MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Profound Influence of Small Choices in Digital Collaboration

The widespread shift to remote work over the past several years has made digital collaboration tools increasingly essential to employee communication and coordination. Many managers worry that a decrease in face-to-face interactions between employees could be suppressing creativity and innovation, and they are relying on software such as enterprise social media and chat tools to help knowledge workers, in particular, come together. But how do the features of these platforms affect the direction of creative collaboration, and how can managers help teams use them in ways that support the type of collaboration that will be most productive in a given case?

We sought to investigate these questions, focusing on how the use of such tools affected two dynamics that previous research has shown influence the process and outcomes of creative teams and problem-solving: transparency and privacy. Groups working transparently within a larger organization engage with a broader community, including through spontaneous encounters with previously unknown colleagues elsewhere in the organization.1 They develop bridging relationships with diverse individuals and are exposed to fresh perspectives, which may help creativity.2 On the other hand, creative teams that choose to work together privately benefit from a safe space characterized by a sense of trust that fosters authenticity and creative deviance, risk-taking, and idea incubation, which may also help create space for innovation.3 Working in this way fosters bonding ties, cementing a shared identity that may produce stronger motivation to contribute and engage.4

About the Author

Wietske Van Osch holds the Canada Research Chair in Enterprise Social Media and Digital Collaboration at HEC Montreal and is an associate professor at Michigan State University. Burcu Bulgurcu is an associate professor and Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst research fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

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