Association Journals

Impact of the Rapid Prevalence of Telework during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Teamwork in Corporate Organizations: A Comparison Before and After the Spread of the Infection

Kengo NAWATA(Fukuoka University)

Hiroshi IKEDA(Kyushu University)

Mika AOSHIMA(Kyushu University)

Hiroyuki YAMAGUCHI(Kyushu University)

This study examined how the rapid spread of telework triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected organizational behavior, especially teamwork. The spread of COVID-19 in 2020 led to a significant increase in telework in Japanese companies. Since telework involves non-face-to-face communication, it may have a negative impact on teamwork. We compared the teamwork of 23 teams in an organization by conducting a pre- (January 2020) and post-survey (May 2020) during the first wave of COVID-19 in Japan. We found that the proportions of telework and team virtuality increased significantly from pre-survey to post-survey. However, the teamwork and team performance data remained almost constant. Rather, on examining the data from May 2020 (post-survey), we found that team virtuality, especially technology use, had a positive correlation with teamwork. Thus, the rapid spread of telework and team virtuality does not necessarily hamper teamwork; rather, the technology-proficient teams may have excellent team processes and high team performance.

Keyword : team virtuality, virtual team, telework, remote work, teamwork

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