Team Effectiveness - Publications - Faculty & Research

2009
Working Paper

Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance

By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

In this paper, we consider how the structures of tasks and teams interact to affect team performance. We study the effects of diversity in experience on a team's ability to respond to task changes, by separately examining interpersonal team diversity (i.e., differences... View Details

Keywords: Familiarity; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Groups and Teams; Projects; Experience and Expertise; Diversity; India

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23 Apr 2007
Research & Ideas

Are Great Teams Less Productive?

their desires to help make their organizations more effective and responsive. I met many individuals with great ideas and insights working in large organizations that seemed to be enacting policies or producing products that didn't... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

March 2010
Article

First, Get Your Feet Wet: The Effects of Learning from Direct and Indirect Experience on Team Creativity

By: F. Gino, L. Argote, E. Miron-Spektor and G. Todorova

Keywords: Learning; Groups and Teams

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Article

Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams: The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team Performance

By: Robert S. Huckman and Bradley R. Staats

In this paper, we consider how the structures of tasks and teams interact to affect team performance. We study the effects of diversity in experience on a team's ability to respond to task changes by separately examining interpersonal team diversity (i.e., differences... View Details

Keywords: Management; Groups and Teams; Performance; Problems and Challenges; Projects; Experience and Expertise; Change; Diversity; Information Technology Industry; India

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February 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Buddy Valastro: Cake Boss

By: Boris Groysberg, Evan M.S. Hecht and Katherine Connolly Baden

Buddy Valastro, celebrity baker and business owner, inherited his father’s bakery—Carlo’s Bake Shop of Hoboken, New Jersey—at the age of seventeen. He had willed the shop to survive and gone on to fame through his television show, “Cake Boss”—the name most people now... View Details

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Research Summary

THEME #1: BUILDING CAPABILITIES THROUGH TEAM FAMILIARITY

Are organizational capabilities simply the aggregation of individual skills and experience, or do they also depend on particular connections between individuals developed through prior work experience? Since a capability consists of the accumulated... View Details

Sep 2007 - 2007
Conference Presentation

Antecedents of Boundary Spanning in Cross-functional NPD Teams

By: James R. Dillon, Shikhar Sarin and Amy C. Edmondson

Boundary spanning has been shown in prior research to enhance innovativeness and performance of product development teams. In this study, we examine team conditions that foster boundary spanning behavior. We analyze survey data from 207 members of 54 cross-functional... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Innovation and Invention; Groups and Teams; Behavior; Performance Improvement; Boundaries; Leadership Style; Product; Complexity; Integration; Power and Influence

Citation

18 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulpit Bullies: Why Dominating Leaders Kill Teams

otherwise emerge from group discussions and making the teams less productive. “Even subtle ways of making people feel powerful have powerful effects on behavior.” The observation would run counter to the way... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

August 2003 (Revised November 2003)
Background Note

Working Effectively with Counsel

Popular stereotypes of lawyers include "overhead," "Dr. No," "internal cop," "keep us out of trouble!" and "get us out of trouble!" Focus groups of business leaders queried in a survey by the Case Western Reserve University Law School associated the word "lawyer" with... View Details

Keywords: Law; Partners and Partnerships; Management Teams; Legal Services Industry

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13 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

The Problem with Productivity of Multi-Ethnic Teams

When Harvard Business School professor Vincent Pons went to Kenya to conduct research in advance of the 2013 national elections, he discovered surprising lessons about how the ethnic makeup of teams affects the work they do—now published... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

1 Jan 2021
Interview

Encore Teams That Succeed with Amy Edmondson

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Wanda Wallace

Teams in which people are not afraid to speak up, to challenge, to risk saying a wild idea are teams with the best performance. Google has found that psychological safety is a key component of their best teams. Yet, people are afraid of causing trouble, looking... View Details

Keywords: Psychological Safety; Organizational Culture; Trust; Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness

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04 Jan 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Learning Effects of Monitoring

Keywords: by Dennis Campbell, Marc Epstein & Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez; Entertainment & Recreation

January 2002 (Revised June 2002)
Background Note

A Note on Building and Leading Your Senior Team

By: Linda A. Hill and Maria Farkas

As performance demands intensify in fast-moving global markets, more executives are coming to rely on senior teams for strategic and operational assistance. Team building with powerful senior executives presents special challenges, including competition for their boss'... View Details

Keywords: Talent and Talent Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Selection and Staffing; Leadership; Management Teams; Operations; Organizational Culture; Rank and Position; Strategy

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September 2023
Article

The Dynamics of Team Learning: Harmony and Rhythm in Teamwork Arrangements for Innovation

By: Jean-François Harvey, Johnathan R. Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson and Amy C. Edmondson

Innovation teams must navigate inherent tensions between different learning activities to produce high levels of performance. Yet, we know little about how teams combine these activities—notably reflexive, experimental, vicarious, and contextual learning—most... View Details

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Learning; Performance Effectiveness; Collaborative Innovation and Invention

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27 Sep 2010
Research & Ideas

Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured

Effects of Performance Pressure on Teams' Knowledge Use and Performance". Her research on more than seventy audit and consulting teams—combining survey data, hundreds of interviews, and direct observation at meetings—reveals insights into... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

27 May 2015
Research & Ideas

Build 'Scaffolds' to Improve Performance of Temporary Teams

you have effective teamwork when you can't have the traditional structural features of effective teams, [and so] I shifted my emphasis from teams to 'teaming,'" Edmondson... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Health