Department of informatics Magister thesis, 15 hp
Master’s Programme in IT Management SPM 2021.10
Organizational resilience to radical change
A qualitative case study
Emma Ögren Nätfalk, Nicklas Elvin
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Abstract
The abrupt transition to remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has put considerable pressure on both companies and their employees. With no means to avoid the crisis, many companies have transitioned to remote work, conducting their business predominantly on digital platforms. This has created a situation where the employees are disconnected from the collective of the office at the same time as they face a completely new situation. To our attention, research is lacking in the area of organizational resilience in remote settings. Thus, we have conducted a qualitative case study where we have examined how organizational and individual resilience has influenced a company during the change to remote work and how adequate communication can facilitate a strengthened resilience.
Our findings suggest that the social aspects of a sustainable resilience are hard to replicate in a digital environment and that communication might be the primary driver of organizational resilience in all resilience streams.
Keywords: Organizational change, Remote work, Organizational resilience, Knowledge sharing, Communication visibility, Communication
1. Introduction and research question
2500 years ago, the philosopher Heraclitus claimed that change is the only thing that is constant. This is just as true, if not truer today than it was back then. Global competition, disruptive business models and the rapidly advancing technological development are stretching the boundaries of what was previously classified as impossible. There is also no evidence that this development is about to slow down, but in accordance with Moore's law, the development continues exponentially, and as Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2015) put it, we are now entering the other half of the chessboard. This form of market change is still rather predictable even if it puts a lot of strain on organizations to keep up. On the other hand, there are unpredictable radical changes due to forces larger than a specific market, such as a global pandemic.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Europe in early 2020, many companies were hit very hard and found themselves in a position where it was impossible to predict what kind of impact the crisis would portend, even in the near future. In order to recover from and adjust to massive disruption of this scale, the organization needs a highly developed resilience on both the individual and organizational level (Riolli and Savicki, 2003). Resilience is, in short terms, the ability to productively withstand change, and without resilience, the organization is at the risk of regression when facing extensive change (Horne and Orr 1998). To build this resilience, the well-being of the individuals that make up the organization plays a central role (Riolli and Savicki, 2003). In order to achieve well-being, aspects such as communication and community are of great importance to decrease stress (Ibid), and these aspects are also in focus in this study.
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The ability to share knowledge within the organization has been greatly affected due to the pandemic, especially the possibility of informal knowledge sharing. When working together in the same office, unplanned interaction when running into each other creates a natural flow of knowledge, but these situations can no longer happen naturally when everyone is working from their own homes (Oshri, Van Fenema and Kotlarsky, 2008). By using enterprise social platforms, it is possible to reach some kind of informal knowledge sharing, as long as communication visibility and transparency is adapted (Leonardi, 2014). When communication is occurring in a transparent manner so that internal third parties get access to it, it is possible to build metaknowledge, which is knowledge about who knows what and whom (Leonardi 2014; Leonardi 2015). When individuals of the organization have this knowledge, less time is spent finding the right person for help since they already know who to contact. Through achieving efficient connections and communication paths, resilience is increased.
Communication and knowledge sharing are central in all organizations since it enables collaboration and more efficient work. These processes are always subjected to challenges due to an increasingly digitalized world, but by adding a global pandemic to the calculation, the challenges are taken to a new level. Since there has not been this level of an external threat from a global pandemic to modern organizations before, the effects of disruptive organizational change due to a global health crisis has yet to be thoroughly researched. We have neither found any extensive research on organizational resilience in a fully remote setting. MIS Quarterly, a leading journal in the information systems field, has also put out a call for papers on digital resilience in relation to the pandemic, further amplifying the lack of research in this area (Boh, Constantinides, Padmanabhan and Viswanathan, 2020).
This global crisis gives us a rare chance of studying organizational response to unforeseen situations of a large magnitude. Therefore we want to understand the effects that forced rapid readjustment from co-located work to remote work has on social processes and individuals of the organization, in contrast to planned remote work as well as co-located work that was normal pre-pandemic. If there is a lack in the overview over organizational competencies and knowledge, it can in the long run lead to stress and lacking resilience among the employees. By studying the resilience that an organization experienced that they had going into this rapid change, as well as how it has evolved over the past year, we aim to provide knowledge on the effects that a global pandemic has on organizational management and knowledge sharing, and how to adjust and learn for the future. The knowledge we aim to provide is important both for research, but even more for practitioners so that they can get a greater understanding of this form of change and to build resilience for the future. With this ambition, we have formulated the following research question:
How does organizational knowledge sharing and communication affect organizational resilience in rapid and forced shifts to remote work?
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2. Related research
In this segment the research that lays the theoretical foundation for this study is presented.
2.1 Organizational change
Organizational change can be described as a collective change in processes, behavior and/or structure where the organization moves from one state to another (Ströh and Jaatinen, 2002). Change is a part of most organizations' everyday lives and affects everything from minor internal processes to the market in which the organization operates. Despite this constant presence, organizational change is difficult to implement in a successful manner (Jacobs, Van Witteloostuijn and Christe-Zeyse, 2013; By, 2005; Senior and Swailes, 2016).
Organizational change has always been characterized by uncertainty; it is hard to predict if the outlined path is a correct strategic move that will be able to bring a market advantage, but also if the change will be feasible within the organization. According to Balogun and Hope-Hailey (2004), as much as 70% of all change efforts fail to achieve the set goals. This process becomes even more complicated when the organization's ability to succeed with the intended change work is affected by the company's history, size, organizational age, culture, and market position (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999).
Furthermore, organizational change can be divided into the two categories of planned and unplanned change. Planned change, as the name suggests, is about the type of change that the organization consciously implements, often in line with the organization's strategic goals.
