| What is the source of organizational capabilities? Are they simply the aggregation of individual skills and experience or do they depend on particular connections between individuals developed through work experience? This dissertation explores how organizational capabilities become embedded in teams through the mechanism of team familiarity (i.e., previous shared work experience). To provide a theoretical foundation for my analysis, I bring together conceptual streams from operations, strategy, and organizational theory on the determinants of learning. I develop and test predictive models of how team familiarity influences capability effectiveness. I show that organizational capabilities grow through ties between organizational actors.;Large scale empirical studies on the microfoundations of capability have proven elusive, due to challenges in obtaining data and developing constructs. I overcame these challenges through extensive fieldwork at Wipro Technologies. I assembled a unique dataset that includes characteristics and performance measures for 1,137 projects completed over three years, as well as information about the 12,709 individuals who took part in these projects. With this data I develop quantitative measures to analyze teams, team members, and outcomes for which the teams are responsible. This novel dataset permits me to probe organizational capability at a finer level.;This dissertation is comprised of three studies. The first sheds light on the degree to which team performance is related to team familiarity and role experience (i.e., years in a hierarchical role). The second study, explores how role relationships within team familiarity affect performance. Rather than treating all interactions as equal, I separate the effects of hierarchical team familiarity (manager's prior work experience with team members) and horizontal team familiarity (team members' previous work experience with one another). I also consider whether these measures are more beneficial as projects grow more complex. The third study examines whether team familiarity helps teams leverage the benefits of variation in team members' prior experience while alleviating the coordination problems that such variation creates. Through these studies, I show that capabilities are not simply the aggregations of individual skills and experience, but rather they depend, in part, on connections between individuals, developed through work experience---team familiarity. |
