Is Teamwork Important? Collaboration and Privacy Issues

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of team collaboration within the context of global business, examining the critical importance of teamwork and how it is fostered in contemporary workplaces. The research investigates the significance of individual abilities in contributing to team success, exploring various methods employed to encourage effective collaboration. Furthermore, the report addresses the potential challenges posed by privacy concerns in team settings, analyzing whether these issues impede collaboration or necessitate specific policies to manage sensitive information. The study synthesizes insights from scholarly articles and credible sources to identify best practices for managing collaborative teams, even in the face of privacy and other potential obstacles. The report examines the objectives behind team development, including enhancing communication, fostering creativity, and promoting a cooperative work environment, while also considering the influence of multicultural teams and the role of strong leadership in supporting team members. The report also examines the dynamics of team discussions and the significance of emotional engagement and interpersonal skills in building high-performing teams. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of objective-based training, voluntarily formed learning teams, and ongoing learning processes in encouraging team collaboration within modern workplaces.

STUDENT NAME
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S)
TRENDS IN GLOBAL BUSINESS

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................2
Team collaboration.......................................................................................................2
Objectives behind team development..........................................................................3
Significance behind individual abilities in teamwork.....................................................4
Encouraging team collaboration in contemporary workplaces.....................................5
Privacy issues in team collaborations..........................................................................6
Conclusion....................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................8
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Is the ability of individuals to work in a team important and how is
collaboration encouraged? Or is privacy an issue that precludes
collaboration?
Introduction
Team collaboration can be defined as a multi-level procedure in which
individuals engage themselves to work for team-level tasks or for accomplishing
teamwork objectives. Taskwork refers to those tasks that are either performed
collectively or individually and are usually assisted with various tools and elements
whereas, teamwork are those interpersonal interactions that takes place within team
members while performing a specific task. It can be assumed that effective teams
are characterised by smooth flow of communication along with collaboration among
individual team members and is henceforth recognised as team effectiveness that
can further be measured by various ways like members satisfaction and individual
abilities for team performance (Hwang, 2018). Behaviour seen among team
members along with individual contributions made in collaborated teams is also an
area of great interest that helps in understanding how effective teams work without
considering privacy issue. Or, whether they face privacy issues that tends to
preclude team collaboration? The purpose behind preparing this research paper is to
find out whether ability of individuals important while working in a team in global
businesses. This paper will examine current literature to identify benefits and issues
in team collaboration along with finding how individuals can be encouraged to
develop a collaborated team. This report examines privacy related issues that
usually precludes team collaboration and finds that privacy issue does not
considerably impacts team collaboration rather develops specific policies through
which team members share sensitive information with each other’s. After reviewing
credible sources and published articles, this report will find ways through which
collaborated teams can be managed in spite facing privacy or other issues.
Team collaboration
Alghamdi & Bach (2018) states that collaborated teams are often
misinterpreted with a simpler notion in an organisational setting like “working in
groups”. To understand the concept in clearer way, it is significant to recognise
teamwork vision before ascertaining team development by employers. According to
Nancarrow, et al. (2013), “Collaboration is acknowledged as an important component
of team processes” (p. 2) in which two or more individuals exchanges ideas
interpedently to achieve a shared and valued goal and have been assigned specific
roles to perform in the team. Practically, the development of collaborated team
should be creation of work and synergy for accomplishing common objectives and
thus teamwork in global organisations, regardless of the business type, serves one
common purpose which is motivating employees to improves organisational culture
and competencies. Alghamdi & Bach (2018) opined that collaborated teams can be
referred to as a process of forming different groups comprising individuals who
poses different skills, complementing each other while they share a focused
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knowledge and dedication towards goal achievement. It is believed that every
member of the team shall work collaboratively by enabling mutual trust and support
to complete the designated task effectively. The authors also assert that basic aim
behind team development is to achieve synergy effects that can be realised by
delivery of greater results seen in teamwork as compared to work completed on
individual basis.