The majority of all change work is planned change, and it is also the type of change that is most often dealt with by scholars (Grundy, 1994; Quinn, 1989). There are many different methods for planning and structuring change within an organization, the most known of these models is Lewin's (1947) 3-step model where change takes place through unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. Lewin's model gained immense traction and is still widely used today, although it has been criticized for not considering organizations' iterative aspects while conducting changes within the organization (Rosenbaum, More and Steane, 2018;
Senior and Swailes, 2016). Even if organizational change does not take place according to a straightforward 3-step model but is more iterative and fluid, planned change often has the luxury of being able to develop and grow in a protected environment. Unplanned organizational change does not always have the same advantage, especially when the change occurs as a result of unforeseen external circumstances. It is in these occasions of unforeseen change that companies’ ability for rapid changeover is really tested, and since only 30% of all organizations' change succeeds (Balogun and Hope-Hailey, 2004), there is also no good forecast of how companies will handle radical change such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or how it will affect the organization and its employees.
2.1.1 Organizational resilience
A natural consequence of organizational change and especially radical changes is the fact that new types of strain are placed on the organization's employees and thus, the organization as a whole. At the same time as organizations are changing at an ever-faster pace, the demand for a strong resilience within organizations is increasing. Being a resilient organization is not only about the survival of the business but also the ability to thrive in volatile and difficult
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times (Horne and Orr, 1998, Mallak, 1998). With that said, we affiliate to the following definition of organizational resilience: "Resilience is a fundamental quality of individuals, groups, organizations, and systems as a whole to respond productively to significant change that disrupts the expected pattern of events without engaging in an extended period of regressive behavior" (Horne and Orr, 1998, p 31). The outcome of change can thus be manifested as either a productive response or a regressive behavior. A productive response can be anything from an averted crisis, a new business opportunity or a new way of executing organizational processes or any type of response to change that has a positive outcome.
Regressive behavior is triggered when change occurs that the organization has no way of averting, leading to a weakened market position or other disadvantageous effects on the organization itself (Horne and Orr, 1998).
What the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about is that more and more companies today have switched to carrying out the majority of their work remotely, a change that affects operations as well as employees. To better understand the impact of change on every level, Riolli and Savicki (2003) have divided resilience within the information system field to see both the entire organization and the employees within their respective contexts.
At the level of the individual, resilience concerns the individual's performance and well- being under difficult working conditions and stressful workloads. At an organizational level, resilience is instead focusing on agile adjustments to adapt to a disruptive, volatile, or reluctant market position, with the aim of continued survival of the organization. These two perspectives form two parts of the same analysis, thus, both perspectives are important for a holistic understanding. The two parts also influence each other, and a good organizational resilience is dependent on resilient employees, at the same time resilient employees are not a guarantee for a resilient organization. Therefore, both parts must be considered to ensure that the entire organization remains resilient (Riolli and Savicki, 2003).
For organizations, active work aimed at strengthening their own organizational resilience should be a constant process. A popular approach to building a good organizational resilience is what Horne and Orr (1998) calls the seven behavioral streams. These behavioral streams are the key properties of organizational resilience and will in this thesis be referred to as streams. The streams consist of community, competence, connections, commitment, communication, coordination, and consideration, all of which together interweave to form a resilient organizational structure. In the following table you will find a description of each stream of resilience proposed by Horne and Orr (1998).
Community The community stream corresponds to shared purpose, the culture and the values in the organization.
Competences Competences contain skills or knowledge required to meet the demands of the organization, this stream can also be ascribed to individuals, teams or a group within the company.
Connections The relationships of individuals or groups within the organization that allows us to maintain linkage all through the organization.
Commitment Refers to the capability to unite each sector within the organization during uncertainty for a collective commitment and trust in each other.
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Communication The communication stream refers to the organization's ability to share information and knowledge but is also used to plan development or to create cohesion.
Coordination Efforts to steer employees and the organization towards desirable results.
This is connected to a clear leadership and clear direction for the worker.
Consideration This stream focuses on the human factor within the organization, it reflects upon the understanding that changes within the organization will also affect the individual worker.
Table 1. The seven resilience streams
The main takeaway here is that an organization that possesses many of these behavioral attributes and actively works to maintain them will be better equipped to handle change.
Today, organizations tend to rely heavily on advanced technological channels for communication and we can only expect this reliance to increase when organizations are forced to operate remotely (Riolli and Savicki, 2003). Thus, we have chosen to direct our main focus in this study on the stream of communication with the assumption of it being a crucial aspect of all streams. Without working communication and knowledge sharing, it would simply be impossible to build the other streams in a productive way.
2.2 Organizational knowledge sharing
As we have already stated, communication is an important factor in how companies cope with changes, but it also becomes increasingly important when organizations' work to a greater extent takes place remotely and often in distributed teams. A lot of research has been conducted to investigate how knowledge sharing can occur both in co-located and in distributed teams. In this research, it is also common with a focus on how communication and information sharing can create conditions for organizations, both for personnel and for system development (Ghobadi and D'Ambra, 2013; Joshi, Sarker and Sarker, 2007; Oshri, Van Fenema and Kotlarsky, 2008). Good communication can bring several organizational benefits such as more efficient work, more satisfied employees, and increased ability to share knowledge between employees (Joshi et al., 2007). Argote and Ingram (2000, p. 151) defines knowledge sharing as “the process through which one unit (e.g., group, department, or division) is affected by the experience of another”. This becomes more complicated when many organizations recently have shifted to both work remotely and collaborate remotely with customers. This in turn places higher demands on organizations' digital communication channels where all knowledge sharing now has to take place.
For companies that have close collaborations with customers or customers located in other geographical locations, the demands on the social aspects increase even more and special efforts are often required to create a social cohesion that goes beyond the professional relationship (Kotlarsky and Oshri, 2005). Informal communication, both of a professional and social nature, can be difficult to recreate in a remote setting. This in turn risks inducing a negative impact on the organization's learning processes. An important factor for the organization to continue to flourish is the constant development of the employees' skills and
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competencies. This can be achieved through formal training and courses, but a more common source of learning in the workplace is knowledge sharing between employees. With several competent individuals gathered in one place, organizations can create a zone of proximal development that can help employees continue to develop, often through informal interactions.
