BUSI 682 Week 6 Group DB Forum 3: Part 3 Example

Group Discussion Board Forum 3: Part 3 (Replies)

BUSI 682 Global Project Management, Group Discussion Board Forum 3: Part 3 (replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The two group members, their threads and the cases they analyzed are composites standing in for the course's own; the textbook and research cited are real, and the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for BUSI 682.

Reply to Abena

Abena, your recommendation that Daniel lead the Accra rollout as a servant leader fits the case well, especially your point that the local bank staff had been ignored by the previous vendor and needed to see a leader who listened. Research supports part of your argument and adds a qualification. Hale and Fields (2007) compared followers in Ghana and the United States, adjusting their measure so it worked equivalently in both cultures. Followers in both countries related service and humility to leader effectiveness in similar ways, which supports your emphasis on Daniel's listening. But Ghanaian followers reported experiencing servant leadership behaviors significantly less often than Americans, and vision was more strongly related to perceived effectiveness for the Ghanaian followers. That suggests Daniel's humility should be paired with a clear, repeated account of what the mobile-banking service will do for the branch staff and their customers. In your case, the staff's main complaint was that no one had told them why the old system was being replaced. A servant leader who listens without explaining where the project is going may seem kind but directionless. Moran and Youngdahl (2008) note that culture is complex, so Daniel should test this with the staff rather than assume it. What would a vision statement for the branch staff sound like in this case?

Reply to Tom

Tom, I agree with you that the Manila, Toronto and Dublin team in your case lacks trust, and that the project manager cannot wait for it to appear on its own. I am less sure that monthly social calls will build it. In a series of case studies of global virtual teams whose members were separated by location and culture and worked through computer-mediated communication, Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999) found that such teams could develop swift trust early but that this trust appeared fragile and temporary. The communication behaviors they associated with lasting trust were tied to the work: responding promptly, taking initiative and keeping members informed. In your case, trust broke down when the Toronto developers missed two handoffs without warning, not because people did not know each other socially. A friendly call will not repair a missed commitment; a reliable handoff will. I would keep a short social element at the start of each meeting, since your thread showed that the Manila team values personal connection, but put most of the effort into visible, predictable task communication, such as a shared daily handoff note at the end of each site's day. Could the project manager in your case make the handoff note a team norm rather than a rule?

References

Hale, J. R., & Fields, D. L. (2007). Exploring servant leadership across cultures: A study of followers in Ghana and the USA. Leadership, 3(4), 397-417. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715007082964

Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Leidner, D. E. (1999). Communication and trust in global virtual teams. Organization Science, 10(6), 791-815. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.10.6.791

Moran, R. T., & Youngdahl, W. E. (2008). Leading global projects: For professional and accidental project leaders. Butterworth-Heinemann.