Hubber (2004) wrote on the topic of organizational learning and knowledge acquisition. He noted that a firm or organization’s survival is linked to three dependencies:
Considering all of the changes and learning that has been accomplished in your field of study during the past two decades, what have you studied or seen as innovative or linked to the creation of new knowledge?
During your course of study, you have been exposed to the areas of distance learning and virtual teams (whether working as a group or with your instructor(s) on a one-on-one basis), so you have seen innovation in terms of moving the classroom from a physical location into a virtual state. With this virtual state in mind, more and more organizations have been able to operate globally to a larger degree. Thus, the sharing of knowledge between organizations has become a valued commodity in the workplace and marketplace.
Specifically, as you write your response to this question, you may want to incorporate how your current level of knowledge can be used in an innovative way to help strengthen or increase the knowledge in your field. Also, you may want to consider how your experience in distance learning has changed or not changed your views on globalization, distance learning, and/or knowledge management.
Instructions:
Write a well-researched, thorough response to one of the questions posed above in an APA formatted paper to be reviewed by your faculty member in practice for your final comprehensive exam. Include 7 scholarly references in your paper. Upload your submission for review here.
Respond in 2100-2450 content words, not including title page, abstract, or references, to each question. This assignment is due on the last day of Week 5 at midnight.
The global economy is rapidly evolving, and knowledge innovation (KI) and knowledge assets are increasingly becoming integral aspects of organizational management and advancement. Organizations face significant and novel challenges, for example, the urgent or constant need to reduce manufacturing and development costs, time-to-market, and the need to increasingly incorporate cutting-edge technology in different processes. “An increasing need for customer responsiveness and the globalization of business competition within the past few years have caused a rising number of companies to experience dramatic organizational transformations” (Hannah and Trommer, 2015, 23). Consequently, this business environment catalyzes the implementation of relatively new management technologies like knowledge management (KM) to help companies increase their competitive advantages. This paper examines the present state of research and practice on knowledge-based processes, focusing on the important role played by E-leadership as organizations increasingly adopt the VTs model of doing business.
“Virtual teams” represent very diverse forms of teams (Volberda et al., 2013): they include teams that are physically dispersed (that is, members spread over many locations), structurally dynamic (changes may often happen among members, their relationships to each other, and their roles), mediated through technology (interacting using electronic tools, for example, e-mail), or nationally diverse (people from different nationality). Recent studies on virtuality present a multidimensional representation ranging from 0% (working within an office environment with coworkers) to 100% (totally virtual) (Volberda et al., 2013). The level of virtuality can affect the leadership’s role, team structure and influence how technology is used.
The spreading of personnel witnessed in VTs has caused companies to experience unprecedented difficulties in managing teams based in diverse places and from different cultures. Volberda et al. (2013) state that “virtual teams experience more diversity compared to the physical ones” (4). VTs have significantly increased globally in recent years, and this trend will continue because of the need for business globalization, advances in ICT, and a high level of innovation.
VTs benefit employers and employees. For workers, the benefits of such arrangements lie in the convenience of working from an individual’s location of choice (like at home), which improves employee satisfaction and supports the work-life balance. Employers gain from the ability to access skilled workers worldwide thanks to advances in ICT. According to Mukherjee et al. (2016), “The intellectual capacity of a diverse VT is in its ability to produce shared knowledge and integrate expertise” (226).
Team diversity can create opportunities and pose a difficulty. For example, one of the main challenges facing global VTs is forming cohesion in the team. Also, a lot of academic research on the impact of diversity on the performance of teams has established that it could deliver higher performance and produce added value than homogeneous teams. One reason given back this claim is that diversity brings “richness” in the field of knowledge. It is essential to mention that VTs must be appropriately managed in order to become high-performance teams. Organizations that want to thrive in today’s business environment must acknowledge that the rising dependence on outsourcing and the growing global economy makes knowledge sharing an extremely significant factor across time zones and international boundaries.
Knowledge creation is described as the process of learning that transforms team members’ knowledge representations or mental models to create new knowledge (Mukherjee et al., 2016). Knowledge can also be described as actionable information. In today’s era, sometimes referred to as the “Information Age”, intellectual property is becoming increasingly significant. Therefore, there is growth in the way in which knowledge can be transported within organizations and protected from competitors.