Knowledge sharing and communication can also be crucial for the organization's ability to meet external threats. Effective communication, both internally and externally, has a major impact on how companies can handle radical organizational change (Coombs and Holladay, 1996). Within the organization, this can facilitate knowledge sharing between different offices and departments in order to accelerate possible adjustments and adapt operations to new premises, which enhances the organization's resilience.
2.3 Communication visibility
Leonardi (2014) constructed communication visibility theory as a method to increase knowledge sharing. The center of this theory is that by visualizing communication to internal third parties, knowledge about who knows what and who knows whom is built, resulting in higher efficiency in organizations that rely on individuals with different competencies. By being able to see others' interactions, it becomes easier to contact the right person for the right inquiry, as well as to gather knowledge that can be helpful for both the present and the future. This type of knowledge about who knows what and who knows whom is called metaknowledge and, if accurate, is necessary to increase knowledge sharing and spur collaboration (Leonardi, 2014; Leonardi, 2015).
As the theory concerns the visibility of communication, transparency is key. Leonardi (2014; 2015) refers to social media, and specifically the design of social media walls as examples of how this can be implemented in real-life organizations. This way information and connections will be visible to internal third parties so that they can both mentally store relevant information that they come across, but also provide input where suitable. The transparency of such an enterprise social network (ESN) would thereby decrease the risk of double labor since that lets employees know what others are doing and therefore can give a heads up if they themselves already have done that or ask for help from someone else that has done something similar before (Leonardi, 2014). This creates an environment for computer-mediated collaboration and communication that in some ways outshines the physical environment. To overhear what someone else is talking about in the office might actually be harder than being able to see the conversation on a social media platform.
Multiple companies have developed ESNs that mimic the public social networking sites in order to increase connection and collaboration in organizations, some of the more popular ones being Yammer, Jive, and Tibbr (Chin, Evans and Choo, 2015). These forms of social platforms are key in order to create metaknowledge in the organization. One reason for why the ESN format is more effective for metaknowledge than other communication platforms is the visibility of the communication. Leonardi (2015) found that the users did not actively monitor communication between other people, but that the structure of the ESN exposed them to relevant information on their way to active tasks, such as sending a message. By being exposed to the communication of others, the metaknowledge increased without
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actively doing anything other than using the ESN for active tasks. By being passively exposed to ambient communication, which is communication that the individual is not directly involved in, important metaknowledge is created (Leonardi, 2015).
3. Research methodology
In this section, the methodology for identifying, collecting, and analyzing relevant data will be presented, as well as ethics and limitations of the chosen methods.
3.1 Research approach
The first decision to make when conducting a research study is between a quantitative or a qualitative research approach. For this study, a qualitative approach was chosen, mainly due to the interest being on the perceptions of the transition to remote work rather than just declaring what has changed. We further chose a single-case case study research approach based on the definition by Yin (2009) since it is the most suitable for this study. There are three criteria that make the case study approach the most suitable for a research study. These criteria are presented by Yin (2009) and are divided into the type of research question, the researcher’s level of control over events, and whether there is a focus on historical or contemporary phenomena. For case study research to be the most suitable methodology the research question(s) must focus on how or why, the researcher has little or no control over events, and the phenomenon of interest is contemporary and in a real-life context. This research study fits all of these criteria, which makes the case study research methodology the most suitable option. Further, the case study research approach has an emphasis of using theoretical propositions developed in the field to guide the study and acquisition of data (Yin, 2009), which helps us build a strong base to build our study upon. The main reason for doing a single-case study instead of multiple is that it provides the ability to dig deeper into one organization instead of getting superficial information from multiple sources, of course a longer time frame would have changed the conditions for this decision.
To further clarify why doing a case study is the best suitable method, it can be compared to other research methods. We are building our study on previous theory, which cancelled out grounded theory because it would have been impossible for us to disregard the before mentioned preconceived theoretical ideas (Myers, 2013). An ethnographic methodology would neither be suitable since that would require more of a longitudinal observation study, which is not possible to conduct in our time frame. The action research approach is also not an option, mainly due to our aim not being to intervene and affect the study object.
3.2 Case description
The criteria we had for what organization was suitable to study was mainly that it had to have been forced to switch from co-located work to remote work when the pandemic hit. Further criteria were that it was a company in the IT-industry. This distinction was made to make sure that the potential problems that they were facing due to having to work from home were not due to lacking experience in using digital tools. In order to get access to an organization, we used a previous connection that was built during former collaborations. The organization
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is a leading company in the IT-industry in the Nordics, with around 100 employees in the office we are collaborating with. Their main operations consist of selling hardware and software, as well as different consultant services.
The selection of interviewees was made in collaboration with an individual with profound knowledge of the organization, who also has a prominent role within the organization. We explained the aim of our data collection to our contact and requested interviewees with varied demographics. We specifically asked for interviewees in management positions, as well as individuals who work towards the customer, e.g. consultants. This way we would get different perspectives on the same situation, and cover both the thought behind actions and changes, as well as how they were perceived by the employees. We were then offered interviews with four managers and four team members but ended up interviewing three managers and four team members since one of the managers did not have enough time to participate. This final selection of interviewees consisted of 3 females and 4 males, all of varying ages. We will not explicitly specify the gender and age of each individual interviewee since that would make them identifiable by the person in the organization that provided us with the interviewees, and their anonymity is our priority.
3.3 Data collection
The source of empirical primary data for this study was from semi-structured interviews. To explain the meaning of semi-structure, one first needs to understand what structured and unstructured interviews mean. In structured interviews, the formulation of the questions and the order in which they are addressed are the same for every interview, providing a rigid structure of the interview. Unstructured interviews on the other hand consist of none, or very few, questions that have been formulated before the actual interview. When it comes to the role of the researcher, the structured interview puts a lot of pressure on preparations but does not put pressure on the performance of the interviewer, while the unstructured interview puts a lot of pressure on the interviewer but not on the preparations. The semi- structured interview takes advantage of both of these opposite poles. There are some pre- formulated questions that should be addressed in every interview for consistency and for making sure that the relevant data is collected. On the other hand the interviewer has the freedom to adjust the formulation and order of these questions, as well as adding questions in real-time to get as much value as possible from the interview (Myers, 2013; Bryman and Nilsson, 2011).
