Rebecca Jestice

Returning to Leading Virtually

I have been away from writing for Leading Virtually for a little more than a year. I didn’t intend for my absence to be so long, but it was a very eventful and busy year for me. I am happy to be blogging again for Leading Virtually at the start of this new year! Although I was away from Leading… Read more →

Recent News on Social Media

  This week I have run across some very interesting articles on social media and how their use is evolving. These two articles struck me as interesting because they discuss requiring people to use Facebook or Second Life in order to perform in classes or on the job. I think these use-cases highlight that we desire to use social tools… Read more →

How Harmful is Facebook to Reputations and Relationships?

I recently deactivated my Facebook account.  Although it had been a handy tool for reconnecting with old friends, keeping up with some colleagues, and socializing with family & other loved ones, in the past few months, I began to experience a downside to the social networking site. This eventually led to the deactivation of my account. Although social networking can… Read more →

Using a Virtual World for Multiple Audiences: Benefits & Challenges

At the Academy of Management meeting earlier this month, I had the pleasure of assisting Dr. Ulrike Schultze in a session that she coordinated. The panelists at the session were respected journal editors. What was different about this session from other sessions at the annual meeting was that it was held simultaneously in Second Life and the hotel in Chicago. … Read more →

Does Online Identity Matter In Virtual Teams?

  I just returned from the Academy of Management conference in Chicago where I presented a paper that Surinder and I wrote with Professor Rui Huang. Our paper was an extension of the research we have been doing on leadership in virtual worlds that I wrote about previously. This paper focused on how one’s online identity may affect virtual team… Read more →

Virtual Worlds: A Potential Tool for Cross-Cultural Training

Previously, Surinder wrote a blog post on his observations about different cultural expectations and implicit communication patterns.  He discussed some ways that virtual team leaders could help limit cultural snafus in teams. As more companies are working with partners around the world and multicultural teams occur more and more often, understanding of cultural differences is important for team members and… Read more →

Communication is Key in Virtual Work

  Surinder is my advisor and mentor in the doctoral program at Binghamton University. We have written several conference papers and collaborated on other projects together with Betsy and Professor Rui Huang at the university. Very often the two of us, or all of us, have worked together while geographically far apart. We have used tools like Google docs, Google… Read more →

Focusing on the Positive for Positive Team Outcomes

  The other day I found a link to a book review on Twitter. The book is called Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive. It provides summaries of research about persuasion and how to be successfully persuasive. One study in particular had me thinking about an approach to change and innovation that I am very interested in. The… Read more →

Social Presence and Team Satisfaction

  Surinder and I are currently conducting research on the use of online media such as virtual worlds for education and training. In my readings I came across an interesting article about the perceptions of social presence, or the feeling of being with others in an online environment, and perceived learning and satisfaction in an online course. In this study,… Read more →