Contemporary research has highlighted the impact of using IT on team knowledge creation (Konradt and Hoch, 2007). Some studies have scrutinized how team dispersion enables creation effectiveness through comparing face-to-face teams and dispersed teams. Findings suggest that IT or computer-facilitated learning can be as just effective as face-to-face learning. This means that VTs can offer similar output as physical teams. This is highly beneficial as, unlike physical teams, VTs can tap into individuals’ skills, knowledge, and expertise located in multiple locations.
Christensen and Pedersen (2018) state that e-leadership a relatively new concept of leadership, and the available literature on leadership within VTs settings is still young. The existing research proposes that there is inadequate information concerning the ways technology affects leadership. There is insufficient data on how communicating purely via technology influences leaders’ behaviour and the success and effectiveness of VTs (Christensen and Pedersen, 2018). Therefore, it is vital to examine factors affecting leadership success in the virtual environment, as the challenges they face are relatively new.
The term e-leadership was created to show today’s work setting in which communications are facilitated by communication technology and information and where team leaders might lead complete projects remotely. According to Konradt and Hoch (2007), “it is widely suggested that the major shift of the international economy, and the intrinsic transformations in companies, necessitate a substanre, e-leadership is perceived as a reaction and answer to global changes created by rapid technological growth. Furthermore, e-leadership can be viewed as a consequence of technological growth as well as the remarkable transformation in the international economy. As flexible and virtual work opportunities continue to emerge and develop, employers increasingly try to make official their virtual work guidelines and better understand how to lead virtual workforces effectively (Konradt and Hoch, 2011)tial reconfiguration and change on the leadership’s part, and a new leadership style” (20). Therefore E-leadership can be considered a new and growing context within which the work done by leaders mirrors the new e-age of leadership. As the business world changes, the challenges of e-leaders will differ from those experienced in traditional administration. In this new e-age, workplaces transform to virtual arenas, characterized by technologically based leader-follower communications rather than conventional face-to-face interactions (Brunelle, 2012). Leadership, work directives, training, and follow-up often occur in a digital setup within such context.
It is commonly acknowledged that e-leadership is significantly different from the conventional style of understanding, explaining, and practicing leadership. For example, traditional leadership usually has been grounded on in person interactions. In contrast, e-leader mostly interact with their VTs with no physical meetings with their followers. This type of leaders might lead teams operating in different time zones or areas, or other times, if not all. Therefore, interaction with the VTs will have to happen via electronic communication channels. Consequently, the notion of e-leadership means leaders who mostly communicate through IT and who communicate with followers and use IT to facilitate the gathering and distribution of information needed to manage organizational work. In addition, e-leadership can be viewed as a procedure of guidance where shifts in organization, behavior, approaches, attitudes, and thoughts are made possible using the assistance of technology.
It is argued that VTs, to some level, face the same challenges as the usual form of work teams, along with difficulties created by the dispersion of the team as well as by their partial or complete dependence on IT as a mode of communication. The mode of interaction is believed to impact e-leaders’ capacity to express oversight characteristic to in person or physical settings and nonverbal cues, for example, gestures, and tonal variations. Thus, e-leaders encounter different challenges; however, by being practical and adaptive, they may be able to change these difficulties into opportunities. According to Brunelle (2012), “Research has established that the leading challenges are normally associated with time and distance-related issues, trust formation and maintenance, and problems arising from diversity and cultural differences” (56).
Since trust is a major factor when working with VTs, it is vital to examine what leadership-associated behavioral patterns, qualities, and abilities might produce and improve trust within the virtual environment. Savolainen (2013) states that it is mostly by their actions or behavior that e-leaders inspire members of their team to build trust. Therefore, to help foster trust, e-leaders should develop coherence, reduce uncertainty, fixed expectations that promises will be achieved, facilitate the formation of mutual comprehension for good decision making, encourage joint efforts, establish standard procedures, form positive dynamics and climate to meet shared difficulties, increase team motivation, improve knowledge management, and most importantly, communicate effectively by using IT. Using IT effectively involves matching the correct tasks with the proper electronic communication channel. Savolainen (2013) highlights that these behavioral traits are known to boost trust and decrease process losses.
Members of VTs and, particularly e-leaders encounter challenges due to their dependence on ITS. Managing interaction done with VTs via technology might generate challenges associated with knowledge management, misunderstandings, or information diffusion. Since there is no physical contact in a virtual interaction environment, e-leaders have to come up with new interaction competencies for building a sense of togetherness and socializing activities, which encourage the cohesiveness of team members. Therefore, amongst the main leadership problems is to guarantee that the out and in-groups that certain workers’ closeness might form to e-leaders are not created (Brunelle, 2012).
