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Commitment manifested in activity: A non-instrumental approach to commitment in virtual teams
Rasmus Eskild Jensen
IT-University of CopenhagenRued Langgaardsvej 7+45 2721 2331
raej@itu.dk
ABSTRACT
We investigate how commitment manifests itself in close collaborative practices of virtual teams. These commitment activities may change dynamically over time and towards different areas. By identifying how commitment is manifested in practice, we can also expand our knowledge on trust in virtual teams. However, we do not propose a causal relationship between trust and commitment in virtual teams, but argue that commitment and trust emerge from practice as dynamic concepts that change over time.
Author Keywords
Commitment, trust, virtual teams, collaboration
ACM Classification Keywords
H.1.2 [User/machine information]: Human factors, human information processing. H.5.3 [Group and Organizational Interfaces]: Computer-supported cooperative work
General Terms
Human factors, Management
INTRODUCTION
This paper is based on our current research on commitment as a collaborative activity in virtual teams. We believe that this perspective is also relevant within the topic of this workshop since it can be argued that there is a strong link between trust and commitment in virtual teams. For instance it has been argued by Jarvenpaa and Leidner ADDIN EN.CITE Jarvenpaa199961[1]616117Jarvenpaa, S.Leidner, D.Communication and Trust in Global Virtual TeamsOrganisation ScienceOrganisation Science241061999[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_1" \o "Jarvenpaa, 1999 #61" 1] that a high commitment towards solving a task, increase the level of trust in virtual teams. Similarly, it has been argued that there is a relationship between trust and affective commitment in virtual teams ADDIN EN.CITE Powell200674[2]747417Anne PowellJohn CalvinGabriele PiccoliAntecedents to team member commitment from near and farInformation Technology and PeopleInformation Technology and People299-3221942006[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_2" \o "Powell, 2006 #74" 2]. Recently, research ADDIN EN.CITE ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA [ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_1" \o "Jarvenpaa, 1999 #61" 1, HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_3" \o "Li, 2008 #73" 3, HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_4" \o "Chung, 2011 #69" 4] has also emphasized the importance of social interaction for trust building. Greenberg ADDIN EN.CITE Greenberg200770[5]707017Penelope S. GreenbergRalph H. GreenbergYvonne Lederer AntonucciCreating and Sustaining Trust in Virtual TeamsBusiness HorizonsBusiness Horizons2007July 2007[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_5" \o "Greenberg, 2007 #70" 5] states specifically that team leaders should also encourage non-task related communication (p. 331). In our research, we have found that individual members of the virtual team perform non-task related communication activities that can be seen as manifestations of commitment. We argue that these activities are driven by individual commitment to specific things in the project and these may affect the level of trust in the team. In this paper we go more into detail of describing these things people are committed to and expand on the notion of collaborative activities. It should be noted that the following argument is still a work in progress but we still hope that this contribution will be constructive for the workshop and its participants.
The question is how we can describe these things and how this type of commitment manifests itself? Now we do not want to create a stakeholder analysis where we say that different stakeholders have different views on commitment, since that type of grouping will not really help us to describe how commitment is manifested. Instead we want to do a relevant social group perspective, where things can be described, as distinct categories by which people are committed to, although various people can be part of each category.
We argue that commitment in virtual teams must be addressed as a dynamic concept that changes constantly unlike the existing instrumental approaches to commitment presented by other researchers ADDIN EN.CITE ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA [ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_6" \o "Chae, 2005 #68" 6-8]. People may change their commitment to specific categories over time due to the dynamic nature of commitment in virtual teams and the categories are not exclusive and henceforth people can be committed to various categories at the same time. Nardi ADDIN EN.CITE Nardi200571[9]717117Bonnie NardiBeyond Bandwidth: Dimensions of Connection in Interpersonal CommunicationComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)91-130142005[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_9" \o "Nardi, 2005 #71" 9] argues that commitment in virtual teams can be manifested in the willingness to be bodily present, such as meeting face-to-face with co-members of a virtual teams. She argues that being physically available in situations where it requires an extra effort demonstrates commitment to other team members ADDIN EN.CITE Nardi200571[9]717117Bonnie NardiBeyond Bandwidth: Dimensions of Connection in Interpersonal CommunicationComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)91-130142005[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_9" \o "Nardi, 2005 #71" 9]. However, bodily presence can be demonstrated in different ways like in travel but also in terms of visibility in IT systems, answering emails etc. In the discussion we will present some examples of collaborative activities that may illustrate different activities where commitment is manifested in practice.
CASE DESCRIPTION
GlobalSoft is a Danish company with approximately 1700 employees in different departments around the world. The majority of the employees are located in Denmark, but they also have locations in India, China and the Philippines. We have observed one specific software development project in GlobalSoft that started in December 2010 and will continue at least until the beginning of 2013. The client of the project is the Danish government and the final product will affect a large part of the public sector as well as private companies in Denmark
DATA COLLECTION
The research began in November 2010 where my colleagues and I held 18 semi-structured interviews lasting an average of 50 minutes with employees at different organizational levels and as such we had the opportunity to compare the perspectives of the corporate vice president with the perspectives of the IT-developers. Analyzing the data material we coded and categorized the interview material in order to establish a systematic overview of the data. Based on this preliminary study, we are now engaged in a work place study conducted in GlobalSoft where we have followed one software development project. It should be noted that the complexity of the project is immense and it has taken a long time to comprehend the basics of what is going on in this particular project. The data collection consists of 45 field observations, 22 interviews, video recordings, documents and internal communication in the project. We have studied the work practices in both Denmark and in the Philippines and we have spent the time almost equally on both sides.
