Cross-boundary teaming for innovation: Integrating research on teams and knowledge in organizations

Teaming across expertise boundaries, within and across organizations, is an increasingly popular strategy for innovation. Although membership diversity expands the range of perspectives that teams can draw upon to innovate, meta-analyses of the team-diversity literature have found weak or inconsistent support for that assumption. These studies also have typically examined effects of team diversity in relatively stable bounded teams, rather than in newly formed temporary groups. Drawing from two streams of research to unpack team diversity, this paper seeks to describe the complexity of cross-boundary teaming, while highlighting factors that may be central to its effectiveness. Past research on team diversity suggests numerous moderators that affect the diversity–performance relationship in teams, while research on knowledge and practice explores the situated activities and logics of diverse experts in great depth. Both streams thus shed light on team diversity, offering complementary insights. We develop a model of cross-boundary teaming that marries these streams and offers human resource management researchers and professionals insights and approaches for helping diverse teams tackle complex problems.

[1]  George L. Vairaktarakis,et al.  Managerial Insights into the E ® ects of Interactions on Replacing Members of a Team , 2001 .

[2]  Deborah Dougherty,et al.  Reimagining the Differentiation and Integration of Work for Sustained Product Innovation , 2001 .

[3]  J. McGrath.  Time, Interaction, and Performance (TIP) , 1991 .

[4]  Trevor Young-Hyman.  Cooperating without Co-laboring , 2017 .

[5]  Erin V. Lehman,et al.  Team Diagnostic Survey , 2005 .

[6]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing , 2002, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[7]  Gilad Chen,et al.  Newcomer Adaptation in Teams: Multilevel Antecedents and Outcomes , 2005 .

[8]  K. Eisenhardt,et al.  Exploring the Black Box: An Analysis of Work Group Diversity, Conflict and Performance , 1999 .

[9]  Deanne N. Den Hartog,et al.  Diversity and team outcomes: the moderating effects of outcome interdependence and group longevity and the mediating effect of reflexivity , 2003 .

[10]  C. D. De Dreu,et al.  Bridging faultlines by valuing diversity: diversity beliefs, information elaboration, and performance in diverse work groups. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[11]  B. Tuckman.  DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCE IN SMALL GROUPS. , 1965, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  Lisa Dragoni,et al.  Better understanding work unit goal orientation: Its emergence and impact under different types of work unit structure. , 2012, The Journal of applied psychology.

[13]  Celia Moore,et al.  A review and critique of research on training and organizational-level outcomes. , 2007 .

[14]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39 , 1989 .

[15]  A. Edmondson.  Learning from Mistakes is Easier Said Than Done: Group and Organizational Influences on the Detection and Correction of Human Error , 1996 .

[16]  Jeremy Dawson,et al.  HRM as a predictor of innovation , 2006 .

[17]  P. Berger,et al.  Social Construction of Reality , 1991, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.

[18]  A. Edmondson,et al.  Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy , 2012 .

[19]  S. Barley,et al.  Bringing Work Back In , 2001 .

[20]  A. Edmondson,et al.  Situated Knowledge and Learning in Dispersed Teams , 2002 .

[21]  Aparna Joshi,et al.  The Role Of Context In Work Team Diversity Research: A Meta-Analytic Review , 2009 .

[22]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Design Rules: The Power of Modularity , 2000 .

[23]  A. Abbott.  The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor , 1988 .

[24]  J. Whyte,et al.  Knowledge Practices in Design: The Role of Visual Representations as `Epistemic Objects' , 2009 .

[25]  Todd Bodner,et al.  Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: a meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  Deborah G. . Ancona,et al.  Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams. , 1992 .

[27]  Alma McCarthy,et al.  Work-life balance policy and practice: Understanding line manager attitudes and behaviors , 2010 .

[28]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  Into the black box: the knowledge transformation cycle , 2003, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[29]  Dustin K. Jundt,et al.  Teams in organizations: from input-process-output models to IMOI models. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[30]  D. van Knippenberg,et al.  Work group diversity. , 2007, Annual review of psychology.

[31]  T. Dick,et al.  Foreword , 2010, Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology.

[32]  S. Webber,et al.  Impact of highly and less job-related diversity on work group cohesion and performance: a meta-analysis , 2001 .

[33]  L. Weingart,et al.  Representational gaps, information processing, and conflict in functionally diverse teams , 2007 .

[34]  Luc Boltanski,et al.  On Justification , 2006 .

[35]  C. Gersick,et al.  Habitual routines in task-performing groups. , 1990, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.

[36]  Deborah G. . Ancona,et al.  Demography and Design: Predictors of New Product Team Performance , 1992 .

