Why has virtual leadership become an important issue for organizations quizlet?

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There are many definitions for both group and team, with most researchers, using the terms interchangeably.

Four our purposes, a group can be defined in general terms as

"two ore more interdependent individuals who influence on another through social interaction.

In this chapter, however, our focus is more specific: we are mainly interested in teams--groups of individuals working toward specific goals or outcomes. The common elements in the definition of a team are as follows:

1. Two or more people,
2. with work roles that require them to be interdependent,
3. Who operate within a larger social system (the organization),
4. performing tasks relevant to the organization's mission,
5. with consequences that affect others inside and outside the organization,
6. and who have membership that is identifiable to those who are on the team and to those who are not on the team.

This definition helps us understand what a team is and is not. For example, mere assemblies of people are not teams. A crowd watching a parade is not a team because the people have little, if any, interaction, nor are they recognized as a team.

A collection of people who interact with and influence each other, such as a soroity or a book club, can be thought of as a general group. When the goals of a group become more specific, such as winning a game, we refer to the group as a team.

Associates often form groups based on their social identities, such as gender identity, racial identity, or religious identity. These groups are referred to as ___________. Individuals belong to many identity groups that are not based on membership in the work organization. (e.g., Hispanic, female, Catholic). Thus, any member of a team is also a member of several identity groups. Effective team performance can be more difficult to achieve when team members belong to different identity groups or when their identification with these groups conflicts with the goals and objectives of the team.

For example, suppose most of the members of a team are white North Americans who prefer a decision-making process in which all arguments are open and group members are encouraged to debate and question each other publicly. Some of the team members, however, identify with the Japanese culture, in which publicly contradicting someone is viewed as impolite. These team members will likely find the team's decision-making process to be uncomfortable and disrespectful, and they may not participate. Thus, team functioning will be impaired.

A _____________ is made up of associates who work together as a team but are separated by time, distance, or organizational structure. The benefits of virtual teams are obvious--they allow people who are physically separated to work together. VIrtual teams, however, have been shown to be less effective than face-to-face teams in many instances.

There are several reasons for this outcome. First, because fewer opportunities exist for informal discussions, trust can be slower to develop among virtual team members. Second, virtual team members rely on communication channels that are less rich than face-to-face interactions. Consequently, misunderstandings are more likely to occur among team members. Third, it is more difficult for virtual teams to develop behavioral norms that are strongly shared. Finally, it is easier for some members to be free riders (those who do not contribute effectively to the team's work), thereby causing frustration among other team members. Thus, it is very important that virtual teams be managed well, because they have a tendency to fall apart if care is not taken to maintain the team.

Research has shown that the effectiveness of virtual teams increases as a function of the number of face-to-face meetings members actually are able to have. Also, virtual teams in which members have a great deal of empowerment (authority to make their own decisions and act without supervision) are more effective than virtual teams with little empowerment.

The impact of empowerment becomes even more important when virtual teams have little face-to-face interaction. Further, virtual teams are more effective when led by transformational leaders. In fact, transformational leadership (involving vision, attention to collective interests, and lofty aspirations) may be more important for the success of virtual teams than for the success of face-to-face teams. This type of leadership facilitates the development of trust, positive team norms, and commitment to the team and team task, each of which is particularly difficult in virtual situations. Finally, virtual teams may perform better when members enhance social relationships by playing on-line games together. (e.g., Scavenger Hunt, Everquest) and when they are taught specific collaboration skills (e.g., active listening, balancing advocacy of ideas with inquiries into what other think of those ideas).

When implemented properly, virtual teams can increase productivity and save companies millions of dolars.

____________________ teams have a great deal of autonomy and control over the work they do. Usually, self-managing teams are responsible for completing a whole piece of work, an entire project, or a significant portion of a product or service delivery process. For example, rather than working only on one part of an automobile, a self-managing auto-assembly team might build the whole automobile or a significant portion of it.

Although a self-managing team typically has formal supervision from above, the supervisor's role is to facilitate team performance and member involvement rather than to direct the team. The members of the team make important decisions that in other types of teams are made by the supervisor, such as assigning members to specific tasks, setting team performance goals, and even deciding the team's pay structure. Team members are also held more accountable for team performance.

Self-managed work teams can lead to many benefits, including more satisfaction for workers, lower turnover and absenteeism, increased productivity, and higher-quality work. These benefits result because members of self-managed work teams are more engaged in their work and more committed to the team. However, the effectiveness of self-managed teams can be thwarted by several factors, including leaders who are too autocratic.

When used properly, teams can yield great performance benefits to organizations. Teams can create synergy for several reasons, including greater goal commitment, a greater variety of skills and abilities applied to task achievement, and a greater sharing of knowledge.

