RAPID: The Changing Nature of Work: Dynamic Reconfiguration and Visualization in the Context of Covid-19 Contact Tracing

美国的COVID-19病例总数目前超过350万例，死亡人数超过13.8万人。这种感染也对美国经济产生了深远的负面影响，据估计，两个月的停摆使整体经济损失超过2万亿美元。我们经常面临一个艰难的选择，要么牺牲我们公民的身体健康，要么牺牲他们的财务健康。然而，如果这个国家能够迅速识别、隔离和治疗病毒最流行的特定地区，这可能是一个错误的选择。接触者追踪是解决这一困境的一个潜在办法。本研究的目的是检验以协作和多团队系统为中心的组织重新设计干预的程度，伴随着新的基于社交网络的可视化工具，可以提高接触追踪工作的速度，准确性和意义。这样就可以采取外科手术式的缓解办法，而不是在全国范围内关闭，从而促进一种适应性强、效率高的系统，使经济活动能够在对公共卫生没有不可接受的高威胁的地方进行。该项目的研究结果将有助于我们社会的健康和福祉，以及我们在21世纪的金融复苏和经济竞争力。接触者追踪已用于天花、结核病、麻疹和艾滋病毒等疾病，但由于感染的速度和范围，Covid-19的性质往往使传统的追踪过程不适合。本项目研究合同追踪工作如何适应这些新情况。我们知道，许多科学、商业和军事组织为了提高他们的响应能力，已经围绕团队结构重新设计了工作性质，这些结构被灵活地安排到临时约束和可重构的多团队系统中。这些可重新配置的结构允许组织执行规模和范围更大的任务，而不是单独工作或在小团队中完成的任务，但也为任务执行中的快速枢纽创造了机会。本项目将使用交错队列研究设计和社会网络可视化来检验这种干预的影响。该项目将取样实际接触追踪器，创建40个15人的多团队系统。每个多团队系统将包括三个，五人的虚拟团队。这些团队将获得一个社交网络可视化工具，将联系人转换为链接或关系。该项目将审查这种干预对单位、小组、主管和跟踪人员本身的业绩的影响。由于难以收集关于(a)大量可比较的多团队系统和(b)对时间敏感的细粒度社会网络的数据，本提案产生的数据将增加与开发和部署可重构结构有关的急需证据，对组织理论和解决组织在极端事件（包括当前大流行病以外的事件）等情况下的反应能力问题具有重要影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

COVID-19 cases in the U.S. now total over 3.5 million with over 138,000 deaths. The infection has also had a profound negative effect on the United States’ economy, and it has been estimated that two months of shutdown costs the overall economy over $2 trillion. We are often presented with the difficult choice of either sacrificing the physical health or the financial health of our citizens. This could be a false choice, however, if the nation were able to quickly identify, isolate and treat the specific locations where the virus was most prevalent. Contact tracing is one potential solution to this dilemma. The purpose of this research is to examine the degree to which an organizational redesign intervention centered around collaboration and multiteam systems, accompanied with a new social network-based visualization tool, can increase the speed, accuracy, and meaningfulness of contact tracing work. This would allow a surgical approach to mitigation, instead of a nation-wide shutdown, thus facilitating an adaptive and efficient system that would allow economic activity to take place in locations where there is not an unacceptably high level of threat to public health. Findings from this project will contribute to both the health and well-being of our society, as well as to our financial recovery and economic competitiveness in the 21st century. Contact tracing has been used with diseases such small pox, tuberculosis, measles and HIV, but the nature of Covid-19 often makes the process as traditionally conducted unsuitable due to the infection’s speed and scope. This project studies the adaptation of contract tracing work to these new circumstances. We know that many scientific, business and military organizations seeking to increase their responsiveness have redesigned the nature of work around team-based structures that are flexibly arranged into temporally-bound and reconfigurable multiteam systems. These reconfigurable structures allow organizations to execute tasks that are larger in scale and scope relative to what can be accomplished by individuals working alone or in small teams, but also create opportunities for quick pivots in task execution. This project will examine the impact of this intervention using a staggered cohort research design and social network visualization. The project will sample actual contact tracers, creating 40 15-person multi-team systems. Each multi-team system will include three, five-person virtual teams. The teams will be provided with a social networking visualization tool that will convert contacts into links or ties. The project will examine the impact of this intervention on the performance of units, teams, supervisors and the tracers themselves. Due to the difficulty of collecting data on (a) large numbers of comparable multiteam systems and (b) the time-sensitive granular social networks, the data generated by this proposal will add critically needed evidence pertaining to the development and deployment of reconfigurable structures, with important implications for organizational theory and for addressing organizational responsiveness in contexts that such as extreme events, including those beyond the current pandemic.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.