[37]  Gerardo A. Okhuysen,et al.  Conceptualizing Emergent States: A Strategy to Advance the Study of Group Dynamics , 2016 .

[38]  W. Bennis,et al.  A Theory of Group Development , 1956 .

[39]  Joseph A. Raelin,et al.  A Model of Work-Based Learning , 1997 .

[40]  Julie Battilana,et al.  The Enabling Role of Social Position in Diverging from the Institutional Status Quo: Evidence from the UK National Health Service , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[41]  D. Dougherty.  Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms , 1992 .

[42]  Jennifer M Talarico,et al.  A review of 40 years of research , 2018 .

[43]  H. Klein,et al.  Organizational socialization: Its content and consequences. , 1994 .

[44]  Suzanne D. Pawlowski,et al.  Bridging User Organizations: Knowledge Brokering and the Work of Information Technology Professionals , 2004, MIS Q..

[45]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[46]  Lillian T. Eby,et al.  PREDICTORS OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE CAREER SUCCESS: A META‐ANALYSIS , 2005 .

[47]  David P. Lepak,et al.  The Human Resource Architecture: Toward a Theory of Human Capital Allocation and Development , 1999 .

[48]  Jean-Francois Harvey,et al.  Managing organizational memory with intergenerational knowledge transfer , 2012, J. Knowl. Manag..

[49]  Amy C. Edmondson,et al.  Too Hot to Handle? How to Manage Relationship Conflict , 2006 .

[50]  B. Delahaye,et al.  Influences On Knowledge processes In Organizational Learning: The Psychosocial Filter , 2000 .

[51]  D. Harrison,et al.  Beyond Relational Demography: Time and the Effects of Surface- and Deep-Level Diversity on Work Group Cohesion , 1998 .

[52]  J. H. Gittell,et al.  High‐quality relationships, psychological safety, and learning from failures in work organizations , 2009 .

[53]  Benjamin F. Jones,et al.  Supporting Online Material Materials and Methods Figs. S1 to S3 References the Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge , 2022 .

[54]  G. Stasser,et al.  Pooling of Unshared Information in Group Decision Making: Biased Information Sampling During Discussion , 1985 .

[55]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[56]  Michele Williams.  In Whom we Trust: Group Membership as an Affective Context for Trust Development , 2001 .

[57]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  SOCIALIZATION IN ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXTS , 2008 .

[58]  G. Northcraft,et al.  You have printed the following article : Why Differences Make a Difference : A Field Study of Diversity , Conflict , and Performance in Workgroups , 2007 .

[59]  Michael A. West,et al.  The effectiveness of teams in organizations: a meta-analysis , 2011 .

[60]  Beth A. Bechky,et al.  10 Coordination in Organizations: An Integrative Perspective , 2009 .

[61]  S. Jackson,et al.  Top management and innovations in banking: Does the composition of the top team make a difference? , 1989 .

[62]  Susan Mohammed,et al.  Team Mental Model: Construct or Metaphor? , 1994 .

[63]  A. Edmondson,et al.  Extreme Teaming: Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Leadership , 2017 .

[64]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  A Temporally Based Framework and Taxonomy of Team Processes , 2001 .

[65]  C. Gersick.  REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE THEORIES: A MULTILEVEL EXPLORATION OF THE PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM PARADIGM , 1991 .

[66]  Shaker A. Zahra,et al.  Boundary Spanning, Boundary Objects, and Innovation , 2016 .

[67]  L. Sproull,et al.  Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams , 2000 .

[68]  J. McGrath.  Social Psychology: A Brief Introduction , 1964 .

[69]  Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi,et al.  P ERSPECTIVE M AKING AND P ERSPECTIVE T AKING IN C OMMUNITIES OF K NOWING , 2000 .

[70]  Jean-François Harvey,et al.  Open Innovation at Fujitsu (A) , 2016 .

[71]  K. Burke.  Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose , 1984 .

[72]  Debra L. Shapiro,et al.  Maximizing cross-functional new product teams' innovativeness and constraint adherence: A conflict communications perspective. , 2001 .

[73]  Ingrid M. Nembhard,et al.  Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges Are the Benefits* , 2009 .

[74]  I. Parker.  Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology , 2013 .

[75]  R. Mitchell,et al.  Professional diversity, identity salience and team innovation: The moderating role of openmindedness norms , 2015 .

[76]  Kara A. Incalcaterra,et al.  A meta-analysis of team-efficacy, potency, and performance: interdependence and level of analysis as moderators of observed relationships. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[77]  B. B. Morgan,et al.  An Analysis of Team Evolution and Maturation , 1993 .

