Vuorovaikutus, viestintäteknologia ja identifioituminen hajautetuissa tiimeissä

Abstract

Työnteko eri toimipisteisiin tai maihin hajautuneissa tiimeissä on arkipäivää monissa organisaatioissa. Tällaisissa työryhmissä jäsenten viestinnällä on keskeinen merkitys tiimi-identiteetin rakentamisessa, toteaa Anu Sivunen. Sivunen tutki väitöskirjassaan eri toimipisteisiin tai maihin hajautuneiden tiimien viestintää haastattelemalla tiimien jäseniä ja havainnoimalla heidän vuorovaikutustaan erilaisten viestintävälineiden kautta. Tiimit käyttivät hajautettuun työskentelyyn paljon sähköpostia ja puhelinta, mutta myös pikaviestimet ja erilaiset sähköiset keskustelufoorumit ovat yleistyneet selvästi.

The goal of this study is to explore team members’ social interaction, communication technology use and identification with the team in geographically dispersed virtual teams. As organizations globalize and invest in new technologies that enable virtual collaboration, virtual teams that rely on mediated communication and rarely meet face-to-face have become common in many organizations. Such settings present challenges to team members’ social interaction as well as to the construction of a shared team identity. This study was conducted qualitatively. Members of four virtual teams from four different organizations (N=35) were interviewed and their computer-mediated communication was observed and recorded. In analyzing the data, qualitative data analysis phases and methods were used in line with grounded theory approach. The analysis was made by constantly comparing the new, emerging codes with the previous incidents labelled with the same and different codes. The findings of the study create a nuanced picture of social interaction in virtual teams. Team members have many different attitudes towards the mediated communication and these attitudes differ sometimes significantly from their actual communication behavior. As virtual teams consist of many kinds of members and relationships, the experiences of identification with the team also vary greatly within the teams. However, the findings show that single members can create strong connections to other virtual team members. A shared identity can be constructed through daily computer-mediated communication. The findings of the study describe three different components of identification which are related to communication processes: cognitive, affective and behavioral. It is through these components that team identification is manifested and constructed.