Mobile Virtual Work A New Paradigm phần 2 pptx

28 Matti Vartiainen 2.6.1 Complexity of tasks In working life, common objectives drive joint efforts and a commitment to their achievement. The goals are autonomously self-defined or set from outside. The content of assignments may vary from routine to problem- solving and creative tasks (Andriessen 2003). At one end, the task is crea- tive and demanding. At the other end, the task is in its simplest form, i.e. work is routine-like. Bell and Kozlowski (2002) claim that task complexity has critical impli- cations for the structure and processes of virtual teams. Simple tasks re- quire less co-ordination and their competence requirements are lower than in the case of complex tasks. The main criterion when selecting support technologies is often the complexity of communication and collaboration tasks. This is underlined in the media richness model (for example Picot et al. 2001), which relates the richness of information content to the complex- ity of tasks. According to the model, the most effective communication is to be found by combining different media to meet the demands of the tasks and by paying attention to the disturbances that result from excessive in- formation and the barriers created by inadequate information. The media richness model has been criticised on the grounds that the fit between task and medium is not a one-to-one relation but falls within quite a wide band of good fit. If the situation falls within this band, performance of the task with the media is not perhaps easy, but can be done with more or less men- tal effort and adaptation processes (Andriessen 2003). Various adaptation mechanisms available are, for example, recruitment, training, or changing the tasks, the context, or the tools. The complexity of the task is the factor that must be known in order to understand why intra-group processes vary from one team to another in practice. It is also beneficial to know from the viewpoint of managing teams, i.e. what kind of support is needed? The influence of task complex- ity is, however, moderated by the context in which tasks are performed. 2.6.2 Complexity of context Tasks are always carried out in some space. Space can be characterised as a context or an environment or a scene where actions take place. Roughly speaking, contexts can be seen as being both physical and psychological or ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’. Each individual exists in a psychological field of forces that determines and limits his or her behaviour. Lewin (1972) called this psychological field the ‘life space’. It is a highly subjective ‘space’ that deals with the world as the individual sees it. ‘Life space’ is 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 29 embedded in the objective elements of physical and social fields. The physical and social conditions limit the variety of possible life spaces and create the boundary conditions of the psychological field. ‘Subjective’ and ‘objective’ elements are not strictly divided, but the context is blended and layered, as analysed in the concept of ba (Nonaka et al. 2000). Today’s working life and the contexts of individuals and groups are combinations of physical, virtual, psychological, social, and cultural working environ- ments. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ spaces are interestingly intertwined in the work and life of mobile employees, while work is more and more done at home, in moving places, and in third workplaces, e.g. hotels, cafés, and meeting rooms. According to Cooper et al. (2002, p. 295): “the decentralisation of work activities and the practice of ‘assembling the mobile office’ on the part of ‘nomadic workers’ entail the simultaneous management of private activities, as when mobile teleworkers coordinate their work life from/at home. ‘Public’ work activities may be drawn into ‘private’ spaces, with a variety of effects on an individual’s home and family life (both positive and negative)”. Dimensions of contextual complexity From the viewpoint of mobile employees working in distributed teams, the complexity of their context or space is described by the following six di- mensions (Fig. 2.6): 1. Location: employees work face-to-face in the same location or they are geographically dispersed in different places. For example, some of the team members or teams in a project work in one place and others in other places. 2. Mobility: employees may be physically mobile and change their work- places or they may stay in a fixed place, working mainly in one location. 3. Time: employees work either synchronously or asynchronously in dif- ferent time zones or sequentially in the same time zone. In addition, they work only for one team or project or divide their time between several teams and projects, doing a part-time job in them. 4. Temporariness: the collaboration of employees and their social structure may be permanent or temporary. Most teams are project teams which have a start and an end to their life cycle. 5. Diversity: the background of employees, i.e. their age, education, sex, nationality, religion, language, etc, is more or less similar or different. 