Leading a team through challenges:resilience in virtual teams

Abstract. As the use of virtual teams in organizations is expected to only grow in the future, along with the continuous challenges in today’s hectic and competitive business environment, the team’s ability to withstand and overcome tough situations, in other words team resilience, becomes a crucial part of every team’s success. This study was carried out as a qualitative case study and it aims to explore how different parts of resilience appear in the context of virtual teams from the leader’s perspective, as well as the actions that occur by the virtual team leader in situations that require team resilience. The participants of this study were nine virtual team leaders who use communication technology to coordinate teamwork and to collaborate with team members in a team where some or all of members work remotely and cannot collaborate in real-time or face-to-face all the time. The data was collected with web-based online questionnaire and the data analysis was made by using a qualitative theory-oriented content analysis. The results of this study identified the parts of resilience that occur in virtual teams. Especially diversity and nonverbal communication had a lot of variation within teams of this study, but every team compensates the lack of nonverbal communication with other communication methods. Besides communication, trust and flexibility seem to be resilience-enhancing factors for almost every team. The resilient practices were investigated in relation to Alliger’s theory, and this study shows how communication is the most used tool in building virtual team resilience, and the usage of it succeed mostly in minimizing (before adversity) and mending (after adversity) phases. In ongoing adversity, communication reduces and causes stress for virtual teams. Besides communication, virtual teams use positive adaption and shared understanding to handle adversities, whereas cohesion and problem solving strategies were the least mentioned dimensions. These results create an in-depth knowledge about a relatively new and unexplored topic. Instead of generalizing the findings, the aim is to objectively explore a smaller amount of virtual team leaders who gave insights about how virtual team resilience appears in their teams. By identifying the main enhancing factors related to virtual team resilience, the leader can improve these features and lead their team to success. The results are applicable for organization’s management who use communication technologies to collaborate with team members and who seek to enhance virtual team resilience, as well as for organizations aiming to develop interaction and leadership models or educators working with e-learning

Virtual teamwork:features of effective teamwork

Abstract. Nowadays organizations rely more and more on distance working and virtual teams. The aim of this study is to identify the characteristics of effective virtual teamwork and to provide a wide view on what a team is, how it is defined, which are the enabling factors for successful distance teamwork and what are the benefits of virtual distance teamwork. This thesis is a qualitative study and was conducted as a systematic literature review. Data is collected both from University of Oulu Nelli portal and The University of Melbourne Discovery Database and studies up to 15 years old are approved. Based on the results, teams are open and complex systems where the personalities, level of expertise and current cognition of the team members modify the team building, learning and working. High team resilience in virtual teams allows teams to cope through multiple tasks and is also directly connected to the outcome and effectiveness of team working. Literature describes team learning as essential for team working, and it can be enhanced via shared understanding and communication. A good team consists of members who are willing to cope with others: all other team building blocks are unnecessary if members are not able to collaborate. The most important role of the leader is to motivate and divide clear tasks and roles to virtual team members. There are multiple benefits in virtual distance teamworking, e.g. we will show that job satisfaction and productivity may increase when work can be done regardless of time and space. These results suggest that among other things, basic team learning, resilience and effective communication help to build trusting and effective virtual working teams. This data supports the view that it is possible for teams to work even cross-culturally without seeing each other by using only electric technology. Digitalisation enables effective communication and sharing, which in turn helps to build trust among members — even if they will never see each other face-to-face

Alcohol consumption and metabolic syndrome : Clinical and epidemiological impact on liver disease

Alcohol use and metabolic syndrome are highly prevalent in the population and frequently co-exist. Both are implicated in a large range of health problems, including chronic liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, and liver-related outcomes (i.e. decompensation or liver transplantation). Studies have yielded mixed results regarding the effects of mild-moderate alcohol consumption on the risk of metabolic syndrome and fatty liver disease, possibly due to methodological differences. The few available prospective studies have indicated that mild-moderate alcohol use is associated with an increase in liver-related outcomes. This conclusion was substantiated by systems biology analyses suggesting that alcohol and metabolic syndrome may play a similar role in fatty liver disease, potentiating an already existing dysregulation of common vital homeostatic pathways. Alcohol and metabolic factors are independently and jointly associated with liver-related outcomes. Indeed, metabolic syndrome increases the risk of liver-related outcomes, regardless of alcohol intake. Moreover, the components of metabolic syndrome appear to have additive effects when it comes to the risk of liver-related outcomes. A number of population studies have implied that measures of central/abdominal obesity, such as the waist-to-hip ratio, can predict liver-related outcomes more accurately than BMI, including in individuals who consume harmful quantities of alcohol. Many studies even point to synergistic interactions between harmful alcohol use and many metabolic components. This accumulating evidence showing independent, combined, and modifying effects of alcohol and metabolic factors on the onset and progression of chronic liver disease highlights the multifactorial background of liver disease in the population. The available evidence suggests that more holistic approaches could be useful for risk prediction, diagnostics and treatment planning. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Association for the Study of the Liver. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Small spatial variability in methane emission measured from a wet patterned boreal bog

