Procedural orientation in task-performing teams

The common management process of breaking complex projects into individual tasks that are assigned to subunits and/or phases across time can have unintended consequences. Such a practice can inadvertently result in the development of a high level of “procedural orientation,” which is defined as the extent to which “understanding of procedures for carrying out work exceeds understanding of task content and objectives.” I hypothesize that teams that are highly procedurally oriented are less creative, fail to notice and respond to problems that arise in their work, and ultimately perform poorly compared to teams that are low in procedural orientation. Four studies are presented to test the procedural orientation construct and a proposed model of its antecedents and consequences for team performance. In the first study, multiple measures of procedural orientation are used in laboratory teams, and the construct is found to exhibit high levels of convergence across measures, internal-consistency reliability, and stability over time. In the second study, surveys of student teams demonstrate that high levels of coordination complexity are associated with high procedural orientation, which in turn predicts poor project performance. In the third study, experimental manipulations are used to raise and lower levels of procedural orientation in laboratory teams. Findings show that procedural orientation impedes the ability of teams to think creatively and to respond to problems that they encounter—which ultimately harms their performance. Finally, a field study of teams at the American Red Cross confirms the proposed model of antecedents and consequences of procedural orientation. Action research involving a subset of the teams demonstrates that interventions focused on the team's initial meetings can both lower levels of procedural orientation and improve performance. Findings of all of the studies and their implications for research and practice are explored in the final chapter.