We have completed the experimental stage in the project of studying flow in virtual teams

We have completed the experiments in the project “Flow and virtual team effectiveness”! Our research was aimed at understanding what really affects the effectiveness of teams operating remotely. We focused on the concept of team flow – a state in which team members are fully engaged, focused and work in harmony, achieving above-average results. We designed experiments to capture not only the end results of the teams’ work, but, more importantly, the dynamics of the processes that lead to these results. By using original research tools and state-of-the-art online solutions, we were able to observe how collaboration, social influence and

...............

Is it possible to reduce the influence of a manager on his team?

During the 5th Scientific Conference “Contemporary Challenges of Management, Economics and Finance” we presented the results of research on the influence of the manager on the team and the possibility of reducing this influence. As a result of research on the impact of people on other members of the organization, two opposing approaches have developed to the importance of social influence in achieving the effectiveness of teams or entire organizations. On the one hand, the literature emphasizes the key role of the team manager in the achievement of high team performance, while on the other hand, there are views advocating

...............

How to use online managerial tools to build a robotic manager?

At the International Conference on AI Research (ICAIR 2024), Olaf Flak, PhD, presented a paper Online Managerial Tools as Research Tools to Apply Artificial Management. Results of Research, which talks about how to use online managerial tools to build a robotic manager. Artificial intelligence (AI) can augment human intelligence in teamwork, but it is still unclear how to replace a human manager with a robot manager. The rapid development of computer science offers the possibility of replacing team managers with robots. However, it is still not possible to employ a robot in a managerial position. Therefore, the purpose of the

...............

What is the importance of team diversity for research team competence? Part 3

Below are the answers to the last 3 research questions we presented in our October 14 blog post. This is a continuation of the October 21 answers, so we are numbering the questions in further order. The answer to the third question, how competencies were distributed in the research team according to seniority, can be described as follows. The results were consistent with the answer to the question of how the average competency gaps of team members are distributed across job groups. Employees with the least experience (up to 10 years of seniority) and those with the most experience (more

...............

What is the importance of team diversity to the competence of a research team? Part 2

As you can read in the previous post, we studied the impact of team diversity on the competence of this research team. Let’s start with the main diversity parameters we measured. The parameters describing the diversity of the team were as follows: Below are the answers to the first two research questions. The first research question, how the average competency gaps of team members were shaped according to their positions, can be answered as follows. The average competency gap for employees in the position of assistant professor was as high as -0.49, which means that these employees were on average

...............

What is the importance of team diversity for the competence of the research team? Part 1

In today’s world, including the world of science, joint action is seen as one of the ways to increase work efficiency, improve the level of execution, better and better scientific projects and discoveries. Joint action is based on cooperation, communication, exchange of information, openness to diversity and many other factors. Therefore, in our project to study the competencies of academics in research universities, we posed the research problem of what are the most important characteristics of a research team and the importance of the team’s diversity to its competencies. In order to solve it, we posed 5 research questions about

...............

How does the balanced management of a virtual team affect its effectiveness? Part 2

In the previous blog post, we presented the answer to the research question, which was: to what extent does the lack of a defined manager of a virtual team affect the emergence of sustainable influence of team members on the course of the team? The question was raised as part of an article to be published in the journal Organization and Management, as well as participation in the conference “Sustainable Enterprise. Dilemmas of Sustainable Development.” Now we will answer the second research question, which was the following in our study: To what extent does the sustainable influence of virtual team

...............

How does the balanced management of a virtual team affect its effectiveness? Part 1

Recall that in April 2024 there was a national conference “Sustainable enterprise. Dilemmas of sustainable development”. The proceedings took place in Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula River. The organizers were the Warsaw School of Economics, and the topics of the conference were part of the current issues of implementing the concept of sustainable development and building a sustainable enterprise. Among management theoreticians and practitioners, we discussed key management problems, conditions for the creation and development of a sustainable enterprise. The conference was attended by Olaf Flak, PhD, who gave a presentation entitled “Influence of sustainable team management in virtual teams

...............

What are the competence gaps of a diverse research team?

In our research that we conducted at research universities in Poland between 2020 and 2022, we also looked for new trends and phenomena in the work of research teams. We noticed that research teams are increasingly dispersed and diverse. Therefore, we examined the competence gaps in just such a team, coming from one of the research universities. The analyzed research team consisted of 13 employees working in research or research and teaching positions at a certain university, which is an established research university. We deliberately chose this particular team for the description, as it was also the most numerous research

...............

What are the competencies of research staff at research universities?

In 2022, we completed the Dialog project, in which we surveyed the competencies of research staff and support staff at Polish research universities. We surveyed 10 research universities in Poland, and more than 260 research staff from them. We described the results of the research and our conclusions in our book, still available at the bookstore of the University of Silesia in Katowice: https://wydawnictwo.us.edu.pl/node/27063 Today we will show you some of the conclusions of the study of the competencies of science workers. You can find more in our book mentioned above. In Figure 1, we show the average results of

...............