Gaby Rasters

Rasters@wxs.nl

Outline

This outline will be very schematic, since I have already made a draft research proposal. This outline will show the subjects I will discuss, but will mostly tell you why I discuss these subjects. For instance how will "trust" fit into this research. (Chapter 2)

Position of Nohria and Eccles versus 'our' view.

The following position of Nohria and Eccles is pessimistic about cooperation at a distance. “Rich’ media - those that transmit higher levels of nonverbal cues - are more appropriate in ambiguous or relational communication situations, ‘lean’ media are more appropriate in less ambiguous, routine situations” (Daft & Lengel, 1984; see also Hiltz, Johnson, & Turoff, 1986; Nohria & Eccles, 1992). Some times implicite, but mostly explicite, it is stated that face-to-face contacts between team members is the ideal way to communicate. Information communication technolgy can subsitute for face-to-face contacts only if it is very close to this ideal of media richness. A media is rich only when it keeps the different cues in communication intact.

I want to state that the view of Nohria and Eccles has shortcomings. I will question there statement that teams working at a distance can not work effectively in non-routine activities. Nohria and Eccles doubt this and argument that ''rich" communication media is wanted (needed) in situations where there is a lack of mutual trust. Nohria and Eccles claim that trust can not be build at a distance. Also Handy (1995) questions whether (virtual) teams can function effectively in the absence of frequent face-to-face interaction. The heart of handy's argument centers on trust and a belief that "trust needs touch."

In this chapter I will describe the importance of trust. An outline of this chapter can be found in this paper.

In chapter 3 we will look into the concept of communication. What is communication? What are the differences between face-to-face communication and ict-communication? When is face-toface communication needed for effective communication? (using awareness studies)

Empirical research. We want to investigate the claim that face-to-face communication is no absolute condition for the emerge of mutual trust between team members. (A case study at AT&T is a possibility). We want to look when to use which communication means. We do not claim that under any circumstances ict can replace face-to-face communication. This has to be investigated.

The changing character of industrial economies, it is argued, is necessitating the emergence of the network organization. "Among the most salient of these changes are the increasing globalization of the world economy, the rapid entry and exit of competitors, the unpredictable emergence and obsolescence of new products and technologies, the customization of demand and increasing emphasis on value-added services, the emergence of flexible manufacturing to meet this demand, rapid changes in the political environment, and an increasingly mobile and heterogeneous work force—all of which combine to create conditions of unprecedented knowledge intensity, uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk. In order to respond to these conditions, the argument continues firms must be fast, flexible, responsive, and knowledge intensive. They must be action-oriented—rapidly bringing people and resources (including the relevant information and expertise) together to address opportunities and threats as they arise. This, the argument concludes, calls for replacing traditional bureaucratic approaches to organization with more adaptive, self-designing, network organizations".

Information and communication technology (ICT) and electronic networks can play a central role in facilitating the emergence of network organizations. By making it easier to collect, analyze, and disseminate information, these technologies seem to have the potential to transform hierarchies into networks. "Empowered with information, the front-line workers become "knowledge workers" acting autonomously to deal with issues and events that they are closest to." (Eccles and Nohria, 1992, p.).

The way that team members communicate within the organization will change enormously in the new trust based work organization. Using the theory of Bateson, we will find communication based on 'complementary relations'. We consider this proces is a ‘management of relationships' rather than a 'control of tasks’ which is the case in bureaucratic organizations. The communication in these new organizations will be ‘dialogue-centric’, which means a lot of open and free communication between team members. This contrasts with the old organizations where we can find 'competitive relations' in which the communication is monologues and short term-based. Instead of open communication, there is a regulated one.The sender of the message, sends the message in a non- negotiable way and is called ‘decision centric’ communication. (Van der Smagt 1997b en 1997c).

Most scholars, for instantce Nohria and Eccles, say that trust is essential for an effective cooperation in and between teams.

