The Problem The combination of flatter organizational structures, globalization, cost-saving initiatives, and the increased emphasis on knowledge sharing has been a contributor to the use of virtual teams in U.S. organizations. The Solution To perform efficiently in a virtual environment, team members must develop swift trust, which does not come inherently with team membership. Understanding the individual, team, organizational, and technological barriers affecting the development of swift trust is critical to an appreciation of how such barriers can be overcome. The Stakeholders In this article, we indicate how virtual human resource development (VHRD) can assist virtual teams, managers, and HR professionals overcome swift trust development barriers. The intended audience for this article includes HRD scholars, scholar-practitioners, practitioners, and students interested in understanding how trust is fostered in virtual teams and how HRD practitioners can make a valuable contribution to the effectiveness of virtual teams.
An attachment theory perspective of mentoring is presented to explain the degree of functionality of a mentor-protégé formal match in an organizational setting. By focusing on Bowlby's (1969/1982) behavioral system of attachment and its triarchic taxonomy of secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent attachment, previous conceptualizations are expanded by illuminating relational concepts that mentors and supervisors could use to facilitate employee learning and development. A short attachment style assessment and a mentor-protégé(e) attachment style pairing guide are presented.
The development of employee expertise is described as a strategic imperative for ever‐changing organizations in a hyper‐competitive economic environment. However, the lack of an adequate assessment tool for expertise has hindered empirical research. This paper conceptually and empirically develops the generalized expertise measure (GEM) and examines its psychometric properties in two managerial samples. Schwab's (1980) three stages of measure development process are followed. The factor structure of the measure is then examined employing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) procedures and confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on independent samples. The results are presented and a preliminary measure of expertise is provided.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.