A. Please write a 2-3-page paper to respond to the case study questions. Write the paper in APA format with the APA Manual (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) and/o
The Virtual
Environment Work
Team
· f' whose main business was its popular tax · • I tax accountm 0 trm r. A. Steam s was a nati~na . . , . S , 0 ,, superior reputation was based on the high . . ·ce fo r md1 v1d 11als .. tearns s f. preparation set vi 1 · . ".t" er •--i·ce Key to the achievement o its reputa- . f' d · 1d the ex c~I cnce vt 1 -~ s v • quality o its a v1c~ ar '11; rd · t b ·es an d analysis tools its agents used when counsel- tion were the sup enor com µ ... ,e. .1 a a., . . . . d l 11 1
ing clients . The se program ~ we .. c Jev elupe d by hi~hly tr~ined md1v1 _ ua s, usua y awyers
and tax accountant s who ha d pick ed up program mm g s~1lls on the _side . .
The program s that these in di vidu Jls pro du ce d we re h1ghl _y techmcal b?th m terms o~the
tax law s the y covered and the code in whi ch they were wntten . Perfectmg them reqmred
high levels of progra mm ing skill as weIJ as the ability to understand the la~ . New law_s ~nd
interpretation s of existing laws had to be integ rated quickly and flawlessly mto the ex1stmg
regulation s and analy sis too ls.
The work was carri ed out in a virtual environment by four programmers in the greater
Boston area. Four work sites were connec ted to each other and to the company by e-mail,
telephone , and conferencing software . Formal meetings among all of the programmers took
place only a few times a year , although the workers sometimes met informally outside of
these scheduled occasions.
The following paragraphs describe the members of the virtual work team .
Tom Andrews was a tax lawyer , a graduate of State University an d a former hockey
player there. ~y the age of 35 , Tom had worked on the programs for six year s and was the
10?ge st-st~~dmg ~ember of the group. Along with his design respo nsibihtie~, Tom was the
pnmar y ha1son with Stearns He was al 'bl c · · . · so respons1 e 1or tram mg new ~roup members
Sm gle, he wor ked ou t of his farm · th N · ..... · -~ · • d h . . . m sou ern ew Hampshire w here 1rl rus sn are time he en Joye untm g and f1shmg . •
Cy Crane , a tax accounta nt and computer .
32 year s old, married with two ch.Id science g~adu_ate of State Un iversity, was
f. . I ren, ages 4 and 6 His w1ce , l ., ,, . . l 1rm m downt own Boston where h · 11 wo rK ei. ~-~.ii1- t11 ne ma aw
h . , as e commuted fro h. k. h . ome rn the Boston suburbs In h. . m is itc en to hi s comp uter in their · 1s spare time he · d b" . . . M arge De ct or , tax lawyer grad t f ' enJoye 1k1ng and f1shm o.
w'th · ' ua e o Outstate U · · 0 1 tvvo ch1ld ren , ages 8 and 1 o H h nivers1ty, 38 years old, was married
. er usband work d fi 11 . . . e u -time as an electncal engineer at
Th is case wa . . s prepar ed by Rae Andr , d .
e, an ts used with permission of t
he auth or. © 199 9. All rights res t:rve d. a local def;
enjoy d ense contr Case 1 The . tt,, e go lf and k .. actor . She 1. Virtual Environment Work Team 449 1v1egan I-{ . s ling . •ved and sing! arns, tax Worked in h e. She hact accounta er suburban Bo ston home and she tun · · rec nt a d • •hes in her fie ent1y relocate n graduate of Bi .
Bay ap artment Id and to en . d to Boston to tak g Time University , was 26 years old and
In the co · ~oy the beauty of N e advantage of the wide range of oppor-
every day ur s~ of their Wo k ew England . She worked out of her Back
l , and 1t w r , thes fi og on and h as not unu e our people e related S c ~ck in With th sual for one of th xchanged e-mail messages many times
with · . ometimes they h I e others. Often th e_m to st~P away from guests or children to
h. a sick child was f: . e Ped each other . ~r e-mails were amusing as well as work -
Im on his farm anct acing a deadline .,.. wn the work , as, for example , when a parent Ab ' · one · · •om occ · • out once a month e In a while M . asionally mvited the others to visit with
All of these w k the Whole group g:;~e and Cy got their families together for dinner .
negotia ted or ers Were on s I ogether for lunch. separatel a ary , which · to the job Was .t fl Y_ a?? secretly with 'according ~o company custom , each had
workday th I s exib1hty. Although th management _. A maJor factor in their commitment
often • k d ey could do the work wh ey were reqmred to check in regularly during every
h Jo e about the managers d enever they wanted to. When they got together, they ours referrin t an workers h h d • . . . . ' g o them as "f:a . w O a to be m the office dunng spec1f1c Wh h ce timers" d en t e programme an to themselves as "free agents." op d rs were asked t k . . e programming tools call d O ma e a maJor program change , they often devel -
ciently . These macros greatl e nh macros that would he~p them do their work more effi
the programs Cy in part · 1 y e anced the speed at which a change could be written into · 1cu ar really e · d h k' . one recent project he b nJoye ac mg around with macros. For example, on
save him a huge a~ t e~a~e obsessed by the prospect of creating a shortcut that could
to the compan C o~n ° time. One week after he had turned in his code and release notes
· ht h f Y, Y ragged to Tom that he had created a new macro that had saved him
etg ou~~ 0 work that week. "The stripers are running ," he had said, "And I want to be on
the beach. . Tom was s~eptical about the shortcut , but after trying it out in his own work, he
found that It actually did save him many hour s.
. T. A. Stearns had an employee suggestion program that rewarded employees for innova
tions that saved the company money. The program gave an employee 5 percent of the sav
ings generated by the innovation over a period of three months . The company also had a
profit-sharing plan. Tom and Cy felt that the small amount of money that would be gener
ated by a company reward would not offset the free time they gained using their new macro .
They wanted the time either for leisure or for other consulting , and furthermore , they
agreed that because the money came out of profits, !he ~oney _was really comi_n~ out of ~he
employees' pockets anyhow. There seem ed to be httle mcentlve to share their inno vati on
macro with management. . .
They also believed that their group cou ld ~uffer 1f managemen t learned about th~ mno-
. Th Id now do the work so qmckly that only three prog ramm ers mi ght be vation . ey cou .
t were to learn abou t the macro , one of them would pro ba bly los e hi s needed If managemen h · . . rkers would ha ve more work thrown at t ern . · b and the remammg wo . . , , JO ' ecided there was not enough mcent1ve to tell the cu mp ,.u, ;· i::r,1 ·t11 the
Cy and Tom d . t entering th eir busy season and they kn ew that ~very(1;1,.- , :1
macro . However, th ey werej~s the heavy workload. They dec ided to distriburl' tht m Jc. , o
the group would be stres~e ~up and sw ore them to secrecy .
to the other members oft e gr set for itself a level of producti on th at it felt \,\,Hkl ii,·•~
Over lunch one day , th ~ ~roupS eral months passed, and the y used som f. of th,;i ex tra , usp1c10n. ev . . ar ou se managements s . ork even higher. The rest of the tim e gam e ct ttc y \iS,·d (Jr
. h th e quality of their w time to pus
their own personal interests . Study Guides
