Interacting Barriers: How Barriers Compound Across Levels of Analysis to Affect Teams

Abstract

Collaboration remains a central aspect of contemporary work and a source of emergent barriers that hinder team success. Scholarship has identified the breadth of barriers teams can face when working together and recognizes barriers as interdependent. This paper builds on this scholarship to address the types of relationships barriers can have as they interact across levels of analysis to affect teams. We draw on qualitative interview data with scientific teams to explore relationships among barriers stemming from teams’ internal processes and context. We identify common relationship patterns among barriers that can be used as a framework for analyzing complex, multi-level barrier systems affecting team outcomes. Our data highlight the importance of considering longitudinal, strategic support for targeting cross-barrier interactions when seeking to intervene in collaborations. This framework has practical application in supporting teams and creating policies that support collaborative work.