Objectives behind team development
According to Fapohunda (2013), team is a group of people who works for
common goals and team building is a process for enabling group of people for
reaching common goals. Team development consists of various steps like
identification of issues that might come in between team achievements, clarification
of team objectives, facing identified issues and challenges and finally, enabling goal
achievements. The authors pinpoint that teamwork is the integration of resources
along with inputs that works together to achieve organisational goals and the roles of
every individual are prescribed, challenges equally faced and incremental
improvements received continually. There are several objectives behind developing
teams within organisations and enhancing communication between team members
is one of them which allows every participants act as a member rather being in
isolation. Realisation of increased creativity and productivity is another prime
objective behind team building that helps companies in achieving enhanced
operating policies and processes. Thereby, organisations motivate individual to form
teams that can ensure achievement of clear goals, cooperative workplace climate
and problem-solving in collaborative manner. Moreover, team development
enhances superior trust level and support within individual members through which
diversified workforce can work together effectively and collaboratively while reflecting
higher job satisfaction level and commitment (Holtzman & Anderberg, 2011).
Alghamdi & Bach (2018) noted that collaborated team works after setting
common performance goals and are committed to accomplish common purpose for
which every individual holds themselves accountable after getting mutual
consideration. The authors suggest that teams must be of manageable and of
proportionate size so that every team member can contribute equally while achieving
team goals. Also, it is significant to understand that every team member is jointly
responsible for their actions and results observed due to their actions. Fapohunda
(2013) finds two basic skills required for building a collaborated team. First one
involves recognition of correct issues and the second one states how the issue can
be handled in appropriate manner and in correct order. For example, under
situations where team composition changes continually, skill development in
individuals is given more emphasis so that team effectiveness is not hampered due
to changing of individual abilities and skills. Nonetheless, teams in which
membership remains static like management of the firms provides with more efforts
as improved relationships can be established in between team members.
One significant objective behind team development is to modify the attitude
and behaviour that are prevalent in organisations and among its members who are
almost independent while working there. Team building do not necessarily means
getting team together, but it is more than usual activity imposed on team members
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without giving consideration for what are team goals or requirements. In such cases,
taking into account concerning specific issue that needs to be sorted is very
important for involving personalities in the teams. Since teamwork is a collaborative
process of working, it might also include individual capabilities and tasks, however,
usually involves specific kind of collective work in which every individual contributes
their part and forms a written document which reflects their collective and individual
performance. Algashaam (2015) claims that effective team collaborations often rely
upon team discussions in which every team member shares their opinion and listens
to the others viewpoints. Discussion requires to be fair so that every member opinion
is shared and aired in a balanced manner. It can prove to be more than exchange
sometimes, but with practice and experience, time keeping and rules management in
teamwork can create balanced and fair discussions that are enabled with
compromise and negotiations.
Significance behind individual abilities in teamwork
According to Sanyal & Hisam (2018), employees’ performance is highly
impacted by team performances that has gained much attention in current literature
and among business practitioners. The reason behind such attention is due to the
practical concept of team collaboration that influences organisational performance
and individuals who works in it. Although teams are been repeatedly defined as
essential component for accomplishing goal and vision, enhancing and activating
individual performance is also significant. There are many reasons that signifies the
link between team effectiveness and quality of individual performance in workplaces.
Team members enhances knowledge, skill and abilities while they work in teams and
researchers indicates that collaborative and supportive behaviour in individual
performance and productivity level enhances team ‘s problem-solving feature and
avoids conflicts while facing sudden challenges at work. To determine team
effectiveness, many organisations designs special tests that can determine abilities
of individuals who will further work in a team. Since teamwork ability is very essential
for team successes, it is important that every employee poses some or the other
capabilities that fulfils team requirements. Furthermore, teams which offer greater
participation, feelings and accept challenges faces collaborative achievements. As
many global companies have already started to undertake skill-based teams, to work
together it is very important that every employee is enabled with particular abilities so
that unitedly their teams can achieve goals and in best possible manner.
