The purpose of our blog is to outline a strategy in order to maintain healthy and productive relationships in a world where we’re unable to meet with each other face to face. Aiming towards creating clear roles for each team member, we’re discussing the possible points of conflict and resolution in trying times. 

Kimble, C. (2010). Building Effective Virtual Teams: How to Overcome the Problems of Trust and Identity in Virtual Teams. SSRN Electronic Journal, 6–15.

This peer reviewed article Building Effective Virtual Teams: How to Overcome the Problems of Trust and Identity in Virtual Teams, explores solutions to building an effective virtual team through trust and collective identity. Considering the global pandemic and the quick widespread switch to virtual teams, companies are faced with greater organization problems than they had ever dealt with. The article explores the need for people to feel safe in order to develop shared identity to build trust and mutual respect. Once people feel as if they are able to trust their team, they are more effective at collaborating and sharing ideas. The pandemic has proven that virtual teams are not going anywhere. Organizations must be able to understand team dynamics such as trust and identity to maintain performance and behavior of each individual in order to build an effective virtual team during a global pandemic.

Couch, Danielle L, O’Sullivan, Belinda, & Malatzky, Christina. (2020). What COVID‐19 could mean for the future of “work from home”: The provocations of three women in the academy. Gender, Work, and Organization, Gender, work, and organization, 2020-09-17.

This peer reviewed article What COVID‐19 could mean for the future of “work from home”: The provocations of three women in the academy, decries what the transition millions of people have had to make due to the pandemic. People in society, especially women are multifaceted, and end up wearing multiple hats throughout the average day. Now people working from home are expected to be “swiss army” like by juggling all their hats at once, in a place traditionally thought of as your escape. How do you juggle monitoring and teaching your children at the same time meeting deadlines at work? Conflict arises if you follow your maternal/paternal instincts, or professional identity. COVID-19 has made people lose their jobs and have hours cut, people are anxious if they can pay rent. Working from home blurs the line between family life and work life causing unhealthy patterns of sleep, anxiousness, and loneliness. But working from home could also give workers leverage and freedom to live where they want and pursue new opportunities.

Degbey, W.Y. and Einola, K. (2020), Resilience in Virtual Teams: Developing the Capacity to Bounce Back. Applied Psychology, 69: 1301-1337.

This study looked at different teams to examine how well they developed and maintained resilience while working together online. The main idea in this study was that we cannot just focus on individuals’ resilience because that will not constitute team resilience. Focus should be on individuals as well as social and organizational levels as well. The idea is that there are stressors that we all deal with individually that can affect the team as a whole. Cultivating team relationships can help with these stressors by developing and providing resources including emotionally-based ones, that can help maintain a basis for team resilience. The authors also state that emotional expression in these team relationships can help with individuals and team resilience. For managers, to understand how team resilience can be built at the individual, social and organizational level is important. And for them to understand people’s triggers of mundane events. Mundane events are crucial to the team as a whole, so getting an understanding of how this can be a bad influence for building team resilience. A crucial point in the article states “both individual and team resilience are interdependent and can mutually reinforce each other”. An important aspect to understand as a manager and an individual.

Bin, F., Branson, L., & He, F. (2015), International Journal of Business, Accounting, and Finance Volume 9. Face to Face vs Computer-Mediated Communication.

This scholarly article discusses the effects of computer communication on a group’s ability to share information and critically analyze information. Face-to-face communication is essential for groups to create productive, trusting relationships, which we are now lacking. Though online communication creates the opportunity for flexibility and quick response times, it is not optimal for those who harbor computer-related anxiety. The authors also used a research study administered to college students enrolled in financial or business online classes; this study found that students in these classes felt decreased levels of control and trust due to the lack of communication on an online platform.

Poirier, D., Sink, S., & Tompkins, J. (2020). Navigating your Business through the COVID Crisis, ISE Magazine. 

This article from ISE Magazine published in June 2020 dives into how businesses must adapt to the online platform the Coronavirus pandemic has left them with. They describe this pandemic as a “black swan” event that requires businesses to adjust to online relations rather than face-to-face interaction. The authors provide detailed guidance of how to work through this disruption, staying patient with each other through the difficulties and errors of technology that negatively impact communication, and how to work through the “unconscious” thoughts this form of communication has led many to have.

Behfar, K. J., Peterson, R. S., Mannix, E. A., & Trochim, W. M. K. (2008). The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 170-188. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/10.1037/0021-9010.93.1.170

This is a peer reviewed article from The Journal of Applied Psychology which details different possible ways that conflict could arise among a team or group of peers. The article also gives ideas and clues about the best ways to solve those conflicts, in a respectful, professional way. This is going to be helpful in our blog post because in a setting of remote learning and working, team oriented tasks can often lead to miscommunication and frustration. The article also outlines a study conducted by the publication, which gives statistical analysis as to which forms of conflict resolution can be the most effective. The conclusion of this reference will give ideas about how to foresee arising conflict and promote stronger teamwork. 

Simon Serwold

Grace Michaels

Ben Fox

Morgan Kaloudis

Brooke Geffe