In-group / out-group dynamics and effectiveness in partially distributed teams

When organizations collaborate they often do so using partially distributed teams (PDTs). In a Partially Distributed Team there exist at least two distinct sub-groups. In addition, at least one of the sub-groups has two or more members that are geographically co-located. Co-located members can meet face to face; chat in the hallway; have lunch together; and otherwise socialize with one another. On the other hand, remote members must rely on technology to communicate and work together. This distinct characteristic of partially distributed teams makes them especially susceptible to the In-Group / Out Group dynamic (Huang and Ocker, 2006). This dynamic manifests itself when members of a co-located sub-group treat each other with preference or exhibit a more favorable attitude towards each other than they do towards their remote colleagues. We refer to such behaviors as \u27Us-vs.-Them\u27 and categorize their occurrences. After examining why and how Us-vs.-Them occurs in Partially Distributed Teams, we attempt to understand under which conditions it exists and persists, as well as its relationship to effectiveness. We examine conditions of technology, team configuration, employee motivation, and organizational policies that may reduce Us-vs.-Them, and formulate a model for reduction of Us-vs.-Them and increase of effectiveness. We test our model using a survey instrument distributed to 238 industry professionals. We found support among participant comments confirming the existence of Us-vs.-Them in partially distributed teams and its importance. We also found a strong relationship between Us-vs.-Them and effectiveness. High Us-vs.-Them showed a very high correlation to reduced effectiveness. We found support for the value of technology uniformity between sub-groups as well as technology reliability, for decreasing Us-vs.-Them. And we showed that just as in traditional teams, regular meetings are helpful in partially distributed teams. Although we discuss informally implemented policies that proved to be valuable in partially distributed teams, we discovered that the more formal policies are the more effective type. Other important findings include: Us-vs.-Them is more prevalent in international teams as well as in teams that are composed of two sub-groups only; and when motivated by flexible schedule, work creativity, and challenging work, participants had higher perceived effectiveness ratings. Most prior PDT research was conducted using student teams or case studies of one or two industry teams. A contribution of this dissertation research is collection and analysis of a large sample of industry data. Another important contribution is the isolation of Us-vs.-Them as a dependent variable. Understanding under which conditions it exists is important so that managers can identify it and prevent it from escalating

Matching Process Support Technologies to Learning Requirements:VLab -Virtual Laboratories for Distributed Team Software Development

Organizational work increasingly demands the completion of complex tasks by distributed teams. Traditional college instruction emphasizes measurable, individual learning. In this environment students do not learn the skills needed to perform complex, distributed, team tasks. Current learning approaches must change to meet the needs of the work force of the future. Obstacles to changing traditional learning approaches include: 1.There are few reference models that provide guidance on how to integrate complex team-oriented tasks into the learning process. 2.The physical arrangement of learning is based on scheduled and formal, once-a-week, or twice-a-week interaction among students and instructor. Such an arrangement cannot address the needs of students who must interact on a more frequent, irregular basis, ask the instructor for help when they reach a learning boundary on a complex task, and share project-related information with each other. 3.The usual problems that student teams encounter in finding opportunities to meet are exacerbated for the physically challenged and the growing number of non traditional, urban city students who commute and must work to pay educational expense

Distributed Leadership: A Review of Literature

A review of empirical research studies of distributed leadership from public and private sector settings completed since 1995

Enhancing the Engineering Curriculum: Defining Discovery Learning at Marquette University

This paper summarizes the results of our investigation into the feasibility of increasing the level of discovery learning in the College of Engineering (COE) at Marquette University. We review the education literature, document examples of discovery learning currently practiced in the COE and other schools, and propose a Marquette COE-specific definition of discovery learn-ing. Based on our assessment of the benefits, costs, and tradeoffs associated with increasing the level of discovery learning, we pre-sent several recommendations and identify resources required for implementation. These recommendations may be helpful in enhancing engineering education at other schools

Bringing Global Sourcing into The Classroom: Experiential Learning Via a Global Software Development Project

The growing trend in offshore software development has imposed new skills requirements on collaborating global partners. In the U.S. this has translated into skill sets that include communications, project management, business analysis, and team management. In a virtual setting, these skills take on a complex proportion. This paper describes an educational initiative in offshore software development between undergraduate students enrolled in a project management course at Marquette University, USA and graduate business students enrolled in an Information Systems Analysis and Design course at Management Development Institute, India. The course replicated an offshore client/vendor relationship in a virtual setting. For faculty considering such initiatives, this paper describes the setting and factors critical to success of this initiative and cautions against others that can be detrimental to such an effort

The Co-Principalship: It\u27s Not Lonely at the Top

The coprincipalship has been suggested as an organizational structure that addresses the increasing workload and time demands of the principal as well as the shortage of qualified applicants for the position. This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of coprincipals in public and private schools in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Oregon, and Wisconsin. The participants describe the rationale for the model, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it functions. The coprincipals expressed particular satisfaction at sharing workloads and decision making because they were not isolated as solo leaders. Though the coprincipalship model offers possibilities for making the role of principal attractive, additional information is needed to develop a sustainable model

The relation between school leadership from a distributed perspective and teachers' organizational commitment: examining the source of the leadership function

Purpose: In this study the relationship between school leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment is examined by taking into account a distributed leadership perspective. The relation between teachers’ organizational commitment and contextual variables of teachers’ perceptions of the quality and the source of the supportive and supervisory leadership function, participative decision making, and cooperation within the leadership team are examined. Research Design: A survey was set up involving 1,522 teachers from 46 large secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Because the data in the present study have an inherent hierarchical structure, that is, teachers are nested into schools, hierarchical linear modeling techniques are applied. Findings: The analyses reveal that 9% of the variance in teachers’ organizational commitment is attributable to differences between schools. Teachers’ organizational commitment is mainly related to quality of the supportive leadership, cooperation within the leadership team, and participative decision making. Who performed the supportive leadership function plays only a marginally significant positive role. The quality of the supervisory leadership function and the role of the leadership team members in this function were not significantly related to teachers’ organizational commitment. Conclusions: The implications of the findings are that to promote teachers’ organizational commitment teachers should feel supported by their leadership team and that this leadership team should be characterized by group cohesion, role clarity, and goal orientedness. Recommendations for further research are provided

Exploiting connectedness in the informatics curriculum

The power of modern communication technology gives us an opportunity, as Informatics educators, to enhance our ability to develop our students' skills in virtual teamworking. We discuss why virtual teamworking is as relevant for students in traditional campus-based universities as it is in a distance learning context. We highlight some of the questions to be answered, and some of the problems to be overcome, in the context of our experiences in designing and delivering a virtual teamworking course at the UK Open University