Dispersed Team Dynamics, Article Reviews - Essay Example

Dispersed Team Dynamics: Article Reviews Article Knowledge integration in virtual teams: The potential role of KMS’ is a scholarly paper written by Maryam Alavi and Amrit Tiwana. The authors indicate that today managements consider virtual teams as a potential mechanism for harnessing, integrating, and applying knowledge that is spread across organizations and collaborative networks. They argue that even though knowledge application – one among the three phases of knowledge management – contributes significantly to value creation, it has not received a reasonable research attention. In this research paper, Alavi and Tiwana (2002) identify four crucial challenges to knowledge integration in virtual team environments such as “constraints on transactive memory, insufficient mutual understanding, failure in sharing and retaining contextual knowledge, and inflexibility of organizational ties” (pp.1032-1034). The writers believe that these challenges would threaten the performance efficiency of virtual teams and propose some knowledge management system (KMS) approaches to tackle the situation. Finally, they recognize a promising scope for future researches in this area. While analyzing the strengths of the concepts presented in this paper, it seems that this scholarly article focuses on the significance of knowledge application in knowledge management whereas the previous researchers pay little attention to this aspect. In this scholarly article, the authors point that organizations that perform outstandingly at knowledge application are inherently efficient at converting their intellectual capital into innovative products and services continuously. They support the previous research finding that knowledge application is the key determinant of value creation. In addition, the writers identify knowledge integration as the key factor of knowledge application. Although the researchers mention the critical role of knowledge application in knowledge management, they failed to address this concept in a broader sense. Another limitation of the paper is that the KMS approaches proposed to address knowledge integration challenges of virtual teams are not detailed adequately. Despite those minute limitations, this research paper seems to be potentially effective at identifying the key challenges to knowledge integration in virtual team environments. In this scholarly article, Alavi and Tiwana state that organizations can influence knowledge integration in three ways such as directives, routines, or self-contained task teams. They add that self-contained task teams or self-managing teams are arguably the most important mechanism for influencing knowledge integration in virtual teams. Alavi and Tiwana state that under this approach, self-managing teams provide a potential mechanism for knowledge integration for complex and nonroutine organizational tasks, particularly in the managerial scenarios where task uncertainty, novelty, and complexity become barriers to the use of existing routines or directives (p.1031). The concept of self-imaging teams is related to the previously discussed course concepts such creating the culture of trust and camaraderie in virtual teams and building collaborative workplace relationships. A team culture of trust is vital to promote self-managing teams while a collaborative workplace relationship is inevitable to achieve knowledge integration for complex and nonroutine organizational functions. The principles discussed in this research article are of great value in managing dispersed work teams. This scholarly paper makes it clear that facilitating knowledge integration in virtual team environments is really important to improve the operational efficiency of dispersed teams. In other words, effective knowledge integration may assist dispersed teams to efficiently tap into highly distributed sources of organizational knowledge. The article writers say that directives, routines, and self-contained task teams are three crucial approaches that could be adopted by organizations to facilitate knowledge integration in dispersed teams. Another important aspect of this research work is that it provides a clear view of the challenges to knowledge integration, and therefore organizations can prepare to address those challenges and to enhance the efficacy of virtual team management. Finally, the authors suggest some knowledge management system approaches to overcome the challenges to knowledge integration in virtual team environments effectively. This article is really helpful for trainers and consultants to deal with dispersed team development in an efficient manner. Undoubtedly, the challenges to knowledge integration described in this paper would really benefit trainers/consultants to be aware of the potential threats to managing dispersed teams. Most of those challenges could be addressed effectively if the team leaders possess potential managerial skills and capabilities. Therefore, the ideas discussed in this article can assist trainers to identify and resolve predictable challenges in managing dispersed teams. Similarly, the writers provide separate sets of recommendations to address each of the four challenges to knowledge integration. Hence, trainers/consultants may use these proposed solutions in future to accomplish effective integration of knowledge and improve the overall performance of the virtual team. Finally, they can try to set up modular