We measured methane fluxes of a patterned bog situated in Siikaneva in southern Finland from six different plant community types in three growing seasons (2012-2014) using the static chamber method with chamber exposure of 35 min. A mixed-effects model was applied to quantify the effect of the controlling factors on the methane flux. The plant community types differed from each other in their water level, species composition, total leaf area (LAI(TOT)) and leaf area of aerenchymatous plant species (LAI(AER)). Methane emissions ranged from -309 to 1254 mg m(-2) d(-1). Although methane fluxes increased with increasing peat temperature, LAI(TOT) and LAI(AER), they had no correlation with water table or with plant community type. The only exception was higher fluxes from hummocks and high lawns than from high hummocks and bare peat surfaces in 2013 and from bare peat surfaces than from high hummocks in 2014. Chamber fluxes upscaled to ecosystem level for the peak season were of the same magnitude as the fluxes measured with the eddy covariance (EC) technique. In 2012 and in August 2014 there was a good agreement between the two methods; in 2013 and in July 2014, the chamber fluxes were higher than the EC fluxes. Net fluxes to soil, indicating higher methane oxidation than production, were detected every year and in all community types. Our results underline the importance of both LAI(AER) and LAI(TOT) in controlling methane fluxes and indicate the need for automatized chambers to reliably capture localized events to support the more robust EC method.Peer reviewe

Insulin Resistance and Genetic Risk Predict Liver-Related Outcomes and Death in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

A pathophysiologic risk score consisting of insulin resistance and genetic risk predicts incident liver outcomes in NAFLD. Such scores may represent a viable strategy for risk stratification in NAFLD.Non peer reviewe

Substantial fat mass loss reduces low-grade inflammation and induces positive alteration in cardiometabolic factors in normal-weight individuals

( )The accumulation of fat, especially in visceral sites, is a significant risk factor for several chronic diseases with altered cardiometabolic homeostasis. We studied how intensive long-term weight loss and subsequent weight regain affect physiological changes, by longitudinally interrogating the lipid metabolism and white blood cell transcriptomic markers in healthy, normal-weight individuals. The current study examined 42 healthy, young (age: 27.5 +/- 4.0 years), normal-weight (body mass index, BMI: 23.4 +/- 1.7 kg/m(2)) female athletes, of which 25 belong to the weight loss and regain group (diet group), and 17 to the control group. Participants were evaluated, and fasting blood samples were drawn at three time points: at baseline (PRE); at the end of the weight loss period (MID: 21.1 +/- 3.1 weeks after PRE); and at the end of the weight regain period (POST: 18.4 +/- 2.9 weeks after MID). Following the weight loss period, the diet group experienced a similar to 73% reduction (similar to 0.69 kg) in visceral fat mass (false discovery rate, FDR <2.0 x 10(-16)), accompanied by anti-atherogenic effects on transcriptomic markers, decreased low-grade inflammation (e.g., as alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein (FDR = 3.08 x 10(-13)) and hs-CRP (FDR = 2.44 x 10(-3))), and an increase in functionally important anti-atherogenic high-density lipoprotein -associated metabolites (FDR <0.05). This occurred even though these values were already at favorable levels in these participants, who follow a fitness-lifestyle compared to age- and BMI-matched females from the general population (n = 58). Following the weight regain period, most of the observed beneficial changes in visceral fat mass, and meta bolomic and transcriptomic profiles dissipated. Overall, the beneficial anti-atherogenic effects of weight loss can be observed even in previously healthy, normal-weight individuals.Peer reviewe

An overview of the European health examination survey pilot joint action

Background Health Examination Surveys (HESs) can provide essential information on the health and health determinants of a population, which is not available from other data sources. Nevertheless, only some European countries have systems of national HESs. A study conducted in 2006-2008 concluded that it is feasible to organize national HESs using standardized measurement procedures in nearly all EU countries. The feasibility study also outlined a structure for a European Health Examination Survey (EHES), which is a collaboration to organize standardized HESs in countries across Europe. To facilitate setting up national surveys and to gain experience in applying the EHES methods in different cultures, EHES Joint Action (2010-2011) planned and piloted standardized HESs in the working age population in 12 countries. This included countries with earlier national HESs and countries which were planning their first national HES. The core measurements included in all surveys were weight, height, waist circumference and blood pressure, and blood samples were taken to measure lipid profiles and glucose or glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c). These are modifiable determinants of major chronic diseases not identified in health interview surveys. There was a questionnaire to complement the data on the examination measurements. Methods Evaluation of the pilot surveys was based on review of national manuals and evaluation reports of survey organizers; observations and discussions of survey procedures during site visits and training seminars; and other communication with the survey organizers. Results Despite unavoidable differences in the ways HESs are organized in the various countries, high quality and comparability of the data seems achievable. The biggest challenge in each country was obtaining high participation rate. Most of the pilot countries are now ready to start their full-size national HES, and six of them have already started. Conclusions The EHES Pilot Project has set up the structure for obtaining comparable high quality health indicators on health and important modifiable risk factors of major non-communicable diseases from the European countries. The European Union is now in a key position to make this structure sustainable. The EHES core survey can be expanded to cover other measurements