Our approach to the semi-structured interview was to put together a list of categories that we needed to cover in the interviews in order to gather the relevant data. We then formulated questions for every category so that we had some guidance. By making sure that we had a good consistent basis for the interviews, we made sure that we collected data that later could be compared to each other in the analytics phase, while still maintaining the freedom to adjust the interview to the specific interviewee and direction of the interview. We ended up with three separate interview guides, one for the pre-interview, one for the manager interviews, and one for the team member interviews. All are available in appendix 1, 2, and 3.
Since the pandemic is still going on we did not have that many chances to adjust the environment of the interview situation to make it comfortable for the participants. What we
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could, and did, do was to make sure to be prepared, since unprepared interviewers can make the interviewee uncomfortable (Myers, 2013). This preparation consisted of thoroughly going through what we needed to cover, as well as testing the video call software beforehand to ensure good sound quality and as little risk of technical error as possible. The interviews were also conducted in Swedish, which is the native language for both the interviewers and the interviewees. We also made sure to, on our part, sit in a quiet room so that there were not any disturbances during the interviews.
3.4 Ethics
A key aspect of scientific research is ethics. The ethics in social science is meant to make sure that the research is relevant, of high quality, and contributes to society's knowledge base, as well as to protect the integrity of participating individuals (Vetenskapsrådet, 2002).
The steps we took to achieve an ethical study were based on the recommendations by Vetenskapsrådet (2002). In order to allow the participants to give informed consent to participating in this study, we made sure to describe the project, their role, and that they are allowed to terminate their participation at any point. Before starting the interview we explicitly asked for oral consent to participation, as well as permission to record the interview.
We also informed the participants that they will be anonymous and that we will handle the collected data with high confidentiality to make sure that a third party will not be able to detect their identity. In order to secure their anonymity we gave them pseudonyms in our documentation so that only us authors that are directly involved know their true identity. All participants will also be provided with the finished study.
3.5 Data analysis method
All of the interviews were conducted through video call software and were recorded. In order to prepare the interview data for analysis, the interviews were transcribed so that they were available in textual format for easier overview. The eight interviews resulted in 65 pages of transcribed material. We also wrote down notes during the interviews about interesting information that emerged.
The first iteration of coding and analysis the pre-interview was done in a separate manner from the rest of the coding and analysis since the purpose was not the same. From the pre- interview we were only gathering data to get a first glimpse of what had happened during this past year of COVID-19 impact in a real-life organization. Therefore we only marked parts of the interview that we felt was relevant to take into consideration moving forward. When proceeding to code and analyze the rest of the interviews, the pre-interview was included in case some data would also be relevant in relation to the other interviews.
As a data analysis approach we chose a reflexive thematic analysis (TA) approach. This approach was chosen due to it being fully qualitative and providing six steps of analysis, while at the same time offering flexibility and freedom to be iterative when conducting the analysis (Braun, Clarke, Hayfield and Terry, 2019). In order to describe the data analysis process, the phases will be described in a linear order, even though it was an iterative process.
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The first phase of TA is the phase of familiarization, where the goal is to get to know the data and what it has to say after it has been collected and transcribed, but before starting the more formal coding (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Braun et al., 2019). After transcribing the interviews, and with our interview notes as support, we discussed each interview and interesting data that had been collected. Aside from discussing the individual interview as a singular entity, after each interview we also discussed how it was interesting in relation to previous interviews. This let us get a grasp of the data from the interview as an individual unit, but also as a part of a collective.
The next phase of TA is about generating codes in a more systematic manner (Braun et al., 2019). We used a software called MAXQDA for the coding of our data, which is a program made specifically for qualitative data analysis (QDA). In order to cover our area of interest, we started out with codes that correlated to central concepts and the notes we had made regarding interesting aspects, but we also made sure to keep an open mind regarding emerging codes. When our analysis began, we had 10 predeveloped codes that derived from our related research. After the coding process was concluded, we had 18 different types of codes, and a total of 336 coded text segments. The coding was done both separately as well as in collaboration between the authors in order to make sure that we were on the same page as to how we perceived the data and the codes, but also to make sure that we did not influence each other too much.
In the phase of constructing themes, we collectively worked in a manner similar to brainstorming where we moved around the codes on a visual board to create clusters of codes that together created meaning. The clusters were then our preliminary themes and were assigned names meant to describe the meaning-based patterns in the cluster (Braun et al., 2019). These themes were then improved in the phases of revising and defining themes.
During these revisions, our themes took a clearer shape as we found ways to further specify the requirements for assigning codes to the specific themes. The aim was to reformulate themes that could tell the story of the codes and did not interlock with other themes. The aim of this phase was to reduce the risk of conceptual overlap and to create a collection of meaningful themes. The data analysis resulted in 5 different themes, as displayed in Appendix 5.
During the last phase of producing the written work, we made necessary changes to the results from the previous phases to ensure a clear and cohesive analysis. Braun et al. (2019) describes this phase as the last stage of analysis, rather than just a phase of writing up the results, therefore we made sure to keep an open mind regarding changing things that no longer fit.
3.6 Limitations
The choices of methods and different decisions that have been made have offered some limitations to this study. Five such limitations will be presented below.
The dual language of conducting this study is one aspect that has provided some limitations. The interviews were conducted in Swedish for the comfort of the interviewees, as well as to make it easy for them to formulate and express their thoughts. This can have some consequences, since the quotes had to be translated to English before being included in the
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thesis. First of all, there is an element of subjectivity when translating even when trying to be objective, since interpretation is a big part of understanding spoken words. There is also a risk of losing the essence due to linguistic differences in how expressions are used in different languages.