organizational ties among the team members in order to take advantages of richer opportunities for multitudinous knowledge integration. Article 2 ‘Improving communications in virtual teams’ is a white paper written by Jared Z. Ferrell and Kelsey C. Herb and published as part of SIOP white paper series. In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of fostering communication in virtual teams so as to achieve better performance efficiency and improved operating outcomes. Ferrell and Herb reflect that enhanced communication is a crucial element determining the success of any team, specifically a virtual team. They add that strong interpersonal communication is the key to deliver valuable outcomes such as high level trust, commitment to the workgroup and organization, shared expertise, and ultimately better performance. The writers claim that communicative relationships between individuals within a company is a crucial factor influencing organizational functioning because such relationships can lead to the dissemination of valuable information and expertise that in turn would facilitate great overall performance. They suggest virtual teams to give particular focus to the aspect of communication so as to foster a team culture of trust and to enhance shared work. When it comes to the strengths of the concepts presented in this white paper, it is identified that all the key ideas discussed are potential to strengthen communication relationships in virtual teams. The authors explain how the advancements in the technological landscape add value to these communicative relationships. They also demonstrate the significance of communication networks in virtual teams and how the vital relationships among individuals lead to the development of these networks. In addition, this paper identifies the major factors affecting knowledge sharing in virtual teams. The researchers also recognized some potential barriers to this knowledge sharing in order to assist virtual team managers to be alerted of those issues. One of the major limitations of this paper is that the element of communication discussed in some parts does not give proper emphasis to the structure and scope of dispersed teams. This white paper specifically reflects that trust in other team members is at the core of all models of knowledge sharing within virtual teams. Since virtual teams are more vulnerable to mistrust than face to face teams, the situation becomes a potential barrier to knowledge sharing between the members of dispersed teams. Referring to the concepts discussed in the previous course paper, this issue of mistrust can be eliminated by establishing trust and strong interpersonal relationships in dispersed teams. In the previous paper, a number of key ideas were discussed to promote collaborative workplace relationships and to foster a culture of trust in virtual teams. In this white paper, Ferrell and Herb (2012) indicate that there are several reasons for the issue of mistrust to emerge in the early phases of virtual team formation, including “lack of formal introduction to team members, lack of geographical proximity of certain members to others, and the fear of having comments unduly criticized by other team members with whom one has not had the opportunity to build an in-person relationship” (Ferrell & Herb, p.2). These problems have also been addressed in the previous course works. This paper establishes some key principles to improve the overall operational efficiency of virtual teams. The authors reflect that communication networks constitute the channels of interpersonal contact through which information is shared within an organization or workgroup. According to them, three crucial factors including trust in team members, leadership, and the nature of communication technology employed affect knowledge sharing in virtual teams. This white paper suggests virtual team leaders to eliminate the issue of mistrust so as to develop a highly communicative environment that facilitates knowledge sharing. Face to face orientation meetings are recommended as a potential approach to promote trust in dispersed teams as this strategy encourages the recognition of team members as trustworthy individuals. The writers emphasize the fact that trust is very crucial to encourage team members to communicate with one another openly. Another key finding of this white paper is that leadership is inevitably essential to facilitate knowledge sharing within virtual teams. The concepts discussed in this article could be utilized by trainers/consultants to deal with project management, dispersed team development, or team member training. Mainly, this paper would help them identify the significance of communicative relationships within virtual teams in facilitating knowledge sharing. In addition, the article would keep virtual team trainers aware of the importance of promoting trust in virtual teams so as to foster open communication in the workgroup. Finally, the consultants would be kept informed of the leadership roles that have a crucial role to play in encouraging knowledge sharing within virtual teams. References Alavi, M & Tiwana, A. (2002). Knowledge integration in virtual teams: The potential role of KMS. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53 (12), 1029-1037. Ferrell, J. Z & Herb, K. C. (2012). Improving Communication in Virtual Teams. SIOP White Paper Series. Retrieved from http://www.siop.org/WhitePapers/Visibility/VirtualTeams.pdf Read More