Interplay between virtual teamworking and trust relationships Dr Joe Nandhakumarumar Department of Management University of Southampton Internet: © Joe Nandhakumar, SEISN Meeting, London, 2000

Virtually collocated teams teamworking is key feature of modern organizations (eg. Hammer, 1997) teams become ‘virtually collocated teams’ as team members dispersed around the world – communicate mainly via Internet media (eg video- conferencing, s, instant messaging and interactive document sharing) – have few opportunities to physically come together to share experiences or reciprocal disclosure (which have traditionally been seen as sources of trust relationships between organizational members).

Research questions How do personal trust relationships [or their absence] influence the effectiveness of virtual teamworking? How do electronic relationships established in virtual teamworking help to produce and reproduce trust relations?

Research Site a large multinational company with operations in over 70 countries virtual teamwork project was initiated to foster collaboration both within & among its business units & between their contractors & partners in joint ventures VT facilities consisted of a high power desktop PC which included desktop video conferencing + scanning facilities + multimedia + groupware + internet/intranet + file transfer applications

Research approach Interpretivism: knowledge is socially constructed Intensive engagement with organizational members Data collection – observations & unstructured interviews with virtual teamworkers – focused on participants of two virtual teams: members of the knowledge management group (early adopters); and managers from a large construction project (Champions)

Results: New forms of relationships

Formation of trust relations temporary teams depend on trust based on abstract structures (eg body of reflexive knowledge) but they actively sought to establish personalized trust relationships for continuous teamworking: “…to start establishing a [trust] relationship I think you do need to have the physical contact more because you have this indefinable thing about relationships and body language and you don’t get it in the same way….. so.. as you do the team building you need to have some physical contact”

Reproduction of trust relationships In the absence of collocation, team members unable to maintain interpersonal relationships interactions enabled by VTPC were seen as inadequate for providing access to the ‘backstage’ activities (eg through socialization processes ) “we are having a global team meeting in two weeks time ….. the big joke is – ‘can’t you do this virtually?’- I say no we can’t do it virtually, we can get so far virtually but until we have a real good drink and a good meal and a good social chat at length we are not going to be a ‘real team’. …. We can then use technology to maintain it [relationship] and obviously its going to slide.”

Implications Theory different conceptualization of the interplay between ‘virtual teamworking’ and trust relationships – trust is a property of both individual organizational members and abstract structures or systems of organizations – trust on abstract systems enables temporary alliances with anonymous specialists to deal with problems and to share documents & expertise online – for continuous teamworking, trust relationships should be actively regrounded in personal relationships with others, rather than relying exclusively on abstract conditions. Multimedia communication technologies is unable to contribute to reproduction and reinforcement of interpersonal trust relationships

Forms of trust relations

Implications Practice need for organizational policies to create conditions for socialization and construct opportunities for active interactions E.g.: 1) provide resources in terms of expertise, time and skills to become effective contributors 2) provide opportunities in terms of autonomy and authority 3) provide motivation to take the practice of good organizational citizenship seriously in terms of performing duties, which they owe to the other colleagues

“We try to have what we call virtual coffee sessions, which were dreadful …. all around the world we tried to get together and have a cup of coffee and sit down and look at each other, and you can't be spontaneous now, you can't do it, you can't force it.”