Nudging organizational behaviour towards collaboration and teamwork

Abstract

This study attempts to analyse the effectiveness of organizational and human resource initiatives to promote collaboration and teamwork in the context of virtual teams. Virtual teams have become the predominant mode of business operation in most of the major firms given the pandemic scenario. In a physical setting organization could innovate several reward or incentive mechanisms or use nudges in the form of design of shared spaces to promote collaboration. However, this becomes difficult in a remote work from home (WFH) scenario where employees need to collaborate and work together without sharing common spaces or face-to-face interactions. This study uses personal interviews with second year MBA students and surveys regarding collaboration during their summer internship which typically last about two months. The study comes up with insights about communication, informal meetings, and organization-driven events to promote collaboration explicitly and implicitly.