Team Learning and Knowledge Creation PhD research presentation June 2013

The influence of team psychological safety on team knowledge creation: A comparative study between

Thai and French teams

Peter Cauwelier [email protected]

2nd year student

1 June 23rd, 2013

Agenda

1. Problem statement

2. Research objectives

3. Brief literature review

4. Research paradigm

5. Conceptual framework

6. Research design

7. Data collection

8. Limitations

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Problem statement

Team psychological safety has been shown to impact team learning behaviors. Team learning behaviors influence team performance, although the scope of team performance is often left vague. Learning leads to knowledge. There has been little research to evaluate how team psychological safety impacts the knowledge that is created, stored and reused at the team level.

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Research Objectives

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The purpose of this research is to evaluate the relationship between team psychological safety (leading to team learning behavior) and the knowledge created at the team level. Knowledge and teams are two crucial elements organizations count on to maintain or develop their competitive advantage. Confirming the link between team psychological safety and team knowledge creation will bring valuable information to organizations about the necessary conditions to ensure teams create knowledge.

Brief literature review

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Psychological Safety, Trust, and Learning in Organizations: A Group-level Lens Amy Edmondson, 2003

Team psychological

safety

Team learning behavior

Team performance

Antecedents to team psychological

safety:

- Team leader behavior

- Informal group dynamics

- Trust and respect

- Use of practice fields

- Supportive organizational context

Elements of team learning behavior

- Feedback seeking

- Help seeking

- Speaking up about concerns/mistakes

- Innovative behavior

- Boundary spanning

Team Psychological Safety = a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking

Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams

Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly; Jun 1999

Brief literature review

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(Bennet and Bennet 2012)

LEARNING LEADS TO KNOWLEDGE CREATION

Brief literature review

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TEAM KNOWLEDGE Team Knowledge Research: Emerging Trends and Critical Needs

Jessica L. Wildman, Amanda L. Thayer, Davin Pavlas (2012)

Shared cognition

= static, from structure

Team cognition

= dynamic, from interactions

Interactive Team Cognition (ITC) theory (Nancy Cooke 2012)

Research paradigm: Mixed methods

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Conceptual framework

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TEAMS IN FRANCE

TEAMS IN THAILAND

Team learning behavior

Team psychological

safety

Team knowledge

creation

H0 H1

H2

H3 “mediating variable”

(culture)

H4 “control variable”

(culture)

Conceptual framework

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H0 Teams with higher team psychological safety engage in more team learning behavior than teams with lower team psychological safety H1 Teams with higher team learning behavior create more team knowledge than teams with lower team learning behavior H2 Teams with higher team psychological safety create more team knowledge than teams with lower team psychological safety H3 Psychological safety in teams in Thailand have a more pronounced effect on the creation of team knowledge than in France: - low psychological safety has a very strong negative impact in Thailand - low psychological safety has a moderate negative impact in France - high psychological safety has a very strong positive impact in Thailand - high psychological safety has a moderate positive impact in France

H4 Elements affecting team psychological safety are different between cultures, and their relative importance is different

Research design The research will be conducted in teams with 5-8 members, in engineering departments in Thailand and France, from the same organization.

The level of team psychological safety will be evaluated in each team. Each team will engage in a 2-part team challenge:

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training of individual team members on different

tasks

team challenge

part 1

assessment

team challenge

part 2

assessment

assess team psychological safety in the team

Example of challenge: designing and building a model rocket

Data collection

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Step 1

Evaluate team

psychological safety

Quantitative

Qualitative

Step 3

Team performs challenge

and researcher evaluates team

learning behaviors

N/A

Researchers will codify and

count the occurrence of

learning behaviors

in each team challenge from the

video recordings; opposite

behaviors (negative learning

behaviors) will equally

be codified and counted*

Before the challenge, team members are trained on

distinct skills necessary to perform the task

Questionnaires filled by team members

Instruments exist in Edmondson 1999

and have been further developed by other

resources*

Individual interviews, questions to

be developed

Questions will focus on antecedents of

team psychological safety and evaluate if

any differences exist between teams in 2

countries

* existing instruments or methodologies

Performance level of the team

challenge (part 1)

Team interview session, questions to

be developed

Questions will focus on the learning

experience, and the extent to which

team members have learned about

themselves, the team members, the

task

Step 4

Assessment

Step 2

Data collection

Quantitative

Qualitative

Step 5

Team performs 2nd part of challenge

and researcher evaluates team

learning behaviors, and re-use of knowledge

Note: in this 2nd part, researchers will look out to see how

team members learned from each other in the 1st session, to

see if knowledge had been created in this first session, and

if this knowledge is re-used

Step 6

Assessment

Performance level of the team challenge

(part 2)

Team interview session, questions to

be developed

Questions will focus on new knowledge that the

team members have discovered in the

challenge, about themselves, the team

members, the task … in particular the extent to

to which team members have been able to

reuse knowledge created in the 1st session

13 * existing instruments or methodologies

N/A

Researchers will codify and

count the occurrence of

learning behaviors

in each team challenge from the

video recordings; opposite

behaviors (negative learning

behaviors) will equally

be codified and counted*

Limitations

The main limitations of this research are related to the setting of the experiment: - teams in 1 organization only - Thailand and France only - engineering teams only This research follows a mixed method paradigm and the sampling size is limited to 2x3 teams. Additional research with a larger variation of team background and cultural settings could help for these limitations.

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