According to Alghamdi & Bach (2018), organisations that expands operations
beyond local boundaries, forms multicultural teams comprising individuals holding
diversified perspectives, knowledge, skills and opinions. As a result, such
organisations encounter various challenges while addressing conflicts within team
members and consequently, leaders try to gain knowledge about team members
diversified culture effectually. Additionally, a strong team requires capable team
members along with strong leadership who supports and motivates team members
in encouraging way. However, it is also significant to understand that to create
effective teams, individuals need to poses diversified skills which remains
complimentary to each other that can create new and innovative ideas while
supporting team members objectives. Successful teams are the ones in which
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individuals show clarity in dedication and goals along with accepting shared goals
over individual ones. There may be times when teams face conflicts, but teams with
capable individuals will handle conflicts and can prove beneficial for team
collaboration and organisation as a whole (Somech, Desiviliya & Lidogoster, 2009).
Cheruvelil, et al. (2014) states that high-performing collaborative teams
comprise of members who poses good interpersonal skills like emotional
engagement and social sensitivity who can positively influence communication
between team members and ultimately influencing work outcomes. The significance
behind such fundamental skills can be differentiated and very well supported after
measuring interpersonal skill levels and group intelligences like problem-solving
nature and cognitive intelligence. Such abilities prove over-whelming while
performing in teams while organisational productivity and effectiveness are
recognised by the groups. Emotional engagement is one interpersonal ability that is
ignored most of the times while selecting team members or remains under valuated
in businesses even though such emotions play a central role while confirming team
collaborations. Emotion, metamorphically fuels creative collaborations that further
leads in providing with innovative outcomes and reinforces social bonding thereby
lowering barriers to collaborated teams. However, for honing such culture, every
team member needs to develop a group culture along with enabling social practices
that are supported by fundamentals of trust building without which various issues like
privacy and mistrust might impact negatively upon every team member (Naseer,
Chishti, Rahman, & Jumani, 2011).
Encouraging team collaboration in contemporary workplaces
Jiang (2010) finds that “82% of companies with 100 or more employees
reported that they use teams” (p. 223) and recent trend in global businesses shows
that team collaboration appears to be new practice with formation of different type of
teams like parallel, management, work, project, etc. Since team work are expanding
dramatically to benefit organisations as well as individuals, it is significant that
businesses practitioners encourage or motivate people to work in cooperative
manner and face challenges jointly during intense situations.
Objective based team encouragement through training: While considering goal
achievement as an aim behind team formation, organisation must ensure providing
equal training and development opportunity to every team member. Objective-based
teams training makes every team member educated about their individual role and
responsibility and how they can utilise their individual abilities to achieve team
objectives. Such training not only encourages team spirit, but also develops effective
teamwork where every member contributes in teams for achieving a shared vision
(Fapohunda, 2013).
Voluntarily formed teams learning processes: Voluntarily formed teams usually
create friendly and positive atmosphere in workplace and stimulates employee
preferences for working in teams. Such teams empower individual members and
increases involvement by making them share their experience and collaborative
knowledge with each other’s. Simultaneously, if such teams are provided with
ongoing learning processes, every member will improve personal abilities while
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learning with the help of each other. Furthermore, ongoing learning process can
create learned workplace as it urges team members to learn continually (Fapohunda,
2013).
Team-based communication and leadership: Such measures in organisations
influences employees the most as it creates close relationship among employees
and employers in the form of a team collaboration. This further encourages
employees’ strengths and behaviour to establish a uniformed communication system
that helps in discovering issues promptly. Such encouragement methods easily
stimulate team member performances through following high-performance
instructions and application of leadership art that helps team members in achieving
team excellence (Campbell, 2017).
Mixed-reward system: Rewards consists of those tangible and intangible elements
that are provided to the employees for motivating them to perform in above expected
levels. Mixed-reward method can consist performance-based or team-goal based
pay that can depend upon individual or collaborative performances that encourages
team members to work in best manner for getting rewarded while they achieve
required objectives. For example, a team may get well rewarded due to work
achieved before deadline that could not have been possible while working
individually. Such rewards encourage team members to work more in teams as they
can easily gain rewards through team collaboration. Skill-based pay further supports
and attracts talented skills in teams along with encouraging other team members
also.