In VTs diversity within teams is characteristically demonstrated by aspects like physical location, diverse communication values and practices, and national culture. Diversity impacts members’ working practices and behaviour and might complicate identification processes, work performance, and communication (Brunelle, 2012). Since members of VTs might represent significant diversity, it is incumbent upon e-leaders to come up with clear activities to encourage team building, react accordingly to varied and sometimes opposing demands, and handle uncertainty of remote communication, as well as form personal relationships with all members of the team, which needs the application of user-friendly, and accessible technology.
E-leaders can address the challenges linked to diversity by constantly keeping virtual employees engaged, learning how to manage individuals from different cultures, encouraging a feeling of belonging, encouraging particular activities to improve team-building, and by adapting their messages and language to team members in line with each of their different communication traditions. Therefore, successfully managing diversity appears to involve attentive behavior and specific activities from e-leaders that want to stop any disagreements from arising in the teams. It is vital to note that since diversity might also lead to varied working practices and diversified perspectives amongst virtual team members, effective e-leaders have the opportunity to convert diversity-associated challenges into opportunities by using the right leadership behaviors and actions.
The development of modern IT and the subsequent leadership and organizational paradigm shift has led to the rise of VTs arrangements with unanticipated opportunities. However, modern IT appears to have created new leadership challenges, especially for e-leaders involved in a new approach to organization management (in terms of style and form of work). Therefore, there seem to be unique and relevant challenges associated with the application of IT in virtual work environments. Consequently, there is a need for more research in this area to examine the difficulties leaders encounter while handling work within a technology based setting. The information in this paper shows that there are significant information gaps, which should be addressed in future studies. Hence, future research can help shed some light on what type of e-leadership will effectively deal with the new and traditional challenges brought about by VTs in order to build fruitful and effective VTs.
Brunelle, E. (2012). Virtuality in Work Arrangements and Affective Organizational Commitment. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3, 56–62.
Christensen, P. H. & Pedersen, T. (2018). The dual influences of proximity on knowledge sharing. Knowl. Manag. 2018, 22, 1782–1802
Hannah, E., S., & Trommer, S. (2015). Expert knowledge in Global Trade. Routledge, London.
Konradt, U., & Hoch, J. E. (2007). A Work roles and Leadership Functions of Managers in Virtual teams. International Journal of e-Collaboration, 3, 16–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jec.2007040102
Mukherjee, S., Uzzi, B., Jones, B., & Stringer, M. (2016). A new method for identifying recombinations of existing knowledge associated with high-impact innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(2), 224- 236.
Savolainen, T. (2013). Trust Building in e-Leadership – Important Skill for Technology- Mediated Management in the 21st Century. International Conference on Management, Leadership & Governance: 288-XI. Kidmore End: Academic Conferences International Limited.
Volberda, H. W., Van Den Bosch, F. A. J., & Heij, C. V. (2013). Management innovation: Management as fertile ground for innovation. European Management Review, 10(1), 1-15.
Wei, Z., Yi, Y., & Guo, H. (2014). Organizational learning ambidexterity, strategic flexibility, and new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(4), 832-847.
The Cost of Expansion: U.S. History
As a renowned provider of the best writing services, we have selected unique features which we offer to our customers as their guarantees that will make your user experience stress-free.
Unlike other companies, our money-back guarantee ensures the safety of our customers' money. For whatever reason, the customer may request a refund; our support team assesses the ground on which the refund is requested and processes it instantly. However, our customers are lucky as they have the least chances to experience this as we are always prepared to serve you with the best.
Plagiarism is the worst academic offense that is highly punishable by all educational institutions. It's for this reason that Peachy Tutors does not condone any plagiarism. We use advanced plagiarism detection software that ensures there are no chances of similarity on your papers.
Sometimes your professor may be a little bit stubborn and needs some changes made on your paper, or you might need some customization done. All at your service, we will work on your revision till you are satisfied with the quality of work. All for Free!
We take our client's confidentiality as our highest priority; thus, we never share our client's information with third parties. Our company uses the standard encryption technology to store data and only uses trusted payment gateways.
Anytime you order your paper with us, be assured of the paper quality. Our tutors are highly skilled in researching and writing quality content that is relevant to the paper instructions and presented professionally. This makes us the best in the industry as our tutors can handle any type of paper despite its complexity.
Recent Comments