Using New Generation Collaboration & Social Computing Technologies in Managing Virtual Teams: An Exploratory Study into Enablers and Barriers in a Multicultural Context

<p>Purpose - To explore the various enablers and barriers of collaborative technologies in virtual teams through literature reviews and participant interviews and to develop findings with considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives. Design/methodology/approach - A constructivist methodology. One-to-one interviews with participants from researcher's organization: a cross-section of senior managers and team members with either previous or current virtual team experience. Thematic analysis has been used to draw out the themes in the interview transcripts, and to develop interpretations and connections to the literature. Findings - There is a great consensus among participants towards the importance of collaboration in virtual teaming and the need for proper planning and uptake. However caution is necessary for organizations embarking on these ventures as there are various barriers that need consideration. There are many aspects that organizations venturing into virtual team initiatives need to consider. These include various integration aspects of technologies, people & processes, choosing technologies that work together well, various people aspects associated with virtual team collaboration initiatives and establishing the virtual team culture as part of the overarching organization & group culture. Research limitations/implications - Small sample sizes make it hard to generalize. Further research could include larger sample sets, surveys of various types of teams affected, the individual collaboration technologies, social computing interdependencies, specific Enterprise 2.0 technology suites etc. Originality/value - Contributes a small body of research on the experience of managers and team members on collaborative technologies and virtual teaming. Provides the only such research in the banking sector and in the New Zealand marketplace, and contributes a set of findings & considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives.</p>

Using New Generation Collaboration & Social Computing Technologies in Managing Virtual Teams: An Exploratory Study into Enablers and Barriers in a Multicultural Context

<p>Purpose - To explore the various enablers and barriers of collaborative technologies in virtual teams through literature reviews and participant interviews and to develop findings with considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives. Design/methodology/approach - A constructivist methodology. One-to-one interviews with participants from researcher's organization: a cross-section of senior managers and team members with either previous or current virtual team experience. Thematic analysis has been used to draw out the themes in the interview transcripts, and to develop interpretations and connections to the literature. Findings - There is a great consensus among participants towards the importance of collaboration in virtual teaming and the need for proper planning and uptake. However caution is necessary for organizations embarking on these ventures as there are various barriers that need consideration. There are many aspects that organizations venturing into virtual team initiatives need to consider. These include various integration aspects of technologies, people & processes, choosing technologies that work together well, various people aspects associated with virtual team collaboration initiatives and establishing the virtual team culture as part of the overarching organization & group culture. Research limitations/implications - Small sample sizes make it hard to generalize. Further research could include larger sample sets, surveys of various types of teams affected, the individual collaboration technologies, social computing interdependencies, specific Enterprise 2.0 technology suites etc. Originality/value - Contributes a small body of research on the experience of managers and team members on collaborative technologies and virtual teaming. Provides the only such research in the banking sector and in the New Zealand marketplace, and contributes a set of findings & considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives.</p>

Comparing Virtual and Face-to-Face Team Collaboration: Insights From an Agent-Based Simulation

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the acceptance of virtual team collaboration as a replacement for face-to-face collaboration. Unlike face-to-face collaboration, virtual collaboration has different factors like technology mediation influencing communication that affects a team’s processes. However, there is a lack of rigorous research that assesses the impact of virtual teaming on the engineering design process. Therefore, the current study investigates the effect of virtual team collaboration on design outcomes by means of the MILANO (Model of Influence, Learning, and Norms in Organizations) framework. To tailor MILANO for virtual collaboration, this paper first presents an empirical study of human design teams, that shows how the model parameters for face-to-face collaboration (like self-efficacy, perceived influencers, perceived degree of influence, trust and familiarity) must be modified. The empirical study also shows the positive impact of effective communication on conflict resolution, task cohesion and the model parameters listed above. The simulation results for both virtual and face-to-face collaboration show how design outcomes differ with collaboration mode.

