammates to
communicate effectively (Espinosa et al., 2003). Similarly, team members will also have more
difficulty communicating and coordinating when there are more boundaries within the various
boundary types. For example, it is more difficult to coordinate work when teams operate across
several locations (O'Leary & Cummings, 2002) or across multiple time zones (Espinosa &
Pickering, 2006) than when the there are only two or three locations or time zones. Boundary
alignment can also affect communication and coordination. While Lau and Murnighan (1998)
suggested that it is more difficult to work together when boundaries align, the data in our studies
show that team members adjust and learn how to bridge these multiple but aligned boundaries
(Espinosa et al., 2006), whereas multiple misaligned boundaries create more confusion about
how and when to interact (Espinosa & Pickering, 2006). Finally, the dispersion of team members
across boundaries can make a big difference. Overall, we expect that more widely dispersed (i.e.,
balanced) configurations across boundaries makes it more difficult to coordinate than with
unbalanced configurations. For example, a team with a high concentration of members in the US
and a few isolated members in other countries, or with a high concentration of Indian engineers
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will have a larger number of members that have little difficulty communicating effectively,
whereas teams with membership widely scattered across locations and cultures will need to
bridge boundaries to communicate and coordinate. We are in the process of collecting data to
validate this construct to be used as a key independent variable predicting coordination in a
related study.
References
Espinosa, J. A., Cummings, J. N., Wilson, J. M., & Pearce, B. M. (2003). Team boundary issues
across multiple global firms. Journal of Management Information Systems, 19(4), 157-190.
Espinosa, J. A., Lee, G., & DeLone, W. (2006). Global boundaries, task processes and is project
success: A field study. Information, Technology and People, 19(4), 345-370.
Espinosa, J. A., & Pickering, C. (2006). The effect of time separation on coordination processes
and outcomes: A case study. Paper presented at the 39th Hawaiian International Conference
on System Sciences, Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii.
Griffith, T. L., Sawyer, J. E., & Neale, M. A. (2003). Virtualness and knowledge in teams:
Managing the love triangle of organizations, individuals, and information technology. MIS
Quarterly, 27(2), 265-287.
Kirkman, B. L., & Mathieu, J. (2005). The dimensions and antecedents of team virtuality.
Journal of Management, 31(5), 1-19.
Lau, D., & Murnighan, J. K. (1998). Demographic diversity and faultlines: The compositional
dynamics of organizational groups. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 325-340.
Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (1997). Virtual teams: Reaching across space, time, and organizations
with technology. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lu, M., Watson-Manheim, M. B., Chudoba, K. M., & Wynn, E. (2006). How does virtuality
affect team performance in a global organization? Understanding the impact of variety of
practices. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 9(1), 4-23.
Malone, T., & Crowston, K. (1994). The interdisciplinary study of coordination. ACM
Computing Surveys, 26(1), 87-119.
March, J., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
O'Leary, M. B., & Cummings, J. N. (2002). The spatial, temporal, and configurational
characteristics of geographic dispersion in teams. Paper presented at the Presented at the
Academy of Management Conference, Denver, Co.
O'Leary, M. B., & Mortensen, M. (2005). Subgroups with attitude: Imbalance and isolation in
geographically dispersed teams. Paper presented at the Presented at the Academy of
Management Conference, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.
Orlikowski, W. (2002). Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed
organizing. Organization Science, 13(3), 249-273.
Powell, A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: A review of current literature and
directions for future research. Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 35(1), 6-36.
Watson-Manheim, M. B., Chudoba, K., & Crowston, K. (2002). Discontinuities and continuities:
A new way to understand virtual work. Information, Technology and People, 15(3), 191–
209.
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Wood, R. E. (1986). Task complexity: Definition of the construct. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 37(1), 60-82.
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