Technologies Are to Be Explored in Team
A new study addresses how organizations can exploit the full potential of collaboration technologies by empowering their employees. In particular the results of the research highlight that working on the autonomy of teams, supporting their "can do" attitude, as well as making their impact visible, allow team members to be motivated in exploring how the technology they use can be better used to accomplish their task. Massimo Magni (Department of Management and Technology) and Likoebe Maruping (Georgia State University) tackle the topic in Motivating Employees to Explore Collaboration Technology in Team Contexts (in MIS Quarterly, Vol. 39, Issue 1, March 2015).
The study starts from the evidence that nowaday, organizations are increasingly investing in collaboration technologies for supporting team interactions and coordination even across space and time lags. However, recent data outline that underutilization of technology and individual resistance toward the exploration of the newly implemented systems, may hamper organizational ability to harvest the benefits of such investments in terms of productivity. Their study, which lasted for one year, targeted a total of 212 individuals in 48 organizational teams of two companies.
The research outlines that the role of empowerment is crucial for fostering individual willingness to explore the technology. More specifically, the study points out that organizations willing to stimulate exploratory-oriented behavior have to rely upon managerial leverages that foster team empowerment. More specifically, Magni and Maruping, observe that the different dimensions of empowerment affect the individual internal motivation to explore as well as foster the individual cognition of being able to transform such willingness into concrete action. When we go into a bookstore, for example, and we buy a book, we have (hopefully) the intention to read it. However, the translation from intention to action (actually reading the book) could be sometimes difficult because of the external conditions that prevent us to have time to do that. The authors underline that the same process happens with technology exploration: we may have the intention, but such intention is not always translated into action because of several contextual situations.
The study points out that team empowerment may facilitate both the emergence of an intention, as well as a better consideration of the contextual situations that may affect the effective exploration. Team empowerment works as a team motivational driver that relies on different mechanisms. For example, empowerment relies on the development of a shared "can do" attitude which supports individuals in the team in being proactive and experimenting despite the obstacles that may arise from the environment. Moreover, empowerment may foster exploration by leveraging on team members autonomy. Indeed, teams that perceive they can decide how to pursue their goals are more likely to be able to organize their activities in balancing their current day-by-day activities with dedicating some time to experimental activities.
Therefore, the study points out that besides technological investment, organizations should work on managerial leverages to stimulate individuals in taking advantage from the newly implemented technology. Otherwise, the introduction of a new collaborative technology per se does not necessarily lead to the expected benefits.