Team Learning and Support Technologies

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Table of Contents

Training and Development
Major Technologies to Support Team
Reference List

Training and Development

Actions to create and nurture a healthy team

The first article to be reviewed is the ‘Team training in China: Testing and applying the theory of cooperation and competition’ (2010) by Lu, Tjosvold, and Shi. The authors focus on the competition and cooperation practices applied to the company to improve the performance. For instance, they “fail to develop new and creative solutions because they often focus on consensus and shared information and do not discuss their dissenting views” (Lu, Tjosvold, & Shi, 2010, p.103) because the competition is as important for team members as cooperation. The hypothesis of the research dwells on the cooperative goals that give rise to constructive controversy, from which potency, productivity, and creativity emerge (Lu, Tjosvold, & Shi, 2010, p. 106). As suggested by Rosen, Furst, and Blackburn (2006), one of the effective methods to supervise and support the team includes “coordinating the logistics of teamwork across time and space” (p. 230).

Effective performance

A healthy team can be composed of the employees that currently work in different departments or the same department though previous training is suggested in the study by Lu, Tjosvold, and Shi (2010) as the major reason for effective performance is the knowledge acquired by team members and motivation of all their activities. The importance of information is one of the factors that predetermines the effectiveness of team performance. In this respect, sharing knowledge is a significant part of the training program that should be adapted to encourage the creation and nurture of a healthy team. It was proven that cooperative goals are more influential than independent goals that give rise to constructive controversy (Lu, Tjosvold, & Shi, 2010, p. 118). Besides, “The results support the reasoning that cooperative goals and constructive controversy provide a foundation on which to understand and develop productive teamwork in organizations (Lu, Tjosvold, & Shi, 2010, p. 124). This means that cooperation and competition policies can be widely used on the international level to ensure the effective creation and nurture of healthy teams to work on various goals set by the company.

Why applying various techniques

Various techniques such as cooperation and competition policies can be applied to different organizations to create a healthy team and ensure a healthy working environment and the satisfaction of employees. All these factors are sure to add value to the effective performance of the organization as a whole. Moreover, the inability to share data and discuss problems can ruin groups and worsen the performance.

Major Technologies to Support Team

Strategies applied to team members

Such technologies as the empowerment of employees, specific job design, and flexible workforce (Huselid, Jackson, & Schuler, 1997, p. 173) can be used to improve the effectiveness of performance and support the team in terms of stability of results and effective outcomes and reached goals. In this respect, the study by Huselid, Jackson, and Schuler (1997) is aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of practices applied to support team and performance. Communication and involvement as well as empowerment are strong technologies to enhance the effectiveness of performance. Also, Huselid, Jackson, and Schuler (1997) also reviewed the activities of employees within a company to analyze the effectiveness of different policies applied to workers and their work. As reported by Maruping and Agarwal (2004) lack of “shared work history and a diversity of expertise and knowledge domains, cultural background, and work norms” (p. 975) of a virtual team require effective means of communication to level the gap between team members. The technical activities demonstrate a more effective influence on employees’ activities and performance than strategic ones.

Enhancement of effectiveness

As technological strategies prove to be more effective in enhancing performance, it is necessary to consider such communication techniques as virtual communication software used for sharing information, reporting, and other purposes (Andres, 2002). Virtual communication takes place between people who are “located at multiple individual sites or multiple group sites (Andres, 2002, p. 39). This technology is sure to decrease the socio-emotional cues and impact of people’s negative emotions on the perception of their ideas by other people. As suggested by Choi, Lee, and Yoo (2010), “Teams are often considered to be an important building block in today’s knowledge-based organizations” (p. 856). Every team member should have equal information reaching and sharing opportunities and be entitled to use the information to reach the goals. The importance of sharing information was also advocated in the study by Leonardi and Bailey (2008) who suggested that “the offshoring of engineering tasks might require considerable knowledge transfer between sending and receiving PEs [performance engineers], thus providing coordinators with a possible role as knowledge brokers” (p. 417).

Why applying various technologies

Application of the latest technologies can help managers solve several problems related to teamwork and effectiveness of performance within a team. As there are many issues associated with the social and emotional condition of individuals, they can be introduced with new technologies such as virtual communication and share information through databases established for easier access.

Reference List

Andres, H. P. (2002). A comparison of face-to-face and virtual software development teams. Team Performance Management, 8(1/2), 39-48.

Choi, S. Y., Lee, H., & Yoo, Y. (2010). The impact of information technology and transactive memory systems on knowledge sharing, application, and team performance: a field study. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 855-870.

Huselid, M. A., Jackson, A. E., & Schuler, R. S. (1997). Technical and strategic human resource management effectiveness as determinants of firm performance. Academy of Management Journal, 40(1), 171-188.

Leonardi, P. M., & Bailey, D. E. (2008). Transformational technologies and the creation of new work practices: Making implicit knowledge explicit in task-based offshoring. MIS Quarterly, 32(2), 411-436.

Lu, J.-F., Tjosvold, D., & Shi, K. (2010). Team training in China: Testing and applying the theory of cooperation and competition. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40(1), 101-134.

Maruping, L., & Agarwal, R. (2004). Managing team interpersonal processes through technology: A task technology fit perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(6), 975-990.

Rosen, B., Furst, S., & Blackburn, R. (2006). Training for virtual teams: An investigation of current practices and future needs. Human Resource Management, 45(2), 229-247.

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