30 Matti Vartiainen Location Mobility Time Temporariness Diversity Mode of interaction Location Mobility Time Temporariness Diversity Mode of interaction Fig. 2.6. The physical, virtual and mental context features of team work systems 6. Mode of interaction: communication and collaboration take place di- rectly face-to-face or are mediated via different media and technological systems in a virtual workplace. The six features can be used to characterise the degree of complexity that mobile team work reflects. They are related to the ba as spaces to work in the following manner: the variables of location (distance, mobility) and time (asynchronity, temporariness) characterise the physical space; the variable of interaction (mediatedness) indicates the virtual space; the vari- able of diversity (differences in backgrounds) shows the potential relations between people as the basis of mental space. Dynamics of contextual complexity dimensions The six dimensions are closely related to and dependent on each other: a change in one of them results in changes in others or in all of them. At one end of the continua (= spot in the centre in Fig. 2.6), there are traditional co-located work groups, such as assembly workers around a production line, and at the other end, there are global, highly mobile virtual teams and projects, such as marketing and sales teams and new product design teams, whose members are constantly moving and may never meet each other face-to-face. In practice, teams and projects are only seldom fully distrib- uted and ‘virtual’ in the meaning of being at the extreme ends of the six dimensions. Next, the dimensions of contextual complexity are discussed from the viewpoints of physical place and mobility. 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 31 Location and mobility Work is always done somewhere, either in a physical, virtual or mental space. Physically dispersed workplaces in a distributed organisation imply that its members may work in the same building but in different rooms and on different floors, or they may work while distributed in different build- ings or districts or even in other countries. Usually some employees are lo- cated in distant places while others work in the main office. As can be concluded, most organisations are physically distributed workplaces. The degree of a team’s or a project’s physical dispersedness or distance as a dimension of contextual complexity can be evaluated and described by answering three questions (Fig. 2.7). First, in how many locations are members of a team or a project, or entire teams in a case of an organisa- tion, working? Second, what types and combinations of places are used for working? Work can be carried out in five different types of physical sur- roundings: at home, in the main workplace, in moving places, e.g. in a train or plane, in other workplaces, e.g. on a customer’s or partners’ prem- ises, and in third working places, e.g. in hotels and cafés. Thirdly, what are the distances of workplaces from each other? Moving on-site in the same building or in nearby buildings and areas is sometimes called micro- mobility and campus mobility. Moving regularly between many places is called multi-mobility, and moving all the time between different sites is called full or total mobility. The more workplaces there are to visit, and the more distant they are from each other, the higher the contextual complex- ity related to the location is. Physical mobility as a contextual complexity factor can be evaluated in the following manner. First, how many places do team or project members visit because of their job? Secondly, how often do they change locations? Thirdly, what is the nature of their physical mobility? This can be de- scribed by using the five categories (Lilischkis 2003): ‘On-site movers’, Yo-yos’, ‘Pendulums’, ‘Nomads’, and ‘Carriers’. The number of places, their distance from each other, and the frequency with which they are changed because of the variety involved in an assign- ment, have an influence on the manner and quality of communication be- tween people (Handrick and Hacker 2002). A classical study (Allen 1977) measuring the frequency of communication of 512 individuals in seven or- ganisations over six months showed that working at a distance of 30 me- tres does not differ from working 3000 kilometres apart in terms of com- munication frequency! Even a small distance matters! 32 Matti Vartiainen Mobility - Number of places (n/person), to visit Location - Frequency of changing places (n/month) - Distance (km) of places from each other -Number(n) of sites -Returning back to permanent workplace (Y/N) - Moving in a restricted area (Y/N) - Recurrence of two places (Y/N) -Moving place (Y/N) -Moving around different places (Y/N) -Type of place: home, main workplace, moving place, other workplace, and third workplace Mobility - Number of places (n/person), to visit Location - Frequency of changing places (n/month) - Distance (km) of places from each other -Number(n) of sites -Returning back to permanent workplace (Y/N) - Moving in a restricted area (Y/N) - Recurrence of two places (Y/N) -Moving place (Y/N) -Moving around different places (Y/N) -Type of place: home, main workplace, moving place, other workplace, and third workplace Fig. 2.7. Location and mobility in mobile, virtual work (n = number, km = kilome- tre, Y/N = yes – no, n/person = number of places an employee visits because of his job, n/month = how often an employee visits workplaces during a month) Time and temporariness Time as a contextual complexity factor manifests itself in many issues (Fig. 2.8) and especially as the degree of synchronous and asynchronous working time. The following indicators and questions are used to clarify time as a contextual factor. First, how much time is used in different places, e.g. how much time is worked at home, in the main workplace, while moving, at a customer’s premises, and in hotel