There was also a limitation emerging due to the pandemic. Since we had to conduct the interviews through digital platforms, we might have lost some aspects of the communication such as body language and the overall feeling in the room. By using video calls instead of only voice calls, we could make up for some of this loss, but it could not cover everything.
Being assigned interviewees is another aspect that can be to our disadvantage in some ways. Even though the interviewees were selected based on our discussion with our contact, they were selected by a person inside the organization that was being studied. If this was an advantage or disadvantage is impossible to say, but the risk is there.
There is also a limitation connected to our choice of research approach. Triangulation is an important aspect of case study research (Yin, 2009), and would provide further strength to our results. But the restrictions connected to this thesis, time being the most prominent one, resulted in it not being prioritized in this study. Instead we focused on interviewing a larger number of interviewees to make sure to cover the different perspectives on the situation.
The thematic analysis process by Braun et al. (2019) puts a lot of emphasis on formulating themes that catch the inherent meaning created by the codes rather than simply describing the content. This puts a lot of pressure on the researcher to really catch the essence when formulating themes, which takes a lot of experience that we as students do not have, and by conducting this study we have only started to build this experience.
4. Analysis
In the following section, the results of the analysis will be presented by using the most telling quotes from the coded interviews. In order to answer our research question we first needed to understand what happened in the organization of this study as the change occurred. Given our interest in resilience we have chosen to make a further analysis of productive responses and regressive behavior that the organization has shown. Lastly, we analyze the role that knowledge sharing and communication has played in the organizations’ transition, and how this has affected resilience.
4.1 Responding to the forced transition to remote work
The organization started to work remotely in March 2020 when COVID-19 started to rapidly spread through Sweden. The only departments that were still allowed in the office were those who could not conduct their tasks remotely, such as managing inventory and receiving goods. After a while they implemented a mobile app where employees could book a spot at the office, and that way the app could make sure that there was a limited amount of people per square meter. Even with this app most of the work continued to be conducted remotely since the available office spaces were very limited. The organization therefore had to continue adjusting their communication to mainly a digital setting.
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The main platform for communication in the organization is Microsoft Teams. In Teams they have different channels for different purposes in order to keep information relevant, available to the right people, and to have some structure to the flow of information. They were using Teams as their main platform even before the change to remote work, making the transition smoother in that they did not have to learn a completely new platform. Thanks to Teams being the base of communication even before the pandemic, the resilience is strengthened with already established communication channels. This is also one of the reasons that the employees themselves highlight as one of the verifications why the organization has managed the transition successfully:
We are computer savvy so… We have been working in Teams already, […] So we were used to communicating via Teams, chatting, and booking meetings. So, I think it has been a great help and that it has been a factor why the change has worked so well. (Team member 2)
Even with this well practiced platform, there have been some challenges with transitioning into a mainly remote work setting.
In the beginning of working remotely, the aim was for the company to make the work experience as close to normal as possible. This resulted in initiatives such as digital coffee breaks, as team member 2 describes: “In the beginning we were better at doing these, we booked coffee breaks together, about the same times as we had in the office, and we also tried to have more spontaneous meetings”. These attempts of creating a space for informal communication with colleagues were appreciated in some ways, but also led to difficulties due to the inevitable difference between a physical space, such as a break room, and the virtual room. Team member 3 elaborates on these difficulties:
We have had digital coffee breaks, it has been a challenge because what also happens is that everyone is so eager to talk to someone, if we are 40 people in the same meeting, who should get the floor? Therefore, it must almost be the case that we have a quiz and then you can write the answer in the chat, we have had such activities, but it is easy to interrupt each other when you meet in larger groups.
One of the managers describes similar struggles with communication in digital spaces: “This works okay if you have a clear agenda and a clear goal with the meeting, but the small talk on the other hand... If there are 20 people in a room, a digital room, it will be very difficult, you interrupt each other, so yeah, it loses its effect a little bit.” (Manager 3). The same interviewee then continues on to talk about how connecting remotely makes communication more difficult: “Partly because everything does not have to be a meeting when you can meet in person, you can take it in 5 minutes at the office or at the coffee machine”. It seems to be a consensus among the interviewees that the informal communication that they are used to in the office is suffering from working remotely.
Overall, our analysis shows that the initial responses to the change have had to be adjusted as time went on due to the realization that it is not possible to continue on as they did in the office with coffee breaks and informal social interactions. The previous approach to
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going between meetings has also been subject to reconsideration when there is no longer a natural pause between the meetings. To further understand in what ways the organization’s responses have led to an increased resilience, we will now focus the analysis on their productive responses.
4.1.1 Productive responses
To understand what actions have been taken by the organization to strengthen their resilience, the identified signs of productive responses will now be analyzed. A productive response is actions and adjustments that in some way makes the organization more successful in dealing with the occurring change (Horne and Orr, 1998).
Even though the transition from co-located work to remote work has changed some aspects of the organization's processes, there are several parts of the business that have managed to remain productive during the transition.
For instance, they can be even more efficient in conducting work tasks as team member 4 describes: “You do not go and sit for half an hour and talk shit with a colleague and drink coffee. At best, you get a cup of coffee and sit at the desk and continue with your work.”, and later clarifies: “What I can say is that it was a bit like that when you, when I sat at home, as I said, that you become very efficient”. This increase in efficiency might seem positive, but team member 3 reflects further on the situation:
Sometimes we become a little too effective for our own good, because you can book so many meetings during a working day, because you have no travel time, so it really gets back-to-back. And this in turn means that you may not have time to reflect after each meeting, but… So that you get more done, but it is also difficult to reflect in retrospect how much was missed.
