Communication Norms
Communication norms can be broken down into four types.
Availability norms establish when people will be accessible, and how quickly they will respond to team needs. These norms will determine how often people check communication venues, the appropriate timeframe for response, and boundaries between an individual's work and personal time.
Appropriateness and use of collaboration tools norms ascertain what type of tools are used and for what purpose (see Module 3). They also cover rules of etiquette for using different types of tools.
Exchange norms determine when all members of the team should receive information, when just a subgroup should receive the information, or when it is preferred that individuals just communicate between themselves. Clear exchange norms can help prevent duplication and information overload.
Structure norms are concerned with whether formal or informal channels are preferred for different types of communication. Formal channels include scheduled meetings and teleconferences. Informal channels can include random e-mails and phone calls.
Task and Work Norms
Process norms set out a "lifecycle" for the team project. They insure that sufficient time is allocated to all stages of the team process—Idea Generation, Development, Finalization and Closure (see Module 1). Clear process norms help the team ensure that everyone will be working at the same stage, and facilitate assigning tasks and coordinating work.
Task norms help the team decide what is routine vs. nonroutine work. Routine work can be standardized and efficiency gained through the use of forms and templates. This frees up time and energy for nonroutine work where creativity and innovation is required.
Accountability norms set time frames for deliverables and establish consequences for failure to met obligations.
Resource norms shape how team members work on shared files. They control issues of work storage, updates, tracking, and security/confidentiality.
Review and approval norms influence how feedback is given, how often, and who has the authority to approve work. They often direct how often the group conducts "process checks" to review how well the team is doing at accomplishing its task in the most effective manner.
Assignment Overview
In this module, the comment was made that norms are implicit and tend to develop over time. However, it was also observed that virtual teams cannot afford the luxury of such a passive process and need to take proactive steps to establish explicit norms.
Case Assignment
In this Case, you are asked to consider ways a virtual team can explicitly establish communication and task norms that support high performance. The following reading provides some additional ideas for how a co-located team could an engage in norm-setting. You should model your action plan for virtual teams after this type of analysis.
Case Reading
Karten, N. (2003). Creating Team Norms. Retrieved August 2009 from http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?Function=edetail&ObjectType=COL&ObjectId=6736
Assignment Expectations
For this Case, complete the following:
· Identify 10 specific behavioral norms (five communication and five task norms) that you feel are essential to the smooth performance of virtual teams.
· Explain why you feel these norms are essential.
· Propose a specific action plan virtual teams could use to develop and enforce task and communication norms.
NAME, DATE
Assignment
COM 375
Annotated Bibliography
Morgan, M., Shanahan, J., & Signorielli, N. (2015). Yesterday's New Cultivation, Tomorrow. Mass Communication & Society, 674-699. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15205436.2015.1072725
Michael Morgan uses cultivation theory to examine the long-term effects of media (television) on audiences. “Thus, the notion that how much people watched was far more important than what they watched was fundamental to cultivation theory.”
“Cultivation theory suggests that heavy television exposure generates a world of ideas and mental content that is homogeneous and biased toward “reality” as is depicted in media content. Heavier television users are more like to be anomic, to believe in the “meanness” of the world, to accept specific gender stereotypes, and to fear possible crime victimization” (Matei)
This author of this book presents two theoretical “tools” to examine millennial political engagement; the pessimistic disaffected citizen perspective, and the cultural displacement perspective. It might be worthwhile to explore these two perspectives in my research, especially in the case study section. Comment by James Owens: Here you offer two concepts and then you follow with their definitions. Perfect.
Disaffected citizen refers to losing political interest, while cultural displacement considers that millennials have being politically socialized within the media environment. In the case of the 2016 presidential election, both perspectives seem to have a significant role.
Gil de Zúñiga, H., Jung, N., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 17(3), 319-336. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x/full
“The purpose of this article is to test whether SNS can promote democratically desirable attitudes and behaviors when individuals use these sites to keep up with news about public affairs or about their community.” [Comment from James Owens: What is SNS? How do they define ‘democratically desirable attitudes’? What kind of paradigm are they using in this study? Does this paradigm fit with or complement that which you will use? (Will you also do a quantitative study?)]
Social Capital and Participation, and Social Network Sites for News and Citizenship are areas targeted in this research. And how these areas affect user communication behavior.
What is social capital? “the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively.” (Google) [Comment from James Owens: How did the article define social capital?]
Warren, A. M., Sulaiman, A., & Jaafar, N. I. (YEAR). Facebook: The enabler of online civic engagement for activists. [Journal title, volume#(issue#), pagerange.] Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563213004664
“This exploratory study aims to investigate the existing efforts in civic engagement using Facebook. Previous work describes the typical usage of Facebook for connecting with others, to educate and inform in a wide range of context. Little research exists, however, on the emerging role of Facebook as an enabler for civic engagement in a social network environment.”
Modes of internet activism: collection of information, publication of information, using the internet to discuss issues, scheduling (form coalitions and coordinate activities), lobbying and advocating.
Pasek, J. (n.d.). Journal of Information Technology & Politics. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19331680902996403?scroll=top&needAccess=t rue
This is another study that examines how social capital influences millennial online social networking.
“Internet communication has the unique ability to transmit information and build relationships among large groups of physically disconnected individuals. Indeed, these potential “virtual communities” have been hailed as novel new ways to jump-start civic engagement and diminish the cost of collective action”
