Social Awareness Differences Between Collocated and Computer Mediated Teams

This paper reports an empirical investigation into differences in team member perceptions of social intelligence, specifically the subcategory of social awareness, in collocated and computer mediated teams. Members of computer mediated and collocated teams completed the Emotional Competency Inventory (ECI) to assess their perceptions of “self” and “other” team members along the ECI dimensions of social intelligence, focusing on social awareness within the present research (Boyatzis & Goleman, 2007). There were significant differences in self perceptions of empathy and social awareness in members of collocated and computer mediated teams. There were significant differences in the team member perceptions of other team members in empathy, organizational awareness, service orientation and social awareness. There were also significant differences in perceptions of how members see themselves versus how their team members see them on these dimensions. These findings have significant implications for the ability of computer mediated teams to form and function effectively in comparison with collocated teams

INCREASING TEAM COORDINATION AND SOCIAL MOTIVATION THROUGH AWARENESS PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY

People working in teams are vulnerable to so-called process losses, which occur when the teams output is less than what could be produced given the capabilities of the team members. Teams can develop practices that provide awareness of each other\u27s activities, thereby enabling them to coordinate activities better and reducing one of these process losses coordination loss. Such awareness is harder to maintain when team members are geographically dispersed, but can be promoted using social computing technologies. We present a framework derived from a case study that identifies drivers of awareness practices in geographically dispersed teams. Our investigation indicates that new awareness practices were developed at times when the teams faced changes in the team\u27s goals, social computing context, physical context, and team structure. The teams developed awareness practices to improve coordination in the teams, but the practices had the added effect of decreasing social motivation losses. Based on these results, organizations that are considering implementing social computing technologies such as life streaming and microblogging are advised to take social motivation into account formulating their implementation strategies. Designers and users of social computing technology are similarly advised to consider latent social motivation effects that might occur in organizational teams when social computing technology and practices are introduced

Activity Awareness as a Means to Promote Connectedness, Willingness to Do Additional Work, and Congeniality: An Experimental Study

People have been shown to exhibit social loafing when working as a team, and these effects are thought to be enhanced when working in distributed contexts. This paper reports on an experiment that examined the effect of activity awareness on feelings of connectedness and willingness to work in virtual teams. The results show that activity awareness indeed had a significant impact on feelings of connectedness and that the relationship between activity awareness and willingness to work was fully mediated by feelings of connectedness. Higher feelings of connectedness and willingness to work were associated with higher feelings of congeniality toward the team, which in turn were associated better team performance. Thus, we suggest that social loafing can be decreased in distributed contexts by reporting the activities of team members

Some Things Are Better Left Unseen: Toward More Effective Communication And Team Performance In Video-Mediated Interactions

By default, most video-mediated communication systems show the user his or her own video feed, yet there is no prior research to show if this helps or hinders communication. In general, virtual teams desire richer media to improve team interaction. However, in this case more information may not be helpful. Drawing on Objective Self Awareness theory in social psychology and theories of cognitive overload from communication, hypotheses are proposed concerning how viewing oneself influences virtual team interaction. It is argued that viewing oneself will lead to lower team performance and other negative outcomes. The hypotheses are tested in a laboratory experiment, manipulating whether participants were able to view their own feeds during video-mediated communication. The results suggest that viewing oneself leads to a reduction in team performance and individual satisfaction. The findings, in terms of several theoretical explanations, and implications for managers and systems designers are discussed in the paper

How Social Media-Enabled Communication Awareness Enhances Project Team Performance

Project teams increasingly rely on computer-mediated communication. In this paper, we propose that communication within these teams benefits from a communication-awareness feature that summarizes communication at one common place. We argue that such a feature pays out specifically during action episodes, when team members engage in taskwork. We conducted two studies of 51 and 35 project teams to examine how the amount of communication during action episodes relates to team performance under low versus high communication awareness. In both studies, we technologically designed communication awareness as the availability of a feed, known from social media platforms, that displays all team-internal, computer-mediated communication. The results show that the communication-awareness feature makes communication during action episodes more beneficial, both in term of effectiveness and efficiency. Zooming into the temporal patterns of communication during action episodes further reveals that high-performing teams in the high-communication-awareness condition stick out by early and steady communication. Implications for current and future research on team communication and awareness support are discussed

Improving Productivity of Hospitality Establishments through Human Relations Skills

