| Teams are increasingly widespread in today's organizations. At the same time, organizational change and complexity are also prevalent, creating a need for teams to be responsive, flexible, and learning-oriented. Past research has shown the importance of supportive organizational structures and team design for enabling team effectiveness; however, less is known about the conditions enabling team learning. Thus, this research examines learning-oriented behaviors in work teams. The focus of the investigation is on team members' shared cognitions, or mental models, related to interpersonal trust and team efficacy and their effect on learning behaviors. Two research questions are addressed: (1) Are these shared mental models associated with team learning behaviors? (2) What are the relationships between team design, mental models, learning behaviors and performance? A model of team learning is presented, proposing both antecedents and outcomes of learning behaviors. I hypothesize that team mental models characterized by safety and efficacy enable team learning behaviors, which in turn facilitate team performance. Furthermore, team task, team composition, leader behavior and organization support are examined as antecedents of the team mental models.; A comparative field-study of 51 teams in a mid-sized manufacturing company was conducted to address these research questions. The sample includes different types of teams (including time-limited project teams and ongoing self-managed and manager-led teams). Multiple methods (including surveys, interviews and observation) were used to measure antecedent, process and outcome variables. Two new surveys and a structured interview instrument were developed and tested. Observation and interviews with eleven of the 51 teams supplement the findings obtained through analyses of quantitative data. Specifically, exploratory qualitative research was used to develop and operationalize constructs in the team learning model at the outset of the study. Then, following collection of survey data, additional qualitative research was used to establish the external validity of the survey and to further understand conditions associated with differences in learning-oriented behaviors.; The findings support the research model, demonstrating that team safety, or members' shared beliefs that taking risks in their team will not lead to personal loss or harm, are associated with learning-oriented behaviors in work teams. When controlling for safety, similar support is not found for team efficacy. Further analyses of quantitative data suggest that team learning behaviors mediate between mental models of safety and outcomes of team performance. Team safety appears to be influenced by team type, team composition, task, and team leader behavior. |
