Managing time-spatial flexibility in organizations: The role of team-based rules

The prevalence of time-spatial flexibility has tremendously increased due to COVID-19 measures. However, time-spatial flexibility has been portrayed as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, having more autonomy about when and where to work is positive, but on the other hand, blurred boundaries and being available outside working hours can cause stress (Dettmers, Vahle-Hinz, Bamberg, Friedrich, Keller, 2016; Mazmanian, Orlikowski, & Yates 2013; Schlachter, McDowall, Cropley, & Inceoglu, 2018), potentially impairing employees' mental health. Research about time-spatial flexibility has mainly focused on the individual employee or the organization as a whole (e.g., Martin & MacDonnell, 2012; Allen, Golden, & Shockley, 2015), but the flexible team perspective is rarely addressed or shows detrimental effects (van der Lippe & Lippényi, 2020). Flexible teams face more unstable conditions than virtual or co-located teams (Fiol & O'Connor, 2005). This creates tension between employees' individual use of time-spatial flexibility and team demands as employees might experience uncertainty about the scope and boundaries of flexibility (e.g., availability outside work hours). Thus, we propose that the positive effects of individual use of time-spatial flexibility also depend on team alignment and suggest that individual members' needs can only be optimized within the boundaries of collective team demands.To establish team alignment while allowing for individual flexibility use, a team-based rules intervention will be designed and tested in two complementary contexts: student teams across universities and flexible work teams within a German automobile company. To guide this intervention, we first develop a theoretical framework addressing the tension between individual strategies of time-spatial flexibility and team demands using a guided team reflexivity process (West, 1996; 2000; Schippers, Edmondson, & West, 2014). Hereby, the development of team-based rules represents the core of our team intervention. We use a longitudinal design with four measuring time points to evaluate our intervention. Our analyses will target mental health as a central outcome variable based on separate data sources (i.e., employee and supervisor survey data, HR systems data, workshop trainer survey data and descriptions about team process, instructor performance ratings of student assignments). Our project can be structured along three main research questions:(1) How do individual needs and collective demands regarding time-spatial flexibility interact in flexible teams and how does a justice lens help to align those potentially diverging expectations? (2) Can a team-based rules intervention increase team members' mental health via aligning individual needs and team demands?(3) What role does leadership play in the team-based rules intervention?Beyond our scientific contribution, our project has important practical implications. Evaluated positively, the intervention is transferable to other organizations and will help to maximize positive and minimize negative effects of time-spatial flexibility. For companies and society at large, it is important to know how mental health can be fostered in flexible teams as the prevalence of flexible teams has tremendously increased lately due to COVID-19 restrictions.