The fact that work performance has increased as a result of the transition is a clear example of a productive response. Another example of a productive response in relation to this is that the management has continuous conversations with employees about their work environment where they encourage them to take breaks between meetings:
We have had meetings where we discuss our working environment and how to think now when we sit at home, they encourage us to step away from the computer or go to another room, that we are allowed to take breaks from work, [...] they have also tried to remind us not to book back-to-back meetings. And then we have had discussion meetings where everyone could give tips on how to decrease stress or how to think to not make it so intense. We have definitely gotten support. (Team member 2)
Another interesting find is that their means of working has not really changed that much during this transition. What this digital work structure allowed the organization to do is to relocate the main part of their operations, without disrupting the expected pattern of their workflow. This is one of the qualities that Horne and Orr (1998) highlights as characteristic for a strong resilience. Team member 2 stated that this relocation has proved to the customers of the organization that this unexpected change also can create new opportunities,
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and that with an increased acceptance towards remote work, the possibility of collaborations with other offices within the wider organization opens:
But now customers are also more open to getting help across the borders, or how to say, because they are so used to this digital, so it has been simplified, that we work more between offices and we have probably gotten better collaboration with colleagues, between offices.
This is a good example of a productive response, when processes are being performed remotely, the opportunity to receive help remotely also increases, if the organization realizes the opportunity. A tighter connection with other offices within the organization enables the lending of specific competencies, which can allow local offices to handle challenges that they would not have been able to meet with the local competencies alone. In regard to resilience, we could also see that the organization showed a high amount of consideration for their employees and were actively working with ways to increase the working conditions in a multitude of ways. In the following quote manager 2 talks about a recent survey they conducted regarding employee commitment: “But on the other hand, we saw that job satisfaction had dropped a bit. It was still at a high level, but we still had a negative trend that we said we would, for our own sake, find out a little more about why”. In addition to ongoing efforts to understand the employees' situation, there is also an interest in understanding what is causing the changes in the results. This consideration seems to reach through to the employees who are generally positive about the support received from the organization's management. Team member 3 was positive when asked how the transition to remote work has been handled by the company:
It is very positive. I have nothing bad to say except that you get tired by sitting in front of the computer for a whole day, [...] all things considered it has been very, very good.
The main aspects that speak for a good resilience within the organization is their ability to convert the majority of business to remote without it affecting their internal processes, as well as their ability to conduct parts of their processes even more efficiently than before. The transition to remote work has also increased the opportunity to give/receive assistance to other offices within the wider organization, which have the potential to increase productivity, not only for the local office, but for the whole company. Now that the productive responses have been analyzed, it is necessary to explore the other side of organizational resilience, that is regressive behavior.
4.1.2 Regressive behavior
Even though we identified several productive responses, we also identified cases of regressive behavior. One of the most obvious negative aspects that accompanied the change from co- located to remote work is the loss of the informal social interactions between employees in the office. As an employee, you are part of a community, something that is also a contributing factor in creating an environment that is characterized by consideration. During our interviews, we were often told that social interaction was something that did not work as well
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during remote work, one example being team member 1: “Some are struggling with not being able to, or find it difficult that you can't socialize”, as well as team member 4: “It is the social part that is lost, both the everyday talk and the job talk. And I miss it and I have heard more people miss it. They're tired of not being able to meet.”
We have also seen that the change has created a situation where digital meetings can be booked without regard to travel and set-up times that were needed before. This results in more meetings in a typical workday and a greater stress load on both managers and team members, as manager 3 point out:
Another thing that has been greatly affected is that the amount of information has escalated from working at home, now it can be back-to-back meetings for 7 hours for example. And that's not how it looks in ordinary cases, when it's in the office.
When employees are asked about how the workload has been affected, most people point out that the number of meetings has increased. This is especially interesting because our interviewees classify this increase in meetings both as an increase in their own efficiency and as an increased workload. It seems as even though they have discussions about the work environment and are encouraged not to book back-to-back meetings, the issue continues.
This might be due to a heavy workload, which makes it hard to actually take breaks between meetings and not book them one after another. There are many nuances and aspects of this specific struggle, which leads to the same situations both having signs of productive responses and regressive behavior.
Focusing on the regressive behavior since the productive responses has already been analyzed, the increased workload means an increased pressure on employees, which can manifest itself in the form of stress or mental exhaustion, not least when the increased workload occurs at the same time as other extensive changes such as the transition to remote work. Team member 2 describes the stressful situation as follows: “I have felt some days that I just jump between different meetings and that I feel completely drained at the end of the day”. One reason for concern here is the reduced social interaction between employees and the fact that the increased workload occurs at the same time as each other. Thus, employees will risk receiving less of the social support from each other that is necessary to build the community and consideration resilience streams (Horne and Orr, 1998). This is especially harmful during a period when the need for support may be higher than usual. Uncontrolled, this risks creating a negative spiral where stress prevents employees from participating in social activities, thus, reducing the individual resilience further and reducing resistance to increasing stress. This link between workload and reduced opportunities to be able to support each other has also been noticed by one of the managers:
Many have had too much to do, so then it has also become difficult to see if they are not doing well or are stressed because they are at home. [...] You do not have time to change the air in the room before you go into a new Team Meeting.
[...] then it is also difficult when you are at home and cannot look anyone in the eyes and see if someone is stressed. (Manager 1)
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Once again, we see how the loss of physical meetings risks leaving workers in a more vulnerable position where stress and lack of well-being cannot be detected in time. This creates a situation where the worker's resilience can be negatively affected and weakened.
Individual cases, albeit regrettable, are not devastating, but decreasing the resilience of many individuals will also affect the resilience of the entire organization. What we have identified in this analysis is that there is a struggle between an increasing workload and the well-being of the employees that is even harder to work out in a remote setting where it is harder to detect how others are feeling. As we have seen in the analysis up to this point, social interaction has an important role to play in adapting to change, moving the analysis into focusing on how communication has affected organizational resilience.