rooms? Second, the time dominance of a workplace, i.e. what is the ratio of move-time to time used in different workplaces? Third, team members’ or teams’ concurrent working time on the same object, e.g. are the team members simultane- ously working on the same document? Fourth, what is the number of team members working in different time zones? Fifth, how many employees are available at the same time? For example, in global teams some team mem- bers are still sleeping while others are working. Temporariness is also an aspect of time and also a complexity factor. It is manifested first as the length of a team’s or a project’s life cycle, i.e. what is the time span of the project? Only a few teams are permanent or- ganisational structures varying from a couple of weeks to some years. Sec- ond, the time each team member or a team devotes to a specific project, i.e. in how many projects is each team member or team involved? The more projects each member has, the less (s)he can invest in one of them. Third, each member’s working time in a team or a project, i.e. is a team member 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 33 working in the team on a permanent basis or is a team involved in a project only in some of its phases? Fourth, the stage of a team’s or project’s life cycle, i.e. has a team’s work or a project just started or is it about to end? Time - Move-time (t/month) -Numberof members available at the same time (n) - Members’ joint working time (t) - Place-time in different places: home, main workplace, secondary workplace, tertiary workplace (t/month) - Number of members in different time zones (n) - Length of team’s or project’s life cycle (t) - Number of each member’s projects (n) - Ratio of place-time and move-time (%) Temporariness -Each member’s w ing time in am (t) - S e of team’s lif ycle Time - Move-time (t/month) ork te tag ec -Numberof members available at the same time (n) - Members’ joint working time (t) - Place-time in different places: home, main workplace, secondary workplace, tertiary workplace (t/month) - Number of members in different time zones (n) - Length of team’s or project’s life cycle (t) - Number of each member’s projects (n) - Ratio of place-time and move-time (%) Temporariness -Each me ber’s w ing time in am (t) - S e of team’s lif ycle tag ec m ork te Fig. 2.8. Challenges of mobile distributed workplaces to collaboration (t/month = how much time is used during a month, % = percent, t = hours, n = number) Temporariness is also an aspect of time and also a complexity factor. It is manifested first as the length of a team’s or a project’s life cycle, i.e. what is the time span of the project? Only a few teams are permanent organisa- tional structures varying from a couple of weeks to some years. Second, the time each team member or a team devotes to a specific project, i.e. in how many projects is each team member or team involved? The more pro- jects each member has, the less (s)he can invest in one of them. Third, each member’s working time in a team or a project, i.e. is a team member work- ing in the team on a permanent basis or is a team involved in a project only in some of its phases? Fourth, the stage of a team’s or project’s life cycle, i.e. has a team’s work or a project just started or is it about to end? Diversity The greater the physical mobility of an employee is, the more likely (s)he is to meet people from diverse backgrounds (Fig. 2.9). To find out the complexity of a team’s or project’s composition, the following questions can be asked: what is the team or project members’ native language, na- tionality, educational background, sex, religion, and age? Employees are 34 Matti Vartiainen also diverse as regards their personality characteristics. This is, however, difficult to analyse without special specific psychological expertise. Fig. 2.9. The diversity indicators in mobile virtual work. (n = number, M/F = man – female) The more distributed an organisation is, the higher the probability is that one will meet different people in mobile work. The members of distributed organisations come from different organisations. In addition, customers, suppliers, and other interest groups are involved in the working network. Each collaborating person brings his own cultural background and habits into the interaction and communication. In a global team, there are differ- ent languages, life experiences, values, norms, and beliefs. There are big differences in age, sex, education, and work experience even in a distrib- uted team in one country. As well team members’ perceptions of time or time visions differ and influence on the teams dynamics and performance (Saunders et al. 2004). Cultural diversity affects team behaviour in many ways. Multicultural teams have potentially higher levels of creativity and develop more and better alternatives to a problem than teams with less cul- tural diversity. Such teams, however, can also have difficulty in develop- ing a task strategy and troubles solving conflicts, creating cohesion, and building trust. Different languages and cultures make communication among team members complex. Mode of interaction In order to overcome temporal, spatial, and organisational disablers, ICT is used both as a means of communication and collaboration and as a collec- tive memory to collect, store, access, and utilise knowledge (Fig. 2.10). Diversity - Age (year) -Sex(M/F) - Religion (n) - Education (n) - Nationality (n) - Language (n) - Individual characteristics Diversity - Age (year) -Sex(M/F) - Religion (n) (n) - Individual