DISCUSSION
In the introduction we proposed that individual members of a virtual team perform specific activities of different shape and size that demonstrates commitment. We have identified individual activities that go beyond what would be normally expected in the project, for instance demonstrated by a willingness to answer emails in Denmark really early in the morning to counter the impact of the time difference. Another example of collaborative commitment activities could be the trust-tour that the Danish project leader did in order to establish a common understanding before a kick-off of the next development phase. He thought it necessary to be physically present in the Philippines before the next development phase because he wanted to make sure that he could trust the quality of work from the Philippine developers. This situation emerged partly because the last development phase had been problematic for the Philippine developers and partly because the project leader had just recently been assigned to the project and therefore he deemed it necessary to meet the developers in person. We propose that this example illustrates how commitment can be manifested in practice. It can also be linked to trust since it exemplifies how an individual act of commitment to the collaboration is closely related to building and maintaining trust in a virtual team.
Another manifestation of commitment was observed during the critical testing of the final software product. It was during a stage of the project where testing was intensified and the project members tried to compensate for a lack of testing earlier in the project. A manager from outside the project was assigned to monitor the testing and she decided to have daily video meetings between the Danish and the Philippine testers. The exceptional thing about these meetings was that they would have the meetings even when they had no specific agenda. Initially this made some of the participants feel a bit uncomfortable in the situation because it was awkward to sit in a meeting with no specific purpose. Despite the preliminary uneasiness from the participants the agenda-less meetings proved to be very useful for allowing the testers to get a feeling of each other and another key point was the fact that local knowledge and people were mentioned and discussed at the meetings, which contributed to a common ground between the Danish and Philippine testers. Similarly to the trust-tour these meetings were an act of individual commitment to the collaboration.
CONCLUSIVE REMARKS
The main point with the paper is to argue that we cannot use an instrumental view on the concept of commitment in virtual teams. People may be committed to their organization or project, however these entities are too abstract and cannot help describe what is really going on. Instead we suggest that commitment is manifested in different ways in the everyday practice. Now we do not argue for or against commitment, but instead, that it does not make sense to think about commitment as something that companies can create and support. Companies create particular institutional contexts with particular regulations and obligations, which may or may not support individuals commitment in different ways. We propose that people are committed to different concrete aspects not to abstract entities such as the project or the organization. When peoples commitment cross or fit into other individuals commitment, this can support the project and make it function despite challenges and complexities. By identifying how commitment is manifested in practice, we can also expand our knowledge on how trust in virtual teams develops. We do not argue for a causal relationship between trust and commitment in virtual teams as recent studies have argued ADDIN EN.CITE Powell200674[2]747417Anne PowellJohn CalvinGabriele PiccoliAntecedents to team member commitment from near and farInformation Technology and PeopleInformation Technology and People299-3221942006[ HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_2" \o "Powell, 2006 #74" 2], but as dynamic concepts that emerge from practice. Perhaps trust in virtual teams shares some of the same characteristics as commitment and must therefore be observed in the everyday practice.
We have investigated how commitment manifests itself in virtual collaborative practices. These commitment activities may change dynamically over time and towards different areas, here described as key categories. We believe that this dynamic approach to commitment is also relevant in relation to trust in virtual teams in the sense that commitment and trust both emerge from practice and can be seen as dynamic concepts that change over time.
BIOGRAPHY
I am a Ph.D. fellow at the IT-university and part of the Next Generation Technologies for Global Software Development research project. I am investigating a global software development project and my main focus is communication and knowledge sharing. I am working within the field of CSCW and IS. I have a master in Digital design and communication and bachelor in political science.
My motivation for participating in this workshop is first and foremost to discuss how trust emerges in virtual teams and how we can observe trust in the everyday work practice of virtual teams. I also hope to share and discuss my argument on commitment and maybe understand how commitment and trust are linked Lastly, I am hoping to meet colleagues and fellow researchers at the workshop.
PUBLISHED WORK
Jensen, R., E., & P., Bjrn (2012): Divergence and Convergence in Global Software Development: Cultural Complexities as Social WorldsinFrom Research to Practice in the Design of Cooperative Systems: Results and Open Challenges, 123-136, Springer, London.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research has been funded by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation under the project "Next Generation Technology for Global Software Development", #10-092313.
I would like to thank my supervisor Associate Professor Pernille Bjrn for help and support.
REFERENCES
[1] Jarvenpaa, S. and Leidner, D. Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams. Organisation Science, 10, 6 (1999).
[2] Powell, A., Calvin, J. and Piccoli, G. Antecedents to team member commitment from near and far. Information Technology and People, 19, 4 (2006), 299-322.
[3] Li, P. P. Toward a Geocentric Framework of Trust: An Application to Organizational Trust. Management and Organization Review, 4, 3 (2008), 413-439.
[4] Chung, Y. and Jackson, S. E. Co-worker trust and knowledge creation: A multilevel analysis. Journal of Trust Research, 1, 1 (2011), 63-83.
[5] Greenberg, P. S., Greenberg, R. H. and Antonucci, Y. L. Creating and Sustaining Trust in Virtual Teams. Business Horizons July. (2007).
[6] Chae, B., Ju, H., Yen, R., Sheu, C. and Information Technology and Supply Chain Collaboration: Moderating Effects of Existing Relationships Between Partners. IEEE transactions on Engineering Management, 52, 4 (2005).
[7] Allen, N. J. and Meyer, J. P. The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63 (1990), 1-18.
[8] Staw, B. M. The Escalation of Commitment to a Course of Action. The Academy of Management Review, 6, 4 (1981), 577-587.
[9] Nardi, B. Beyond Bandwidth: Dimensions of Connection in Interpersonal Communication. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 14 (2005), 91-130.
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CSCW 13, February 2327, 2013, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
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