The meeting after the meeting: A conceptualization and process model

This article offers initial theorizing on an understudied phenomenon in the workplace: the meeting after the meeting (MATM). As an informal and unscheduled event, the MATM takes place outside managerial control and has potentially far-reaching consequences. However, our current knowledge of the MATM relies primarily on practitioner observations, and conceptual work that integrates the MATM into the larger meeting science literature is missing. This article fills this gap by outlining key defining features of the MATM that can be used to structure future research. Moreover, and based on theorizing concerning the affect-generating nature of meetings, we develop an affect-based process model that focuses on the antecedents and boundary conditions of the MATM at the episodic level and shines light on meetings as a sequential phenomenon

The Relationship between Trait Empathy and Memory Formation for Social vs. Non-Social Information

Background: To navigate successfully through their complex social environment, humans need both empathic and mnemonic skills. Little is known on how these two types of psychological abilities relate to each other in humans. Although initial clinical findings suggest a positive association, systematic investigations in healthy subject samples have not yet been performed. Differentiating cognitive and affective aspects of empathy, we assumed that cognitive empathy would be positively associated with general memory performance, while affective empathy, due to enhanced other-related emotional reactions, would be related to a relative memory advantage for information of social as compared to non-social relevance. Methods: We investigated in young healthy participants the relationship between dispositional cognitive and affective empathy, as measured by Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126, 1983), and memory formation for stimuli (numbers presented in a lottery choice task) that could be encoded in either a social (other-related) or a non-social (self-related) way within the task. Results: Cognitive empathy, specifically perspective taking, correlated with overall memory performance (regardless of encoding condition), while affective empathy, specifically empathic personal distress, predicted differential memory for socially vs. non-socially encoded information. Conclusion: Both cognitive and affective empathy are associated with memory formation, but in different ways, depending on the social nature of the memory content. These results open new and so far widely neglected avenues of psychological research on the relationship between social and cognitive skills.<br

Unpacking the Role of Feedback in Virtual Team Effectiveness

Feedback is a cornerstone of human development. Not surprisingly, it plays a vital role in team development. However, the literature examining the specific role of feedback in virtual team effectiveness remains scattered. To improve our understanding of feedback in virtual teams, we identified 59 studies that examine how different feedback characteristics (content, source, and level) impact virtual team effectiveness. Our findings suggest that virtual teams benefit particularly from feedback that (a) combines performance-related information with information on team processes and/or psychological states, (b) stems from an objective source, and (c) targets the team as a whole. By integrating the existing knowledge, we point researchers in the direction of the most pressing research needs, as well as the practices that are most likely to pay off when designing feedback interventions in virtual teams

Do All Employees Benefit From Daily Networking?: The Moderating Effect of the Affiliation Motive

Networking is a viable career self-management strategy. Most studies so far in the networking domain have focused on long-term consequences and used a between-person trait approach. To address recent calls for more time-oriented approaches in career research, we extend the existing research by conducting a diary study over five consecutive working days (N = 59 employees). Specifically, we examined the within-person relationship between networking and career-related outcomes (i.e., task performance and career optimism). Further, adopting a motivational approach, we investigated whether need for affiliation moderates the daily networking career-related outcomes association. Our findings lend support to the moderating role of the need for affiliation in the relationship between daily networking and both daily task performance and daily career optimism. Our study connects motivation research with networking research by means of a dynamic approach that helps to understand the short-term effects of networking

Stärkung von Verbundenheit und Zugehörigkeit im digitalen Engagement

aus Reflexion und praktische Implikationen: Das Forschungsprojekt soll die Herausforderungen beleuchten, die sich im digitalen Engagement für den Aufbau und Erhalt von Verbundenheits- und Zugehörigkeitsgefühlen von Freiwilligen mit ihrer Organisation ergeben, unterstützende Maßnahmen erarbeiten und ihre Wirksamkeit evaluieren. Als erster Schritt der Problemdiagnose wurde eine Fokusgruppe durchgeführt, deren Ergebnisse zur Entwicklung von organisationsspezifischen Maßnahmen im nächsten Schritt genutzt werden.... Praktischen Nutzen liefert unser Beitrag in zweierlei Hinsicht. Einerseits zeigen die sechs Cluster relevante Herausforderungen im digitalen Engagement auf und können von anderen gemeinnützigen Organisationen als Leitfaden für die eigene Reflexion und Verbesserung der Zusammenarbeit verwendet werden. Aus der methodischen Perspektive hat sich weiterhin die Integration der Concept Mapping Methode in die Fokusgruppe als sehr nützlich erwiesen. Die Kombination beider Ansätze bietet den Vorteil, dass Ideen zu einem Thema sehr individuell und unbeeinflusst von der Gruppe erarbeitet und strukturiert werden, dann im zweiten Schritt aber in der Gruppe diskutiert werden können

Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements

Meetings often dominate software projects. Despite frequent dissatisfaction within meetings, many software engineers are not aware of the crucial importance about their behavior. This can set the tone for the entire project and influence the success. In a study based on 32 student development teams with 155 participants, we observed the participants' interactions during the first internal team meeting. Analyzing the observations showed that constructive remarks had a positive impact on positive group affect tone. However, this effect can only be observed when supportive utterances followed constructive remarks. In the article, we show a complete mediation of this statistically significant effect, e.g., about seemingly subtle interaction patterns that influence group affect tone. We also propose practical interventions on how software projects could benefit from supportive meeting behavior. This summary refers to the article "Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements" [Scl8] published in the Journal of Systems & Software in 2018 (vol. 143). © 2019 Gesellschaft fur Informatik (GI). All rights reserved

Digitization and automation of training and development in organizations: chances, challenges, and application examples

Dieser Beitrag in der Zeitschrift „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)“ gibt einen Überblick über die vielfältigen Digitalisierungs- und Automatisierungsmöglichkeiten, die aktuelle technologische Entwicklungen für die Weiterbildung in Organisationen eröffnen, und diskutiert Chancen und Risken ihres Einsatzes. Um wettbewerbsfähig, effizient und produktiv zu bleiben, müssen Organisationen sicherstellen, dass ihre Beschäftigten sich fortwährend weiterbilden und entwickeln. Die Weiterbildung aller Beschäftigten in allen notwendigen Kompetenzbereichen durch entsprechende Maßnahmen beansprucht jedoch viele Ressourcen. Um diese Ressourcen optimal einsetzen zu können, muss der Kompetenzentwicklungsbedarf der Beschäftigten kontinuierlich und zutreffend ermittelt werden, damit dieser auch durch passende Weiterbildungsmaßnahmen gezielt und adäquat adressiert werden kann. Auch diese übergeordneten Prozesse der Weiterbildung sind ressourcenintensiv. Daher wurde bereits in der Vergangenheit eine Vielzahl von Technologien eingesetzt, um die organisationale Weiterbildung (bspw. durch digital zur Verfügung gestellte Materialien zum Selbststudium) und die damit zusammenhängenden Prozesse durch Digitalisierung effizienter gestalten und verwalten zu können. In diesem Beitrag betrachten wir vor allem die vielfältigen Digitalisierungs- und Automatisierungsmöglichkeiten, die aktuelle technologische Entwicklungen eröffnen, und führen diese – strukturiert am Prozess der Personalentwicklung – mit Beispielen aus Forschung und Praxis aus.This article in the journal “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)” provides an overview of the manifold digitization and automation possibilities that current technological developments provide for training and development and discusses the opportunities and risks of their use. To remain competitive, efficient, and productive, organizations need to ensure that their employees continue to learn and develop. However, training all employees in all necessary competencies requires a lot of resources. To be able to use these resources optimally, the developmental needs of the employees must be determined continuously and accurately so that these can be addressed in a targeted and adequate manner through suitable training and development activities. These administrative processes of training and development are also resource-intensive. For this reason, organizations made use of a variety of technologies in the past to make training and development and the associated administrative processes more efficient and manageable through digitization (e.g., by providing digital learning materials). In this article, we highlight the diverse digitization and automation possibilities that current technological developments offer and illustrate them—structured along the process of personnel development—with examples from research and practice

How Vital are We? Introducing the Team Perceived Virtuality Scale

How Vital are We? Introducing the Team Perceived Virtuality Scal

Development and Validation of the Team Perceived Virtuality Scale

Raw study data, syntax and outpu

The medium isn’t the message: Introducing a measure of adaptive virtual communication

Media use can be considered as an integral part of virtual communication and thus of present-day human interaction. Nevertheless, research on media use and effects still largely relies on laboratory experiments, treating it as a stable input condition, rather than as a function of human appropriation. In this study, we propose a conceptualization of virtual communication as a dynamic construct dependent on media appropriation, particularly of compensatory adaptation processes. Using longitudinal data gathered from 165 individuals, nested in 34 project teams, we explore compensatory adaptation as a function of communication intensity and physical media richness and develop a continuous score of virtual communication accounting for these compensatory processes. Multilevel analyses demonstrate a significant influence of this communication measure on team performance, increasing over time. These results are discussed with regards to their implications for theories of media use and effects and their relevance for real-life communication processes