Knowledge Gathering, Team Capabilities, and Project Performance in Challenging Work Environments

Haas, Martine R.

doi:10.1287/mnsc.1060.0530

Cited by 164 publications

(136 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…In contrast, several of the studies cited above offered evidence to suggest that a personalized or socialized power orientation can be cued by an experimenter or by characteristics of the situation (e.g., Overbeck & Park, 2001, 2006Ven der Vegt et al, 2009). …”

Section: Direction #4: the Antecedents Of A Socialized Power Orientationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Those lower in the social hierarchy are less goal-directed because they lack a sense of control and must keep track of more potential threats in their social environment (Guinote, 2007). As a result, they pay attention to more of their social environment but fail to separate peripheral from central and goal-relevant from goal-irrelevant aspects of that environment (Overbeck & Park, 2001, 2006Smith, et al, 2008).…”

Section: Socialized Power and Anchoring On Shared Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Power, Status, and Learning in Organizations

Bunderson

Reagans

2011

Organization Science

288

228

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This paper reviews the scholarly literature on the effects of social hierarchy—differences in power and status among organizational actors—on collective learning in organizations and groups. We begin with the observation that theories of organization and group learning have tended to adopt a rational system model, a model that emphasizes goal-directed and cooperative interactions between and among actors who may differ in knowledge and expertise but are undifferentiated with respect to power and status. Our review of the theoretical and empirical literatures on power, status, and learning suggests that social hierarchy can complicate a rational system model of collective learning by disrupting three critical learning-related processes: anchoring on shared goals, risk taking and experimentation, and knowledge sharing. We also find evidence to suggest that the stifling effects of power and status differences on collective learning can be mitigated when advantaged actors are collectively oriented. Indeed, our review suggests that higher-ranking actors who use their power and status in more “socialized” ways can play critical roles in stimulating collective learning behavior. We conclude by articulating several promising directions for future research that were suggested by our review.

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Section: Direction #4: the Antecedents Of A Socialized Power Orientationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Socialized Power and Anchoring On Shared Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power, Status, and Learning in Organizations

Bunderson

Reagans

2011

Organization Science

288

228

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“…The provision of tools and systems that automate administrative tasks (such as setting meeting times or distributing announcements) also can help to moderate levels of context switching and temporal misalignment. Third, managers defining different types of roles on a team -e.g., whether a member is core or peripheral, or a "consultant" versus a major contributor -can help employees prioritize their time and set expectations about meeting attendance (Ancona & Bresman, 2007;Haas, 2006). Fourth, understanding the attributes of individuals and of project structures that best lend themselves to an MTM environment can increase the probability of success.…”

Section: Managerial Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple Team Membership: A Theoretical Model of its Effects on Productivity and Learning for Individuals and Teams.

O’Leary

Mortensen²,

Woolley

2011

Academy of Management Review

186

288

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While organizations strive to manage the time and attention of workers effectively, the practice of asking workers to contribute to multiple teams simultaneously can result in the opposite. We present a model of the effects of multiple team membership (MTM) on learning and productivity via the mediating processes of individual context switching, team temporal misalignment, and intra-organizational connectivity. These effects are curvilinear, with learning and productivity peaking at moderate levels of these mediating processes.Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1474336 do -Manager (Authors, 2007) Over the last century, the primary approach to organizing has shifted from individual work in hierarchical structures, to more team-based work in hierarchical structures, to teambased work in matrix structures, and ultimately to team-based work in multi-team systems (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006;Hobday, 2000;Malone, 2004;Marks, Dechurch, Mathieu, Panzer, & Alonso, 2005;Scott & Davis, 2006). As these changes have taken place, an increasing amount of responsibility has shifted to individual employees -responsibility for managing their own learning, allocating their own time, and focusing their own attention. This is especially true when employees are members of multiple teams concurrently, with no one manager aware of each employee's full portfolio of work or team commitments. In such situations, individuals may make decisions (about their time, attention, information, etc.) that are completely rational for them, but that do not result in optimal productivity and learning at the team and organizational levels (Schelling, 1978). Conversely, without complete knowledge of individuals' multiple team commitments, teams, managers, and organizations may make reasonable team-and organizationallevel decisions that have very problematic effects for individuals. In this paper, we address this theoretical and practical tension regarding the allocation of time and attention, as well as the flow of information, when people are simultaneously members of multiple teams.Based on our own survey data and surveys by other scholars (Lu, Wynn, Chudoba., & Watson-Manheim, 2003;Martin & Bal, 2006) (Zika-Viktorsson, Sundstrom, & Engwall, 2006). Some surveys place the percent of knowledge workers who are members of more than one team as high as 94.9 percent (Martin & Bal, 2006) and in at least one company (Intel), 28% are on five or more (Lu et al., 2003). In addition, a wide variety of scholars and practitioners have mentioned the commonality of MTM. For example, Gonzalez and Mark's (2005: 143-4) comment is typical: "In fields as diverse as finance, software development, consulting, and academia, we are finding that it is commonplace that information workers are involved in multiple collaborations that occur in parallel. This demands that individuals enact specific efforts to coordinate, manage and track those collaborations." MTM seems especially common (and particularly challenging) in information technology (e.g., Bas...

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“…An important way in which organizations avoid errors is through knowledge sharing (Cummings 2004, Haas 2006. However, studies have found that transmission of knowledge within organizations is negatively affected by geographic distance between individuals (Allen 1977).…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

In-House Globalization: The Role of Globally Distributed Design and Product Architecture on Product Development Performance

Gokpinar

Hopp

Iravani³

2011

SSRN Journal

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Changes in the global economy and technological advances are stimulating an increasing geographic distribution of new product design and development efforts. For large organizations that design and develop complex products, this geographic distribution has added a new layer of complexity to product development operations. In this empirical study of a large auto manufacturer, we examine the operational performance implications of splitting the design of vehicle subsystems across multiple geographic locations. Our results indicate that global distribution diminishes the chance of completing tasks on time and degrades subsystem design quality. Finally, by examining the interplay between subsystem centrality and global distribution, we found that higher centrality in the product architecture amplifies the impact of global distribution on subsystem error rates.

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Knowledge Gathering, Team Capabilities, and Project Performance in Challenging Work Environments

Cited by 164 publications

References 52 publications

Power, Status, and Learning in Organizations

Power, Status, and Learning in Organizations

Multiple Team Membership: A Theoretical Model of its Effects on Productivity and Learning for Individuals and Teams.

In-House Globalization: The Role of Globally Distributed Design and Product Architecture on Product Development Performance

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