However, teamwork can also lead to poorer performance than individuals working alone. In addition to performing their regular work-related tasks and achieving organizational goals, team members must also deal with an interpersonal probelms that arise, overcome the propensity to be lazy that some individuals might exhibit, coordinate tasks between.among individuals, and implement effective communication within the team. This extra "teamwork" can be quite substantial and can produce a significant process loss, which is the difference between actual and potential team performance. If teams are not able to achieve synergy, less positive outcomes will result.

To ensure that the benefits of teamwork outweigh the costs that occur from it, teams must be structured and managed properly. Literally thousands of studies in almost every type of organizational context have examined factors that influence team effectiveness. We focus on three factors; team composition, team structure, and team porcesses.

Many studies have examined the relationship between team size and team performance, and two lines of thought have emerged based on the research.

The first suggests that the relationship between team size and team performance is shaped like an inverted U. As teams become larger, the diversity of skills, talents, ideas, and individual associate inputs into the task is greater, leading to improved performance. however, as the number of team members continues to increase, the difficulty of ensuring cooperation and coordination also increase. At some point, the effort that goes into managing the team outweighs the benefits of having more members, and team performance begins to decline.

The second idea suggests that performance increases linearly with team size without ever showing a downturn. This linear relationship, however, most likely results when a team finds a way to avoid the problems associated with too many members, such as social loafing, poor coordination, and worsening communication. Thus, the actual relationship between team size and performance probably depends on team skill at process management, and it also no doubt depends on factors such as the scope of the task or the complexity of the environment. When task scope and environmental complexity are high, more team members are needed for task accomplishment and strong performance.

Overall, there is no single ideal number of team members for all situations.

Refers to the ongoing means of formal coordination. How tasks are grouped is one key issue. For example, consider a bank with a loan department and a collection department (each department can be considered a team). One department is assigned tasks related to making loans, such as credit analysis, interest computation, loan closing, and filing. These are somewhat dissimilar tasks, but they form a sequential chain related to the lending process--loans cannot be closed until credit analysis has been performed and interest computed. Thus, grouping the tasks in one department under one leader makes sense. The other department is assigned phone collections, field collections, and repossessing tasks. These tasks are less sequential but they are very similar to one another. Task similarity is another basis for grouping tasks under one leader.

Beyond grouping together tasks and the individuals assigned to them, it is necessary to use additional structural methods to coordinate the efforts of individuals within a particular team. Otherwise, tasks may not be performed in the best manner possible, and employees may duplicate their efforts or work against each other. Important aspect of team structure include roles, norms, and task structure.

____________ has been shown to be an important determinant of how teams function and perform. Several typologies have been proposed for categorizing tasks. One of the most popular typologies emphasizes the following: (1) whether tasks can be separated into subcomponents, (2) whether tasks have quantity or quality goals, and (3) how individual inputs are combined to achieve the team's product.

First, then, we consider whether ta task can be broken down into parts. Tasks such as playing baseball, preparing a class project, and cooking a meal in a restaurant are divisible tasks, because they can be separated into subcomponets.

Thus different individual associates can perform different parts of the task. Unitary tasks cannot be divided and must be performed by a single individual. Examples of unitary tasks are reading a book, completeing an account sheet, and talking to a customer on the phone. If a particular goal or mission requires the completion of unitary tasks, it may not be advantageous for a team to complete the mission.

Occur when team members disagree about policies and procedures. That is, they disagree on how to work together. For example, a member of a virtual team may believe that the correct way to work as a team is to check in by e-mail with other members at least twice a day. Furthermore, he may believe that team members immediately to such e-mails. Other team members, however, may believe that checking in so frequently is a waste of time and may want to contact others only when necessary. Group norms develop as a way to avoid procedural conflicts. Teams may also develop specific policies or rules to avoid conflicts of this kind.

Depending on the specific type, conflict can have negative or positive consequences for team effectiveness. On the one hand, personal conflict tends to be negative because it interferes with cooperation and a healhty task focus. On the other hand, substantive conflict can be positive, particularly for tasks involving creativity and innovation. This type of conflict generates multiple ideas and sets the stage for the best ones to be to be emphasized. Openly confronting and discussing the different task ideas is important, however. Ignoring differences of opinions is less helpful.

Overall, substantive conflict can be beneficial when teams cooperatively problem solve, develop positive norms, and create a consistent team mental model. Effective leadership as well as strong team orientations among team members help to create these beneficial circumstances. Procedural conflict has been studies as often as the other two types of conflict, but it seems to have negative effects if not adequately addressed.

Research suggests that the simple act of grouping individuals together does not necessarily increase their total output; in fact, people working together on a common task may actually perform at a lower level than they would if they were working alone. This phenomenon is called ________ or shirking, and it can obviously result in serious losses. There are three primary explanations for the social loafing effect.