Nohria and Eccles describe that ICT plays an important role in these new (trust-based) network organizations. The overall view is that network organizations can easily transform into (virtual) organizations, where business can take place from a distance to save time and money. Nohria and Eccles have their doubts about effective communication at a distance. According to them, team members can only resolve issues in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, by communicating face-to-face with eachother, especially since trust is an important condition for cooperation and cannot be built in a virtual way. For Nohria and Eccles, a face-to-face relation plays an essential role in the development of trust between team members.

When defining trust I use the definition of Rousseau. "Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another."

Scholars do appear to agree fundamentally on the meaning of trust: trust, as the willingness to be vulnerable under conditions of risk and interdependence is a psychological state, researchers in various disciplines interpret in term of perceived probabilities.

I argue that this positive expectation will be achieved when the trustee is willing to be vulnerable towards the trustor. In this way we use the definition of Rousseau in a different way. The trustee gives the trustor the opportunity to control and monitor the actions and promises he has made to the trustor. The trustor can check the claims of trustworthiness the trustee has made. The emphasis is not on the controling part. Mostly the trustor will not even check the other. But because of the trustees openess towards the trustor, trust is created. In a for instance a relational trust situation trustee and trustor know a lot about eachother, because they interact with eachother. There is a big difference in knowing the other party because this party want to let you in on the information regarding specific tasks, and in knowing the other through looking for information about the other. (without the permission of the other person). In the first casr you can speak of trust, in the latter you can not speak of trust. In a way, when you search for information about the other without asking, you are just trying to reduce risk for yourself. So, we want to argue that when the trustee is not open about certain information and is not willing and telling the trustor that he can check and monitor his actions there is no trust. That's also way we will argue in our other article about trust that calculative based trust is no trust at all, but just a way to reduce risk.

So, only when the trustee is willing to show the other a look behind the scenes you can speak about trust. Looking behind the scenes also intends the possibility to check and control the trustee. But checking these claims does not necessitiate face-to-face communication. For instance if there is institutional trust you can use ISO-norms or other certificates to show your trustworthiness to the other. In a relational trust relation both actors have the right to ask questions to validate the others promises. ICT, as a tool to communicate at a distance, can play an essential role in giving each other the opportunity to monitor each other's actions. It can be a help in checking the trustworthiness and it gives the trustee the opportunity to show this. For instance team members can look at eachothers work when using shared information spaces. The willingness to be vulnerable, the willingness to be open, can be found in a new way of communication. This new way of commucation can be derrived from Bateson's theory about dialogue centric communication. (as described earlier in this article).

My view that ICT can replace face-to-face contacts in certain trust situations is not shared by others. For instance Eccles and Nohria say that a large body of theoretical and empirical evidence holds that electronically mediated exchange is much less effective than face-to-face interaction in conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty.

This implies that while electronically mediated exchange of information may be adequate for routine communication, face-to-face communication is essential when the issues are uncertain and ambiguous. Developing trust is not a routine matter, but still I do not see the essential need for face-to-face communication. The empirical evidence Nohria en Eccles have found is not based on the new work relations.

I on the other hand think that control is still possible, because of the dialogue-centric way team members are communicating, control will exist between the team members, on a lateral level. This new form of lateral control (non-hierarchical) can only be effected if there is mutual trust between team members.

Trust in this context means: 'I have nothing to hide, you may check on my work'. This even implies: 'you can criticize me on my ideas and choices.' The opposite has to be possible as well: the other team member has to be as open. By being open, people are willing to take a risk. This makes the person who is willing to undergo a risk even more trustworthy. In these teams, the members are trying to communicate in a non-distorted way. Habermas says that because of non-distorted communication people can perform validity claims on each other.

Ngwenyama en Lee use the Critical Social Theory (CST) to explain this way of communicating.

Information and communication technology can, as I stated before, play an important role in communication in a CST perspective. For instance by sharing data in an application like Lotes Notes, team members have insight in each other's work. This way team members can react immediately on eachothers data. This will increase the trust between team members because they all share eachother's information. Face-to-face communication is according to me not a sheer necessity.

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