STRUGGLING WITH A SHARED IDENTITY IN A GLOBAL HR TEAM UNDER A CONSTANT CHANGE
Anu Sivunen, Ph.D., Research Manager, Work Psychology and Leadership, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

Abstract
Despite the challenges a global, virtual collaboration brings to teamwork, HR function in global organizations should be able to work as a tight team striving for common goals. In the present paper this kind of endeavor is conceptualized as a shared team identity. The goal of this qualitative study was to explore team identity issues in a virtual HR team of a global organization under constant changes. The findings show that team identity is related both to organization level and team level factors. When organizations undergo substantial changes, issues at the organization level may become more important to the development of a shared identity than the team level issues. During organizational changes it is important that the leader provides the vision needed in the team and motivates the team members as constantly changing environment may otherwise turn out to be an overwhelming challenge for an HR team to perform well.
Keywords: HR team, organizational change, social identity, team leader, virtual team