Scott (2017) suggests that collaborative practice can be aided by enabling
right mix of excellence in teams that helps in promoting team effectiveness and
efficiency that comes through recognising individual members capabilities, work
habits and knowledge. Teams having membership stability and intra-team focus are
less likely to integrate and seek external capabilities since their challenges are
sorted among group members itself. Furthermore, working in a global environment,
collaborative teams’ boundaries are transparent and easily accessible to integrate
expertise whenever needed. Henceforth, once a collaborated team is formed,
practitioners must encourage teams to seek guidance and expertise within teams to
set a positive organisational culture along with cultivating weak ties that can adapt
team expertise.
Privacy issues in team collaborations
Ramim & Lichvar (2013) states that in global organisations, teams often
include members belonging to diverse backgrounds and areas that may or may not
have worked together before. Cross-cultural teams include those members who
holds specialised knowledge and technical skills and requires establishing
relationship to achieve common team goals. However, such accomplishments prove
to be challenging especially while working with cross border teams in which
individuals in respective teams have to disclose sensitive data to the others or share
specialised skills that may be unfamiliar to the others. Such obstacles lead in
underutilization of individual skills that weakens team collaboration objectives. Trust
between individuals working in teams is another challenge that adds to the
communication barrier and knowledge sharing along with facing various policy
related issues while providing organisational privacy and security details for
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accomplishing long-term or shorter-term period projects. Major global businesses
projects challenges involve social exchanges in which team members are required to
combine their resources, abilities and knowledge. Furthermore, complex projects
have made cross-border organisations share common ownership thereby developing
issues among several departments concerning responsibility and authority (Ramim &
Lichvar, 2013).
Houghton & Joinson (2010) ascertains that various issues have been raised in
past few years due to crossing privacy boundaries among team members. According
to theory of communication privacy management, whenever team members
behaviour differs from their usual behaviour, the unspoken rule of negotiation is
violated and management of information seems to fail. Especially while sharing
information through digital means like social media and virtual means, members
remain unaware of conditions faced by other member during the time of information
sharing thereby putting entire communication fall into risk. Nevertheless, most of the
researchers and authors claim that though privacy have become an important issue
within collaborated teams, it must not be overlooked that team members absorbs
new knowledge from their respected team colleagues that can further leverage
organisations. Literature suggests that organisations can develop privacy related
policies that can guide its employees about how to protect their sensitive data.
Similar policy may be applied with teamwork also in which decision-making process
involves sharing of that information only that can affect teamwork rather than
violating individual personal objectives. Such policies will eliminate issues that can
potentially preclude team collaborations and enable open communication without
pressurising individuals for sharing information’s that proves sensitive for them
(Bond-Barnard, Fletcher & Steyn, 2018).
Conclusion
Present global business trend remains unexpected and ever-changing due to
rapid development seen in technology and innovation, especially for those
organisations that faces fierce competition. Consequently, if businesses want to
achieve success, it needs to be aware behind organisation productivity and
effectiveness related factors along with utilising its resources and human capital
optimally. The above report finds that effectiveness seen through team building and
collaborations implies present global businesses involve activities in their workplace
to ensure self-development among employees along with enabling positive
leadership skills, communication, shared vision and healthy atmosphere. Since
collaborated teams allows joint discussions and supporting each other to achieve
combined goals, personal strengths develops along with developing organisational
productivity. For the same, team members must be selected on the basis of abilities
that can ensure equal contribution provided by every team member in group work.
This report also finds issues related to privacy that can prelude team collaborations,
however, since most of the researcher and authors support team collaboration due
to various benefits recognised, this report finds that privacy issues do not always
preclude team collaborations rather require setting of certain guidelines under which
team members share their sensitive information freely.
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