Project Description

The rise of technology in our day-to-day work lives is changing the nature of teams and how we lead them. We now organize teamwork across time and space using digital technologies in ways that were unimaginable when teams research began to flourish, and leaders of such teams are now left to wonder how to lead these new and modified forms of organizing.

Women on the Move: Leveraging Novel Forms of Organizing to Reduce Women’s Work-Related Health Disparities

Given the amount of an adult’s life spent working, it is perhaps no surprise that work can be a significant factor in well-being. Work characteristics such as high demands and/or a low degree of control are known to have deleterious consequences, including burnout, inflammation, depression and anxiety other chronic health condition. Though the health consequences of burnout are deeply problematic for everyone, research indicates that women are disproportionately affected by burnout and chronic health related conditions stemming from work. Indeed, large-scale meta-analyses show women experience burnout more than men, and they score higher on the emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout than men.

A critical research consideration in this context is the evolving paradigm of work; evidence points towards a notable societal shift in our work patterns and locales. Emergent work forms, resulting from the combination of flexible work policies and digital technologies, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, are facilitating enhanced work flexibility and offering workers greater autonomy. These new forms of organizing could either mitigate or heighten gender disparities around health and work. This research will examine the novel work practice of digital nomadism and its ability to reduce the gender disparity in work-related health consequences.

How Digital Nomadism is Creating a New Future of Decent Work: Networks and Community in the New Normal

As organizations responded by closing their offices and shifting to remote work, individuals discovered new freedom to work from around the world. Our research questions include the following: How do communities of digital nomads form and cultivate meaningful communities that are based more on lifestyle than on organizational membership? What kinds of communities form among digital nomads and between digital nomads and local workers? In what ways do digital nomads benefit from communities, and in what ways do they support the augmentation of skills and economic growth within embedding communities? Can digital nomads provide a way to stimulate economies in declining cities, perhaps offering a way to slow rapid urbanization making cities more sustainable (UN development goal 11: sustainable cities and communities)?

Team Virtuality and Wellbeing at Work: A meta-analysis

The question of remote work comes at a time when most organizations have restructured around self-organizing teams over the past two decades. In this research, we aim to answer two questions: What are the benefits and costs of virtual teamwork from a worker-centric perspective? Have the benefits and costs of virtual teamwork changed over the past two decades?

Lane, J.N., Leonardi, P.M., Contractor, N., & DeChurch, L.A. (2023). Teams in the digital workplace: Technology’s role for communication, collaboration, and performance. Small Group Research, 55, 139-183. 

Javalagi, A.A., Harris-Watson, A., & DeChurch, L.A. (2023). Zooming in and zoning out: Remote deliberation impairs team decision quality. Group and Organization Management, 0(0). 

Wu, Y., Antone, B., Srinivas, A., DeChurch, L., & Contractor, N. (2021). Teamwork in the time of COVID-19: Creating, dissolving, and reactivating network ties in response to a crisis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(10), 1483-1492.

Larson, L., & DeChurch, L. A. (2020). Leading teams in the digital age: Four perspectives on technology and what they mean for leading teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1), 101377.

Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., DeChurch, L. A., Jimenez, M. J., Wildman, J., & Shuffler, M. (2011). A meta-analytic examination of virtuality and information sharing in teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2011), 214-225.

Research supported by:

  • Northwestern University, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program (2024)
  • Northwestern University, Delaney Research Grant (2023-2024)
  • Northwestern University, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Global Connections Seed Grant (2023)
  • Northwestern University, School of Communication, Early Research Experience Award (EREA; 2022-2024)