Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work

In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and non-native speakers. Although all team members spoke English, different levels of fluency contributed to tensions on these teams. As non-native English speakers attempted to counter the apprehension they felt when having to speak English and native English speakers fought against feeling excluded and devalued, a cycle of negative emotion ensued and disrupted interpersonal relationships on these teams. We describe in detail how emotions and actions evolved recursively as coworkers sought to relieve themselves of negative emotions prompted by the lingua franca mandate and inadvertently behaved in ways that triggered negative responses in distant coworkers. Our results add to the scant literature on the role of emotions in collaborative relationships in organizations and suggest that organizational policies can set in motion a cycle of negative emotions that interfere with collaborative work.

Research in Organizational Behavior Research in Organizational Behavior

ABSTRACT Internationally distributed teams are an ideal context in which to understand the formation, dynamics, and effects of subgroups within work teams. Although the members are interdependent, these teams frequently are composed of two or more collocated subgroups. Researchers have observed a tendency for tensions in such teams to coalesce -and escalate -between these subgroups. In this paper, we identify factors likely to promote and mitigate fracturing between subgroups and consider the impact of subgroup formation on task effectiveness. We build on Throughout history, people have sought to achieve economic and social goods through international collaborations. Although such collaborations were transacted historically by travel and post Recent theoretical work offers a new perspective on subgroup phenomena in teams. To understand subgroup dynamics in internationally distributed teams, we consider how geographic distribution of team members increases the salience of subgroups, and how the alignment of compositional diversity and geographic distribution may make tension between subgroups likely. We posit that ethnocentrism -a bias toward one's own subgroup and against other subgroups -along cultural and geographic faultlines is a natural but detrimental tendency in internationally distributed work and we describe the likely impact on team effectiveness. We also suggest an alternative outcome -cross-national team learning -and a set of moderating factors that we think determine whether subgroup salience results in ethnocentrism or learning. The next section articulates our model of these processes (see FAULTLINES AND SUBGROUP SALIENCE Compositional Diversity and Group Faultlines Compositional diversity in organizational work groups stems from differences in group members' demographic attributes (e.g. ethnicity, age and sex), or other characteristics and affiliations (e.g. education, tenure and hierarchical position). Such differences are associated with people having different worldviews, values, beliefs, goal priorities and norms, which affect how they define situations, see issues, and interact with others (see According to Proposition 1a. The presence in work teams of multiple demographic attributions or other affiliations that are aligned increases the likelihood of subgroup salience. The Impact of Geographic Distribution of Team Members We argue that geographic distribution contributes to faultlines and to subgroup salience within geographically distributed teams. Because of the rise in the use of geographically distributed work groups, social science research has taken a renewed interest in the impact of proximity and distance on work teams (see Proposition 1b. Geographic distribution of work team members results in the salience of subgroups by location. We have argued that differences in demographic attributes and other affiliations tend to result in people having different worldviews, values, beliefs, goal priorities and behavioral norms, and being accorded different amounts of power and status. This leads them to define situations differently, see issues differently, and have different ideologies and political interests. We also have argued that working from different locations increases the likelihood that people will experience different exogenous events, physical settings, constraints and practices, resulting in their having different information, assumptions, preferences and constraints. In other words, both personal attributes and physical location impact preferences and behavior, albeit generally different aspects of these. Therefore when physical dispersion of team members aligns with demographic attributes or other affiliations, the pattern of differences between subgroups is likely to be more pervasive and noticeable. For example, assume we have a product development team split between India and Germany working on a new hand-held computer. If all of the mechanical engineers are in Germany and all of the software engineers in India, subgroups would be more salient than if the two types of engineers