Publications
Publications
- March 2021
- Information and Organization
Experimenting During the Shift to Virtual Team Work: Learnings from How Teams Adapted Their Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Ashley V. Whillans, Leslie Perlow and Aurora Turek
Abstract
Past research has focused on understanding the characteristics of work that are fully virtual or fully collocated. The present study seeks to expand our understanding of team work by studying knowledge workers' experiences as they were suddenly forced to transition to a fully virtual environment. During the height of the U.S. lockdown from April to June 2020, we interviewed 51 knowledge workers employed on teams at the same professional services firm. Drawing from in situ reflections about teams' lived experiences, this paper explores how the shift to virtual work brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the fundamental activities that team work requires, facilitated and undermined the performance of team activities, and prompted employees to adapt and reflect on their use of digital technology to perform these activities. Using the shift to virtual work as a unique learning opportunity, our findings demonstrate that team work entails several core activities (task, process, and relationship interactions) that require additional adjustments to successfully enact in the virtual (vs. collocated) environment.
Keywords
Team Work; Activities; Virtual Work; Digital Technologies; Groups and Teams; Health Pandemics; Online Technology; Adaptation
Citation
Whillans, Ashley V., Leslie Perlow, and Aurora Turek. "Experimenting During the Shift to Virtual Team Work: Learnings from How Teams Adapted Their Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Information and Organization 31, no. 1 (March 2021).
About The Authors