The Importance of Interprofessional Practice in Family Medicine Residency Education

The practice of family medicine is undergoing rapid transformation, with increasing recognition that family physicians can most effectively meet the needs of individual patients and populations within the context of highly effective interprofessional teams. A substantive evidence base exists to support effective workplace learning by practicing health care teams and learners, much of which has been developed in primary care teaching practices. A strong national consensus now emphasizes the importance of the interprofessional clinical learning environment, including in graduate medical education. Evidence for the impact of improved team function on quadruple aim outcomes is increasingly robust. The World Health Organization, Interprofessional Education Consortium, National Collaborative for Improving the Clinical Learning Environment, and National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education have developed evidence-based approaches and tools for improving interprofessional collaboration to improve important health outcomes in the clinical learning environment. Embracing the practice as the curriculum and preparing our residency graduates to work within high-functioning interprofessional collaborative practice teams, family medicine has the opportunity to lead the way in demonstrating the value of effective interprofessional practice across health care settings, including virtual teaming, to improve the health of the communities we serve, and across the nation.

Reshaping the Role of Destination Management Organizations: Heritage Promotion through Virtual Enterprises—Case Study: Bresciatourism

Cooperation in tourism is considered crucial for sustainable destination promotion, addressing several opportunities to decrease the level of competition among actors to achieve advantages for all. Global markets force rapid, virtual teaming up and high reconfigurability through heavy reliance on information and communications technology in the pursuit of specific market opportunities for a destination’s heritage promotion. In light of a reshaped destination management organization role, this work focuses on temporary cooperation and adapts the dynamic virtual enterprise model to tourism. A case history in Brescia was examined to support the theoretical construct. The resulting conceptual schema highlights the main features of a virtual enterprise in tourism (VEt), the life cycle stages—qualified by dynamic adaptation—and the leadership role of the destination management organizations. In generating a VEt model, four conditions for effectiveness emerge.

Online lesson study: virtual teaming in a new normal

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how lesson study (LS) can be transitioned to an online mode, with the purpose to derive recommendations for performing online LS while being loyal to the defining elements of a face-to-face LS.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical analysis into the core components and procedures of LS resulted in five big ideas that capture essentials of LS. Using these big ideas, constraints were derived for online LS and a pilot online LS was performed. Data were collected on the process and team members' reflections. The experience in the pilot was mapped against the outcomes of the theoretical analysis.FindingsSetting up close collaboration and the observation of the online lesson appeared to be the most challenging issues. A set of recommendations in the form of do's and don'ts was derived from the experience.Practical implicationsThe set of recommendations can be applied by practitioners who face the challenge of performing LS in an online environment, and can serve as a start for further research in online LS.Originality/valueThe original contribution of the article is the combination of the theoretical analysis of LS combined with the practical experience in the pilot. This gives rise to a framework that can help understanding LS in general and online environments in particular.

Minding the Competency Gap From College to Career

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is proving the development of certain soft skills to be of utmost importance and yet a skills gap is present regarding human-centric competencies and critical thinking capabilities. Fundamental proficiencies such as professionalism and business acumen are even proving to be deficient according to workforce trends, and this may worsen given the new norm of remote campus communities, whereas students will still engage with course content but less so with each other. As such, organizations utilizing online platforms for e-learning and virtual teaming should be mindful of not only the performance of the group but the abilities of participants and the socialization process necessary for aiding in competency development. The stages of group development identified by Bruce Tuckman are useful for reinforcing the application of the proposed principles for successful virtual team leadership by Deloitte. Through the alignment of stages and principles, virtual teams can increase their chances for not only success but competency development.

Virtual Teaming: Leveraging Team Science Sense-Making During COVID-19

Individuals with cancer anorexia cachexia syndrome (CACS) experience multifaceted distress. To address CACS patient concerns regarding their experience of care, our cancer center established a specialized CACS clinic in 2016. We applied the team science principle of the team mental model (TMM) to support development of an effective interprofessional collaborative CACS care team. In 2020, cessation of CACS clinic in-person visits during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatened the viability of the entrenched TMM and once again jeopardized the patient experience of care. We present a case-based vignette as a representative composite of patient experiences to illustrate the challenges. A 48-year-old female was referred to our CACS clinic for pancreatic cancer-associated appetite and weight loss during COVID-19. To reduce risk of infection, in-person clinic visits were curtailed. When informed about the resulting need to defer the CACS assessment, the patient and her spouse expressed concern that postponement would adversely affect her ability to undergo anticancer treatments or achieve beneficial outcomes. To minimize delays in CACS treatment and optimize the patient experience of care, we applied the team science principle of sense-making to help the team rapidly reformulate the TMM to provide interprofessional collaborative CACS care via telemedicine. The sense-making initiative highlights opportunities to examine sense-making within health care teams more broadly during and after the pandemic. The application of sense-making within interprofessional cancer care teams has not been described previously.