Teamwork in the time of COVID-19: Creating, dissolving, and reactivating network ties in response to a crisis.

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has prompted an unprecedented shift to remote work. Workers across the globe have used digital technologies to connect with teammates and others in their organizations. In what ways did the COVID-19 crisis alter the frequency and balance of internal and external team interactions? During a crisis, networking offers a type of goal-directed behavior through which individuals source and provide information. We can understand how people use their network through the lens of network churn, changes in embeddedness brought on by the creation, dissolution, and/or reactivation of network ties. higher We posit that performing individuals exhibit distinct networking strategies as compared to lower performing employees during the pandemic. We present a field study conducted in a multinational industrial manufacturing company in China investigating network churn during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that, during a crisis, job performance is positively related to the volume of inter-team tie creation and inter-team tie reactivation, but not intra-team tie creation and intra-team tie reactivation. Job performance is not related to the volume of intra- and inter-team tie dissolution. The study provides early, yet important insights into the interplay between crisis and organizational social networks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).