This study examines the effect of Human Relations Skills on the productivity of hospitality establishments some hotels in South-Eastern States of Nigeria. The study has six independent variables namely: communication skills, cooperation team work, employee social awareness skills, democratic leadership skills and employee participation skills as the human relations skills and the dependent variable is profitability. The study has six specific objectives and was guided by six research questions and six hypotheses.  In carrying out this study, a sample size of 286 was used.  The data collected were analyzed using simple percentages and frequency distribution tables. The stated hypotheses were tested using Ordinal Logit Regression. The study showed that employee social awareness skills in hospitality establishment significantly affect the profitability of the organizations. The study also showed that cooperative team work, participation in decision making and democratic leadership style affect the profitability of the establishment but not significantly as observed. It was therefore, recommended that every hospitality establishment should train their employees on: proper communication skills, social awareness skills and should have good policy on conflict management skill. Cooperative team work skills, participation in decision making and democratic leadership style should be re-visited and improved upon so that the positive effect will be significantly felt. Keywords: Human relations skills, communication skills, social awareness skills, cooperative teamwork skills and leadership style

Illuminating and applying “The Dark Side”: Insights from elite team leaders

In contrast to socially desirable behaviors, recent work has suggested that effective elite team leadership also relies on socially undesirable behaviors. Accordingly, this study aimed to further explore the authenticity of dark side leadership behaviors, what they look like, and how they may be best used. Via interviews with 15 leaders, behaviors associated with Machiavellianism/mischievousness, skepticism, social dominance, and performance-focused ruthlessness were found. Moreover, these behaviors were enabled by leaders’ sociopolitical awareness and engineering as well as their adaptive expertise. Findings promote practitioner sensitivity to dark side leadership and, for leader effectiveness, sociopolitical and temporal features of its application

Organizational Awareness and Participative Organizational Culture: The Effect on Proactive Behavior and Team Performance

Organizational awareness has an important urgency in moving team performance. Team performance is not only influenced by the way in which job variables are designed and how the team is rewarded economically, is also influenced by various social and psychological variables The purpose of this study was to test the influence of organizational awareness and participative organizational culture on proactive behavior and team performance electronics manufacturers in Central Java. The technique of selecting purposive samples based on criteria of members who have joined in the work team more than six months where there are five electronics manufacturers in Central Java. Based on these criteria there are 266 members who have joined the work team in the production department, quality assurance department, logistics and supply chain management department, marketing and customer service department, and research and development department. Quantitative analysis in this study used IBM AMOS 21 program. In this research, organizational awareness and participative organizational culture has a positive effect on proactive behavior and team performance. The stronger organizational awareness and participative organizational culture will enhance proactive behavior of members to the team shows that members are able to build and maintain harmonious relationships within the team that is a prerequisite for coordination or teamwork that ultimately results in effective, creative, and quality output. The stronger the proactive behavior will increase the team's achievement boost. Proactive behavior in work has an impact in enhancing positive and coordinated synergies resulting in a higher level of performance

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COLLECTIVE AWARENESS BUILDING IN VIRTUAL TEAMS

Collective awareness becomes an important construct in the virtual context. It allows facing problems derived from uncertainty and ambiguity of electronic relationships and virtual environment. Considered as a dynamic concept, collective awareness develops with time and accumulated information exchanged between team members. However, virtual teams have different configurations resulting from different characteristics such as long/short lifespan, homogeneity/heterogeneity of team members, etc. This implies that processes of collective awareness building are different from one configuration to another. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how changing virtuality levels influence the dynamic of collective awareness. After theoretical analysis of both concept of virtuality and collective awareness, the paper present the steps and the results of a qualitative case study. This study compares two types of virtual teams (pure and hybrid) and explain differences found in collective awareness building mechanisms. Results of our study show that in team having short life span and whose members work together for the first time, it is difficult to build collective awareness. However teams having enough time to accomplish work, to exchange social and work related information, and to build personal relationships, can succeed to build a shared understanding of the actions of the others and visibility of their actions

Shaping the future for primary care education and training project. Education and training provision to deliver integrated health & social care: course finder

Within the Shaping the Future for Primary Care Education and Training Project, the literature review concerning integrated health and social care identified a number of implications or recommendations for service and education. For education, these recommendations may be categorised under a number of headings or themes: Team working, Communication, Role Awareness, Practice Development and Leadership,Partnership Working. It would follow that if agencies in the North West are to deliver truly integrated health and social care services, educational curricula across the region should cover these themes. Prior to the Shaping the Future Project there was no simple way of looking across the entire region to gain insights into current education and training provision. One of the core objectives of the Shaping the Future Project was to develop a webbased Course Finder tool and to map existing regional provision of education and training which can support the delivery of integrated health and social care service