Linköping University | Department of Management and Engineering Master's thesis, 30 ECTS | Industrial Engineering and Management Spring 2021 | LIU-IEI-TEK-A--21/04189--SE The Effects of a Fully Distributed Context on Meetings A Qualitative Case Study at Ericsson Annie Lund & Carl Älmeby Supervisor: Appu Balachandran Examiner: Solmaz Filiz Karabag Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden +46 013 28 10 00, www.liu.se ii Abstract Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have been forced to make their employees work from home, fully distributed. One of the work aspects affected by this change is meetings. The purpose of this study is to investigate what effects the fully distributed context have on meetings, meeting participants, and meeting leaders. To achieve this purpose, a qualitative single-case study was conducted. The empirical data were gathered from 15 interviews with employees at a large information and communications technology company in Linköping, Sweden. The theoretical framework including the fully distributed context, leadership, motivation, and attitudes, behaviors, and norms is the foundation for the analytical model used to analyze the empirical data. For meetings, it was found that the number of meetings has increased, meetings without fixed end times get longer, meetings need clear agendas and structures, and that meetings are booked in a tighter sequence without room for breaks. Using cameras during meetings increases participation but not if there are many meeting participants or when someone starts sharing their screen. It was found that inter-office meetings work better in the fully distributed context. Discussions are fewer and less lively in fully distributed meetings, but virtual fika1 is a kind of informal meeting that can help employees feel more connected and maintain interpersonal relations. For meeting participants, it was found that the fully distributed context has enabled participants to not be seen during meetings, to multitask more, to go on walks during meetings, and to attend more meetings. Fully distributed meetings offer participants more flexibility in meeting attendance but are also more difficult for participants to stay focused during. The perceived social pressure from the surrounding often determines how participants behave in meetings, for example if participants turn on their cameras or not. For meeting leaders, it was found that, contrary to the literature, meeting participants’ behavior affect the motivation of the meeting leader. Meeting participants' multitasking during meetings is considered positive for productivity but makes meeting leaders feel insecure as participants seem to listen less. Cameras can offer supportive feedback as the meeting leader can see the participants reactions, but it only works in smaller meetings. Fully distributed meetings demand more of meeting leaders who need to work harder to structure the meetings, force discussions, aim questions, and keep participants active. The results implicate that meeting leaders should set agendas for and structure meetings, implement breaks between meetings, and start meetings with some informal conversations. Moreover, meeting leaders should turn on their cameras in smaller meetings without screen sharing and aim questions at specific participants instead of posing open questions. At the end of this report, a number of suggestions for future studies on the topic of fully distributed meetings are proposed. Keywords: Fully distributed meetings, remote meetings, remote leadership, meeting leadership, meeting participants, fully distributed context 1 Fika is Swedish for taking a break and sharing a cup of coffee or tea with friends or colleagues possibly, but not necessarily, with a little something to eat. iii iv Acknowledgements This master’s thesis was written during the spring semester of 2021 in cooperation with Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson as the final part of our program Industrial Engineering and Management - international at Linköping University. During the writing of this thesis, there has been several people who have helped us and to whom we would like to express our gratitude. We would like to thank our examiner Solmaz Filiz Karabag and our supervisor Appu Balachandran from Linköping University for sharing their knowledge, providing us with much-needed feedback, and for letting us call them at the oddest of times. A big thank you is to be given to everyone who participated in our study from Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson. Firstly, a big thank you to our supervisors Christer Lindell and Johan Wibeck. Thank you for giving us this opportunity and always providing us with all the valuable information we asked for. Secondly, a huge thank you to all the employees we talked to during the study for their participation and sharing their insights and experiences with us. We always looked forward to the next interview as they have all been very friendly and helpful. We would also like to thank Sara Nilsson and Jin Ye-Waldermarsson for being our opponents and for helping us make our thesis better. To our readers, we hope you learn something from this study and find it as interesting as we did. Annie Lund & Carl Älmeby Linköping, June 2021 v Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 WORK FROM HOME ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 FULLY DISTRIBUTED TEAMS – THE NEW NORMAL ...................................................................................................... 2 1.3 PROBLEM BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1.4 PURPOSE ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 1.5 DELIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 3 1.6 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS ...................................................................................................................................... 3 2 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................ 5 2.1 RESEARCH METHOD ........................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 RESEARCH STRATEGY .......................................................................................................................................... 5 2.3 PRE-STUDY ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.4 EMPIRICAL DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................... 9 2.5 CHOICE OF LITERATURE FOR THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................... 12 2.6 EVALUATION OF QUALITY .................................................................................................................................. 13 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................................ 16 3.1 FULLY DISTRIBUTED CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................. 16 3.2 LEADERSHIP ................................................................................................................................................... 17 3.3 MOTIVATION ................................................................................................................................................. 18 3.4 ATTITUDES, BEHAVIORS, AND NORMS .................................................................................................................. 21 3.5 ANALYTICAL MODEL ......................................................................................................................................... 24 4 EMPIRICAL DATA ......................................................................................................................................... 25 4.1 INTRODUCING THE CASE COMPANY: ERICSSON ...................................................................................................... 25 4.2 FULLY DISTRIBUTED CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................. 26 4.3 LEADERSHIP ................................................................................................................................................... 28 4.4 MOTIVATION ................................................................................................................................................. 30 4.5 ATTITUDES, BEHAVIORS, AND NORMS .................................................................................................................. 31 5 ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................................................... 36 5.1 FULLY DISTRIBUTED