Beyond (Not) Being There: Implications of Workplace Arrangement Variety, Volatility, and Differential Volition for Virtual Teams
Access to this document is restricted. Some items have been embargoed at the request of the author, but will be made publicly available after the "No Access Until" date.
During the embargo period, you may request access to the item by clicking the link to the restricted file(s) and completing the request form. If we have contact information for a Cornell author, we will contact the author and request permission to provide access. If we do not have contact information for a Cornell author, or the author denies or does not respond to our inquiry, we will not be able to provide access. For more information, review our policies for restricted content.
Hybrid teams are often viewed as a less extreme version of virtual teams, yet the evolving shift toward hybrid work in organizations has revealed limitations of the virtual teams literature in capturing the dynamics of hybrid team operations. The purpose of this research is to identify salient characteristics of hybrid work models beyond what we currently know about virtuality and to explore the impact of these characteristics on team collaboration. To that end, three constructs that represent key aspects of the hybrid teamwork model are proposed, including workplace arrangement (WA) variety (i.e., diversity in team members’ workplace arrangements), volatility (i.e., instability of team members’ location schedules), and differential volition (i.e., variance in team members' control over their workplace arrangements). Two scenario experiments with a total sample of 600 Prolific participants reveal that WA volatility and differential volition impede team empowerment, with flux in coordination and team fairness serving as respective mediators. In addition, a time-lagged field study involving employees from 45 teams across two U.S.-based organizations supports the role of inclusive leadership as a moderator that mitigates the adverse effects of WA volatility and differential volition on team empowerment. Contributions of the research to the teams and leadership literatures are discussed.