4.2 The impact of communication for resilience
One important factor that has helped the company during this transition is that they used Teams as one of their main channels for communication, even before the transition. Even with this advantage, there are some struggles with communicating in Teams, one of them being the nature of communication as explained by manager 1: “There were dialogues in the room before, it is more mechanical in Teams”. Since they are connected to Teams on both their computers and phones, expectations on faster responses have increased, as described by team member 4:
We have Teams in our phones as well, so you can expect that if you write to someone you expect to get an answer almost immediately, although you may not get it, or like “I chatted with you again, why have you not answered?” “Ohh, sorry, I didn’t see it", people don't even call via cell phone anymore. Instead, you expect Teams to be the main thing.
This is backed up by team member 3 who also adds that it is rarely a big problem even if it is a struggle:
It's that effect of everyone sitting in small meetings all day, ehh, so sometimes it's been a little difficult to get contact, but usually there's nothing that is so pressing that you just have to have contact with the person or the boss right now. [...] But, yes, it is not always easy to get hold of people, it has been a challenge because we are booked in a lot of meetings.
The difficulty of getting in touch has an effect on resilience since effective communication plays an important role in it. Further struggles with communication in Teams are described by manager 1 who has noted that there is an aspect of hesitancy in video calls:
There will be a kind of passivity from both sides as well, both parties, [...] you are by nature a little more hesitant. There is a difference when you sit in a [physical] meeting room where maybe you almost have a hard time keeping quiet and it can be a little difficult with going off topic and you get carried
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away, it can be almost the opposite from how it is now, it rarely happens in Teams.
When the office opened up for a limited number of employees per square meter, they made some attempts of what they call semi-groups. This meant that those who were at the office sat together in a conference room and the rest connected remotely. Manager 2 describes the results of this attempt:
It is much better that everyone is connected remotely, so that everyone has the same conditions, or that everyone is sitting in the same room. So it was probably something that we saw that those semi-groups were difficult to get the productivity going, as well as getting everyone included, so I would say that, that is probably what we have noticed, but the working method itself has not changed during this time.
As we can see, compared to how communication occurs in an office environment there are some issues connected to communicating on a digital platform. In addition to just being a frustration, this less effective communication can have a negative effect on the organization’s resilience. Good communication within the organization is crucial to be able to build a strong resilience (Horne and Orr, 1998). Without good communication, other resilience streams such as community, competence, connections, coordination, and consideration will be constrained since they are depending on communication to be developed.
Even though we can see that some aspects of digital communication are lacking, we can also see that there is an ongoing discussion between managers and workers on how improvements can be made. This also shows that the consideration resilience stream is something that the organization attaches great importance to (Horne and Orr, 1998). This is made visible in this quote where team member 3 describes the relation with management:
“We talk a lot about what challenges we have in our day-to-day work and meet in such a forum where we discuss, how can we support you?”. This is an example of how good communication strengthens both the individual resilience of the employees who need support, but also how it strengthens the organizational resilience through targeted efforts to counteract the negative effects of the change. An increase in the individual's resilience is a necessity while trying to facilitate organizational resilience (Riolli and Savicki, 2003). The engagement from the management in improving the situation has also been noticed by the employees since there is an open line of communication. Team member 2 describes how the managers have expressed their struggle:
The managers themselves have said that they think that it is difficult to know how the employees feel when you only see each other digitally, you don't get that at the catch-up meetings, you do not get this daily contact so that you may be able to determine how an employee feels or if they are stressed or if they have a huge amount of work to do, I know that our managers have said that they think it was a bit tricky compared to before.
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Manager 1 further explain the nature of this as an issue of not being able to see the well-being of the group as a whole:
I can imagine that it's hard to see when you are not in the room and feel mood swings and frustration and things that do not go through the screen that well, this feeling for the dynamics of the group, how the group feels and it is, as a manager it's a challenge and that's why the managers try to take walk and talks but it's just one and one individually, I think a group is like a function and maybe you cannot diagnose that group as easily.
This open communication of management issues to the employees paints a picture of good communication and a sense of community. Understanding the needs of the individuals within the organization is an important step in creating a resilient organization.
Furthermore, resilience can be built simply by bridging the gap that can emerge between management and employees, thus creating harmony in the workplace. This type of consideration resilience stream is one of the greatest tools at the managers disposal to support the employees (Horne and Orr, 1998).
At the same time as we see that there is active work to strengthen the individual's resilience, there is also work on the manager side with a focus on the organization itself: “As a management team, we have been working actively, together with questions like, what does this mean for us, what opportunities do we have, what are the risks?” (Manager 3). This kind of discussions within the management groups is a central and important part of creating resilience. Without clear directives from the management, it will be difficult for the streams of commitment and coordination to function at a desired level, and again, everything starts with good communication (Horne and Orr, 1998).
As we have seen, there are multiple signs of remote communication leading to productive responses in the organization. On the other hand, some aspects of remote communication show regressive behavior in the organization. The colleagues that had a close relationship before the change could keep their relationship since they already had an active pattern of communication, while those that did not have daily communication have lost connection:
I think that the colleagues I had closest to me, I still have a very good relationship with them, because we call each other very often, but it is the colleagues that you do not have a daily dialogue with, I think that they are the ones that get lost in a way. (Team member 3)
This leads to an increase in groupings according to manager 3:
There will be more groupings than there is normally, now you only contact the person you really need to contact while in the office you kind of bump into each other in a different way, you end up next to each other by the coffee machine a little more randomly.
With individuals drifting further apart, the organizational resilience is negatively impacted since the sense of community and closeness is decreasing. The aspect of only reaching out to
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solve a certain task and not to just check in on someone is a recurring statement from the interviewees, making the case that the remote collaboration has led to a decrease in quality of communication. Team member 3 explained the decrease in relationships with colleagues that do not have daily communication as due to the focus on solving tasks: “I do not call someone just to check in, instead I specifically call those that I need support from”. Team member 1 agrees to this statement and adds to it by explaining how this is an issue from a sales perspective where an important aspect is to spot opportunities in conversation:
Everything is based on contacting someone, or being contacted, for a purpose.
From a sales perspective it becomes quite a lot to catch, both internally with us and with the customer, that can be something we should do [...] and that bit has almost completely disappeared.