characteristics (n) (n) 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 35 Mode of interaction - Communication tools (n) - Collaboration tools (n) - Frequency of use (n/week) - Purpose of use (n) Mode of interaction - Communication tools (n) - Collaboration tools (n) - Frequency of use (n/week) - Purpose of use (n) Fig. 2.10. Communication and collaboration tools in mobile virtual work (n = number) The number of communication and collaboration tools, the purposes for which they are used, and their frequency of use indicate roughly the com- plexity of communication between team members. Physical mobility can be decreased by virtual mobility, i.e. by using and working from afar with communication and collaboration technologies and developing integrated virtual workspaces. The concept of ‘virtuality’ in the context of distributed organisations refers to the sole use of ICT as communication and collabo- ration tools without face-to-face interaction. ‘Virtuality’ in this sense is, however, just one of six features determining the preconditions for work- ing in a mobile virtual team or a project. The central dilemma is: to what extent can electronic media and com- munication and collaboration tools replace face-to-face communication, with all its richness, or is it a question of learning new competences and skills and changing culture so as to overcome the deficiencies of the exist- ing technologies? From the viewpoint of an employee, the challenges of mobile distributed collaborations are, especially, related to two issues: what is the ability and resources of technology to create the feelings of presence and awareness to its users? A shared physical space, such as an open office, provides a rich social environment for employees, which makes it possible to be aware of others’ tasks, activities, locations, inten- tions, and feelings. This awareness helps a team to work efficiently. Interdependence of dimensions The six dimensions that are described above form an inter-related totality. Even the simplest combination of dimensions generates several types of contexts, which describe the variety of demands that different working en- 36 Matti Vartiainen vironments impose on employees. As shown in Fig. 2.11, distance between workplaces increases the need for physical mobility, unless it is replaced by ICT. Complexity also increases when there are a number of places to visit and when the places are often changed. Challenges also arise for the design and development of the organisation. How to co-ordinate work? The relationships of features are very sensitive and fluid, and their balance unstable. If a group and its members are physically mobile, the realisations of the other features are contingent on it. Mobility indicates more loca- tions, an increased number of people to meet, and a greater need to co- ordinate joint actions for collaboration, etc. Depending on the dimensions and their combination, we can speak, for example, about co-located or multi-site teams, permanent or temporary teams, etc. A fully distributed virtual organisation can be described as a specific, “extreme” constellation of the six dimensions. Frequency of changing places Big Small Often Seldom Distance of places Number of places Little Many How to collaborate with diverse persons/teams? How to move from one place to another? How to design and co-ordinate work with others? Frequency of changing places Big Small Often Seldom Distance of places Number of places Little Many How to collaborate with diverse persons/teams? How to move from one place to another? How to design and co-ordinate work with others? Fig. 2.11. Challenges of mobile distributed workplaces to collaboration 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 37 2.6.3 Internal processes of individual and collective subjects The six dimensions of contextual complexity form, in addition to task complexity, a set of activity requirements for mobile employees and teams. The characteristics, features, processes, and actions of individual and col- lective subjects modify the influence of task and context complexities on the performance and outcomes of activity systems. By internal processes a subject can regulate and overcome the external influences. Individual ac- tors may be seen as open systems existing and capable of existing only through processes of exchange with the environment. Rice (1969) described individuals as multi-task systems capable of mul- tiple activities (Fig. 2.12). The activities become bounded and controlled task systems when they are directed to the performance of a specific task and the fulfilling of some specific purpose. Different goals and tasks (T) on different sites (S) require the individual to take different attitudes (A) and roles (R). The roles and attitudes needed on sites S B 2 B and SB 3 B overlap to the extent that they use some, but not all, of the same capabilities of the in- dividual. In contrast, the tasks on site one (S B 1 B) require quite different capa- bilities. As can be concluded, the increasing degree of contextual complex- ity creates pressures for individuals’ mental and physical self-regulation, as well as for collective regulation. In principle, the more distributed and virtual a group or a project is, the more flexibility in its activities it needs. In mobile dispersed teams, getting to know each other’s individual char- acteristics and ‘life space’ is more difficult than in co-located groups. The clarity of common goals and tasks, others’ roles and accountability, etc may be vague. Additionally, knowledge