According to Wilson et al (2005), organizational leaders are expected to spend most of their time with employees in a bid to develop group personality and promote collective productivity. Imperatively, every employee in an organization should be treated as singular system in order to foster job satisfaction which consequently leads to high productivity. Managers and supervisors should promote actions that will create positive working environment. However, this is not the situation in the paradigm case.
Vigilance Project is like the heart of the PharMed International as it controls various operations around the globe. Notably, the running of the project has been poor due to distance between the manager and the project core team members. Past researches have proved that physical distance does not necessarily impacts negatively on solidarity and cooperation of employees and managers organizations. Instead, physical distance influences success of organization positively since it provides members of global teams to provide vital and non-redundant information. Being physically proximate to employees does not always inspire sense of collegiality (Wilson et al 2005).
In the Vigilance project, psychological distance exists between the project manager and the other members of the core team. This has influenced performances negatively. Clearly, spatial distance has affected team dynamics and performance in the organization. The information that the project manager passes to the employees is very important. Didier Armani, who is the project manager, often provides less information to the members of core team and this leads to more psychological distance. For instance, the core team ought to have undertaken in-depth discussions on how to carry out the Vigilance project.
However, the project manager often cancels the meetings without notifying other parties. In addition, he ignores the input of the members of the core team. The frequency and depth of communication between the manager and the members of the core team is very worrying. As articulated by Ahuja and Galvin (2003), the frequency of interaction between organization leaders and employees influence the degree of liking for either party.
In the Vigilance Project, the frequency of interaction and cooperation between the two stakeholders in has influenced the morale of the U.S. core team members to contribute to the project through discussions. The members feel neglected or ignored by their France counterparts since their issues and suggestions were given no consideration. This issue affects their commitment and cooperation.
Subjective closeness among core team members and the project managers is not fostered due to lack of in-depth communication between them. Additionally, the core team members in France do not exchange expert information with their counterparts in USA hence sense of proximity between them is not instilled (Dominick 2008). It is explicit that the project manager and the France core team members ignored the views of the core team members in the United States of America and this resulted in the growth of psychological and social distance between them.
The social distance between the project manager and the core team members of the project in USA is attributed to role centrality played by either party. Didier plays a central role in the dispersed teams hence feel closer to those in France than the core team members in USA. The manager is an information conduit hence he ought to foster proper communication between the members of his team and those in France.
The U.S. core team members feel that they are not reciprocated by the project manager thus demoralizing them. The psychological and social distances have undermined the efforts of the U.S. team members towards the Vigilance project. They are not willing to provide valuable information to the core team members in France (Dominick 2008).
Power distance is one of the dimensions relevant to events at PharMed International. By definition, power distance refers to extent to which the junior employees in a company accepts and expects that power and resources are shared unequally. The members of the U.S. core teams are disappointed that they were not included in most decisions that were commonly made by the project manager and their counterparts working in France.
Most of their ideas were given little consideration. The members believe that they are considered redundant and less powerful in the organization. Whenever they raise issues, the project manager and the France-based core teams responded negatively. The power distance moderated the relationship between the teams and this affected their commitment to attainment of goals and objectives of the organization.
The distance has resulted in tensions between the core team members in the two countries. The success of dispersed teams is influenced by the degree of affiliation which exists between them. The desire for social contact is not enhanced among the U.S. core team members since they do not receive any form of social gratification from either the project manager or their counterparts in France. This has frustrated them and they are reluctant to exchange information even though they know that the project is falling behind the schedule (Ahuja & Galvin 2003).
References
Ahuja, M. & Galvin, J. (2003). Socialization in virtual groups. Journal of Management, 29:139-280.
Dominick, P. (2008). The Vigilance Project-Case overview. Web.
Wilson, J., O’Leary, M., Metiu, A. & Jett, Q. (2005). Subjective distance in teams. Web.