First, if individual outputs are not identifiable, associates may shirk because they can get away with poor performance. Second, if associates when working in teams, expect their teammates to loaf then they may reduce their own efforts to establish an equitable division of labor.

In this case, individual team members do not have a team identity and place their own good (working less) over the good of the team. Finally, when many individuals are working on a task, some individuals may feel dispensable and believe that their own contributions will not matter. This is likely to happen when individuals think that they have low ability and cannot perform as well as other team members.

Social loafing can occur in any team at any level in an organization. And because social loafing clearly results in lower performance, it is a serious problem. At the least, when social loafing occurs, the organization's human capital is underutilized. Fortunately, managers can use several methods to address this problem. First they can make individual contributions visible. This can be accomplished by using smaller rather than larger teams, using an evaluation system where everyone's contributions are noted, and/or appointing someone to monitor and oversee everyone's contributions. The second thing that can be done is to foster team cohesiveness by providing team-level rewards, training members in teamwork, and selecting "team players" to be on the team.

Team members must communicate to effectively coordinate their productive efforts. Task instruction must be delivered, results must be reported, and problem-solving discussions must take place. Because communication is crucial, teams create many formal communication processes, which may include formal reports (such as profit- and loss- statements), work schedules, interoffice memoranda, and formal meetings.

But informal communication also is necessary. Associates need and want to discuss personal and job-related problems with each other. Informal communication is natural consequence of group processes. The effectiveness and frequency of communication are affected by many of the same factors that lead to group formation. For example, frequency of communication is partially the result of the opportunity to interact. People who share the same office, whose jobs are interconnected, and who have the same working hours are likely to communicate more frequently. Thus, the opportunity to interact leads to both group formation and frequent communication. This is why virtual teams are more likely to be effective when they occasionally have more face-to-face interaction.

In addition to task performance, communication frequency and effectiveness are related to team member satisfaction, particularly in cohesive teams. Increased communication enhances team members' satisfaction with their membership on the team. Also, communication becomes more rewarding as team membership increases in importance and satisfaction to associates. Thus, communication is both a cause and a consequence of satisfaction with the team.

Most teams experience some sort of end. Individual members may leave, or the team may be formally disbanded when its mission has been accomplished. Thus, teams ultimately go through a fifth stage, ___________, when individuals begin to leave the team and terminate their regular contact with other team members.

Adjourning can result from volunatry actions on the part of team members, as when individual take jobs with other organizations or retire. It can also result from actions over which team members have little control, such as reassignments by the parent organization or the end of a project. When several members of a cohesive team leave in a short period of time, the remaining members often experience feelings of loss, and the team becomes less cohesive and less structured, until it no longer exists, unless new members replace the members who have left. In this instance, the team is similar to a new team, and the process of team development is likely to begin again.

If people are to work together effectively as a team, they must be rewarded as a team. Team members have little motivation to engage with and support one another if they are rewarded only for individual performance. Thus, it is important that the reward system for teams have multiple components, some of which reflect team performance and some of which reflect individual performance.

Gain sharing at the team-level is one type of reward system for teams, where gains is efficiency or quality lead to financial rewards. overall, the stronger the interdependence among team members (e.g., disjunctive tasks), the greater the team-based compensation should be. Furthermore, if the teamwork requires cross-functional work and knowledge, team members may receive skill-based or knowledge-based pay. Such pay is determined by the skills and knowledge associates acquire rather than by how they perform on specific tasks. Finally, team-based pay should be provided only for those aspects of performance under the team's control.

A team's internal leadership is crucial for the effectiveness of the team. Team leaders can naturally emerge, or they can be assigned based on special skills or authority. Successful team leaders must fulfill three roles.

The first role, team liaison, requires the leader to network with information sources both inside and outside the team, creating a bridge bewteen the two. Outside sources include suppliers, clients, customers, other teams, and higher levels of management. In the liaison role, a team leader also acts as a representative of the team and watches out for the team's interests. In essence, the team leader connects the team to the outside world.

The existence of thousands of team training programs and methods, speaks to the critiality of adequate training. Team training generally focuses on four different types of skills (1) interpersonal skills, especially communication, supportiveness and trust; (2) problem-solving skills, which allow team members to identify problems, generate solutions, and evaluate solutions; and (3) goal-setting skills, and (4) role-clarification skills, which allow members to articulate role requirements and responsibilities.

A great deal of research has been done on the effectiveness of team training in improving team performance. This research show that training has positive but somewhat weak effects on performance outcomes while having stronger positive effects on team members' evaluations of their team. We should not that most of this research has been conducted on intact teams whose members had considerable experience working together. As a result, these teams had existing structures, roles, and norms, which probably made them more difficult to change. Training is likely to have a greater impact on the performance of newly formed teams.