This is a regressive behavior with negative impact on the organizational resilience since it can lead to missed business opportunities. It is necessary to mention here though that the organization in this study has had a good year businesswise, so the level of impact from this specific struggle is not extensive in this specific organization. This is an interesting topic we will come back to in the discussion.
To summarize this analysis, we have seen that the management has continuous discussions both within the management group, as well as with the employees, with the aim of improving the situation and making the best of it. This is a good sign since we have also found a number of struggles such as the employees always being connected to Teams on different devices and expected to answer quickly, while also being stuck in back-to-back meetings. This combination should be viewed as a warning of increasing stress since there is not enough time to manage everything. Aside from this, the social groupings have become smaller, which both can lead to relief in not having as many colleagues to keep track of, but also a smaller support system. Both the individual and organizational aspects of resilience have taken some damage due to changed communication patterns, but there are more to analyze. We will now dig deeper into knowledge sharing as it is an important part of communication in organizations.
4.2.1 Knowledge sharing
With knowledge sharing being an important aspect of communication in organization and an important factor for an organization to thrive, we see the value of further analyzing knowledge sharing outside of general communication.
In a classic office environment, there is a sense of security in being encompassed by colleagues. Different competencies are in one's immediate vicinity and information is available both through formal and informal conversations and can therefore be an important factor in knowledge sharing. The office and colleagues are also the organizational structure that Horne and Orr's (1998) seven behavioral streams revolve around to create a good resilience. When our study object left the office to continue its work remotely, the company's processes continued to take place in a similar way as before as we stated earlier. What changed instead was the opportunities for naturally occurring social interactions with colleagues and the workers now have to rely on Teams or booked meetings as the main
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source of information or knowledge. A problem with digital platforms is that communication is often broadcasted towards many individuals, with several channels and several publishers, information is at risk of disappearing in the noise.
It is very difficult to find information. ‘He wrote that in Teams’, okay, so where in Teams then? I think that is a problem that this organization has, that there is a terrible noise on our Teams-platform, or in the channels there. [...] If you have been on leave or worked in another city, it becomes really hard to keep track of, and to find information. (Team member 4)
We therefore know that there are some difficulties in finding information and that there is a certain amount of noise. However, there are efforts to make sure that important information reaches the employees: “A channel called management information is separated from all noise and everyone has to follow it so that they receive a notification if something comes up.”
(Manager 1). With this effort, there is a strategy for how important information should be formally shared within the organization. It becomes more problematic to try to recreate the informal communication that takes place in the office, something that is also stated by team member 3:
The corridor talk both at the customers and internally, it is quite important information, it is often where certain business opportunities arise, that you spontaneously come up with something, such as ‘we should do this with this customer’, and that becomes more difficult today. And as I see it, when I book a [digital] meeting, it may not give the same effect.
Knowledge sharing, both formal and informal, has been limited by the transition to digital meetings and it is difficult to imitate what happens when all participants are in the same place. At the same time, the possibility disappears that other employees in a proximity of a conversation overhear a discussion and join with insights or knowledge.
Someone might overhear what we are talking about in my small group and then maybe some colleague who is sitting 5 meters away hears what we are saying and can come with the insight that ‘with that customer we did it this way’ (Manager 3)
This type of knowledge sharing is also difficult to replicate as it is informal and happens by chance. Still this has been a reliable source of knowledge sharing between colleagues for a very long time. The opportunity to learn from colleagues is still present within project groups when working in a team, but it is the informal opportunities that have been lost following the transition to remote work. Thus, additional action must be taken to facilitate the sharing of knowledge between employees, one way to go about this is to create a system aimed at displaying what competencies are available within the organization. But by making visible who within the organization has done what types of jobs and possess what competencies, conditions can be created for knowledge sharing that can be of value to the entire organization. This leads us into communication visibility.
21 4.2.2 Communication visibility
Communication visibility is important to strengthen knowledge sharing in distributed organizations. In order to understand the level of communication visibility, we first need to analyze and understand the level of transparency in the communication platform that our organization is using. The organization has chosen to make distinctions in who has access to what channels in their Teams platform, and to get access to certain channels you need to manually be added.
We have made active choices about who should have access to what, if we take the customer dialogue that I mentioned, it would be the local office and other consultants from other offices who are involved who get access to that customer, so then we have to add them manually. (Manager 3)
They also have guidelines for how the communication should be conducted in Teams and in different channels:
We have principles and policies for how we work with Teams and what type of information we convey there and in which team and in which channel, because there is, for example, a consulting team, a sales team where we communicate about group-specific activities or events, but we do not talk about customers in these channels, we only talk about customers in the specific channel dedicated to each customer. Because they should, the whole company, or the whole local office that works with customers should be able to access. (Manager 2)
The reasoning behind this structuring of course has reasonable ground in some cases since some information is of more sensitive character. Manager 1 stated that they work a lot with transparency where it is possible: “Transparency is very important. In our entire Teams workspace, everything except money and contracts is visible to everyone”. This in part contradicts the previous quotes by manager 2 and 3 where they described the different channels as more of a closed character. There seems to be a consensus though that they have channels that are open to everyone inside the Teams workplace.
We asked the team members if they have insight into what others inside the organization are doing and they did not seem to have that great insight: “I can see who is responsible for that customer and get in touch, but I cannot see what kind of work is actually going on”
(team member 3). One reason for this is, according to team member 4, that the over-hearing of what others are talking about is no longer there: “This over-hearing and the buzz, the noise, you hear someone talking to someone else about something, you can’t pick that up when you work remotely”. Team member 2 expressed that the issue of not knowing what others are doing is specifically regarding more distant colleagues:
That is by far the biggest difference, now you have a poor idea of what everyone is doing. But we do have, we are divided into different groups based on what we work with, so in my group I feel that I have pretty good insight and we have meetings every week where we both talk just like what we do on our spare time, but also about work and, I think you know a lot more about your own group,