about the practices of communica- tion and information sharing and the availability of technologies for com- munication and collaboration may differ. All this may influence intra- group processes such as co-operation and collaboration, trust, and cohe- sion. It is inevitable that knowledge sharing and mutual learning become more complicated when the task and context complexities increase. In spite of all these challenges, groups and projects should fulfil three functions to be effective (McGrath 1991): the production function, mem- ber-support function, and well-being function. The production function implies that team performance meets or exceeds the performance standard set by clients. The member-support function requires working in a team to result in the satisfaction, learning, etc. of individual group members. The well-being function is related to the degree to which the attractiveness and vitality of a team is strengthened. [...]... ones and can invest more in mobile ICT work On the individual level, mobile ICT at work may favour those with a better education Mobile devices are not easily usable for people with manual disabilities, because screens are small and not easily readable Work- family balance Work intervenes more and more in family life, and in part also vice versa Mobile work appears to place greater strain on families and... Group Research 22 (2) :147–174 Nonaka I, Toyama R, Konno N (20 00) SECI, ba and leadership: a unified model of dynamic knowledge creation Long Range Planning 22 :5–34 Oravec JO (1996) Virtual individuals, virtual groups Human dimensions of groupware and computer networking Cambridge University Press Cambridge Pekkola J (20 02) Telework in Finland: physical, virtual, social and mental speces as working environments... supplementary home-based eWork and all related figures presented in this chapter requires that paid working time is spent at remote locations Definitions, which also include unpaid work- related activities quickly arrive at figures of between a quarter and half of all workers doing work at home (Di Martino 20 01; Ylöstalo 20 03)  62 Karsten Gareis, Stefan Lilischkis and Alexander Mentrup Table 3.5 Multi-locational... multi-national corporation 3 Mapping the Mobile eWorkforce in Europe 53 Table 3.1 Typology of eWork Coordination mechanism Principal/agent intraorganisational Work environment Individualised eWork (away from office premises) Telework in employment relationships eWork at other eWork on site of same company shared office premises (e.g back offices) Collaboration interorganisational intraorganisational interorganisational... mobile work, while workers in Romania, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic are significantly less likely to work in a mobile setting As this analysis shows, there are a number of factors which have a considerable influence on the odds of doing mobile work Most obviously, 3 Mapping the Mobile eWorkforce in Europe 57 occupational category and educational attainment... groupware Understanding and evaluating collaboration technology Springer-Verlag, London Baecker RM (1993) Readings in groupware and computer-supported cooperative work assisting human-human collaboration Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco Bell BS, Kozlowski SWJ (20 02) A topology of virtual teams Implications for effective leadership Group & Organization Management 27 (1):14–49 Byrne JA (1993) The virtual. .. structure, educational attainment, the share of white-collar workers etc Multivariate analysis allows us to single out those Member States, in which country-specific factors seem to account for a high or low share of mobile workers Taking as a reference country France, which has a share of mobile workers, which is close to the EU25 average, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Slovenia have a significantly... presentation of some examples of societal, economic, social, and psychological outcomes and challenges that are related to implementing physically mobile work and using mobile technologies in distributed organisations The observations and conclusions are based on reasoning and partly on a few existing empirical studies concerning mobile work and mobile virtual organisations T Traffic, travelling and the... eWorkers 3.7 2. 4 2. 7 6 .2 2.1 5.7 3.5 4 .2 5.5 1.5 4.1 0.3 0.8 4.9 4.7 4.0 Telecooperation 35.9 37.5 55.8 55.5 25 .9 45.8 12. 6 37.3 35 .2 42. 4 46.7 9.3 21 .2 52. 3 48.9 37.8 3 Mapping the Mobile eWorkforce in Europe 59 Table 3.3 (cont.) USA 32. 1 19.0 5.9 53 .2 Bulgaria 17.5 11.8 1.0 15.6 Czech rep 20 .9 14.6 2. 1 20 .7 Estonia 26 .5 13.7 3.9 31.3 Hungary 19.3 16.8 0.9 12. 7 Latvia 24 .1 14.9 2. 4 20 .3 Lithuania 24 .8... Unweighted average for EU15, CH and USA Source: SIBIS General Population Survey 20 02, Empirica Base: All mobile workers (n = 127 7) 56 • • • • • • Karsten Gareis, Stefan Lilischkis and Alexander Mentrup other factors such as occupation, educational attainment, gender and country, we find that workers with a contract of employment are 68% more likely than the self-employed to do mobile work The fact that the . plethora of mobile applications 2 Mobile Virtual Work – Concepts, Outcomes and Challenges 39 that are available, and the substantial number of companies that have im- plemented at least basic mobile. of a team is strengthened. 38 Matti Vartiainen S 1 E p C r S 2 S 3 T 1 R 1 A 1 A 2 R 2 T 2 A 2 R 3 T 3 S 1 E p C r S 2 S 3 T 1 R 1 A 1 A 2 R 2 T 2 A 2 R 3 T 3 Fig. 2. 12. Individuals as acting. 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