Question: A Virtual Team at T. A. Stearns

T. A. Stearns is a national tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation services for individuals. Stearns' superior reputation is based on the high quality of its advice and the excellence of its service. Key to the achievement of its reputation are the state-of-the-art computer databases and analysis tools that its people use when counselling clients. These programs were developed by highly trained individuals. The programs are highly technical, in terms of both the code in which they are written and the tax laws they cover. Perfecting them requires high levels of programming skill as well as the ability to understand the law. New laws and interpretations of existing laws have to be integrated quickly and flawlessly into the existing regulations and analysis tools. The creation of these programs is carried out in a virtual environment by four programmers in the greater Vancouver area.

The four work at home and are connected to each other and to the company by email, telephone, and conference software. Formal on-site meetings among all of the programmers take place only a few times a year, although the workers sometimes meet informally at other times. The four members of the team are Tom Andrews, Cy Crane, Marge Dector, and Megan Harris. These four people exchange email messages many times every day. In fact, it's not unusual for them to step away from guests or family to log on and check in with the others. Often their emails are amusing as well as work-related. Sometimes, for instance, when they were facing a deadline and one of Marge's kids was home sick, they helped each other with the work. Tom has occasionally invited the others to visit his farm; and Marge and Cy have gotten their families together several times for dinner. About once a month the whole team gets together for lunch. All four of these Stearns employees are on salary, which, consistent with company custom, is negotiated separately and secretly with management. Although each is required to check in regularly during every workday, they were told when they were hired that they could work wherever they wanted. Clearly, flexibility is one of the pluses of these jobs. When the four get together, they often joke about the managers and workers who are tied to the office, referring to them as "face timers" and to themselves as "free agents." When the programmers are asked to make a major program change, they often develop programming tools called macros to help them do their work more efficiently.

These macros greatly enhance the speed at which a change can be written into the programs. Cy in particular really enjoys hacking around with macros. On one recent project, for instance, he became obsessed with the prospect of creating a shortcut that could save him a huge amount of time. One week after turning in his code and his release notes to the company, Cy bragged to Tom that he had created a new macro that had saved him eight hours of work that week. Tom was skeptical of the shortcut, but after trying it out he found that it actually saved him many hours too. Stearns has a suggestion program that rewards employees for innovations that save the company money. The program gives an employee 5 percent of the savings generated by his or her innovation over three months. The company also has a profit-sharing plan. Tom and Cy felt that the small amount of money that would be generated by a company reward would not offset the free time that they gained using their new macro. They wanted the time for leisure or consulting work. They also feared their group might suffer if management learned about the innovation. It would enable three people to do the work of four, which could lead to one of them being let go. So they didn't share their innovative macro with management. Although Tom and Cy wouldn't share the innovation with management, they were concerned that they were entering their busy season and they knew everyone on the team would be stressed by the heavy workload.

They decided to distribute the macro to the other members of their team and swore them to secrecy. Over lunch one day, the team set itself a level of production that it felt would not arouse management's suspicion. Several months passed and the four used some of their extra time to push the quality of their work even higher. But they also now had more time to pursue their own personal interests. Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work group, picked up on the innovation several weeks after it was first implemented. He had wondered why production time had gone down a bit while quality had shot up, and he got his first inkling of an answer when he saw an email from Marge to Cy thanking him for saving her so much time with his "brilliant mind." Not wanting to embarrass his employees, the manager hinted to Tom that he wanted to know what was happening, but he got nowhere. He did not tell his own manager about his suspicions, reasoning that since both quality and productivity were up he did not really need to pursue the matter further. Dave very recently learned that Cy had boasted about his trick to a member of another virtual work group in the company. Suddenly, the situation seemed to have gotten out of control. Dave decided to take Cy to lunch. During the meal, Dave asked Cy to explain what was happening. Cy told him about the innovation, but he insisted the group's actions had been justified to protect itself. Dave knew that his own boss would soon hear of the situation and that he would be looking for answers-from him.

1. Is this group a team?

2. What role have norms played in how this team acted?

3. Has anyone in this case acted unethically?

4. What should Dave do now?