[78]  Eric W. K. Tsang,et al.  Re-examining the functional diversity–performance relationship: The roles of behavioral integration, team cohesion, and team learning , 2016 .

[79]  Cary L. Cooper,et al.  Groups at Work , 1981 .

[80]  Anton J. Villado,et al.  Getting Specific about Demographic Diversity Variable and Team Performance Relationships: A Meta-Analysis , 2011 .

[81]  C. Gersick.  MARKING TIME: PREDICTABLE TRANSITIONS IN TASK GROUPS , 1989 .

[82]  S. Gherardi.  Practice-Based Theorizing on Learning and Knowing in Organizations , 2000 .

[83]  Patrick Cohendet,et al.  Knowing Communities in the Front End of Innovation , 2015 .

[84]  Ann Majchrzak,et al.  Transcending Knowledge Differences in Cross-Functional Teams , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[85]  P Standen,et al.  The home as a workplace: work-family interaction and psychological well-being in telework. , 1999, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[86]  D. Knippenberg,et al.  Past, present, and potential future of team diversity research: From compositional diversity to emergent diversity , 2016 .

[87]  Alfred Kieser,et al.  How much do specialists have to learn from each other when they jointly develop radical product innovations , 2008 .

[88]  T. Tyler,et al.  A Relational Model of Authority in Groups , 1992 .

[89]  A. Edmondson.  Speaking Up in the Operating Room: How Team Leaders Promote Learning in Interdisciplinary Action Teams , 2003 .

[90]  C. Gersick.  Time and Transition in Work Teams: Toward a New Model of Group Development , 1988 .

[91]  R. Hastie,et al.  The common knowledge effect: Information sharing and group judgment. , 1993 .

[92]  J. Brown,et al.  Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective , 2001 .

[93]  Annemarie S. Palincsar,et al.  Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining the Doing, Supporting the Learning , 1991 .

[94]  Anit Somech,et al.  Understanding team innovation: The role of team processes and structures. , 2001 .

[95]  E. Schein.  Organizational Culture and Leadership , 1991 .

[96]  A. Edmondson.  Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams , 1999 .

[97]  M. Mumford.  Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation , 2000 .

[98]  Kevin J. Dooley,et al.  The Effects of Repeat Collaboration on Creative Abrasion , 2010 .

[99]  Haridimos Tsoukas,et al.  A Dialogical Approach to the Creation of New Knowledge in Organizations , 2009, Organ. Sci..

[100]  Claude E. Shannon,et al.  A Mathematical Theory of Communications , 1948 .

[101]  Andrew Pettigrew,et al.  The Politics of Organizational Decision-Making. , 1976 .

[102]  Victor P. Seidel,et al.  Managing the Repertoire: Stories, Metaphors, Prototypes, and Concept Coherence in Product Innovation , 2014, Organ. Sci..

[103]  Ezra W. Zuckerman,et al.  Networks, Diversity, and Productivity: The Social Capital of Corporate R&D Teams , 2001 .

[104]  T. Beauregard,et al.  Making the link between work-life balance practices and organizational performance , 2009 .

[105]  Amy C. Edmondson,et al.  The Local and Variegated Nature of Learning in Organizations: A Group-Level Perspective , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[106]  M. Neale,et al.  What Differences Make a Difference? , 2005, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[107]  G. V. D. Vegt,et al.  Learning and performance in multidisciplinary teams: The importance of collective team identification , 2005 .

[108]  Mark Mortensen,et al.  Constructing the Team: The Antecedents and Effects of Membership Model Divergence , 2014, Organ. Sci..

[109]  Yan Xiao,et al.  Coordination in Fast-Response Organizations , 2006, Manag. Sci..

[110]  Joseph T. Banas,et al.  Comparing Alternative Conceptualizations of Functional Diversity in Management Teams: Process and Performance Effects , 2002 .

[111]  Paula Jarzabkowski,et al.  Strategizing and organizing in pluralistic contexts , 2006 .

[112]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust , 1995 .

[113]  G. Pisano,et al.  Disrupted Routines: Team Learning and New Technology Implementation in Hospitals , 2001 .

[114]  A. Pettigrew.  The politics of organizational decision-making , 1973 .

[115]  Stephen A. Woods,et al.  Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity? , 2015, Journal of organizational behavior.

[116]  E. Oborn,et al.  Knowledge and practice in multidisciplinary teams: Struggle, accommodation and privilege , 2010 .

[117]  S. Jackson,et al.  Linking Competitive Strategies with Human Resource Management Practices , 1987 .

[118]  J. Battilana,et al.  BUILDING SUSTAINABLE HYBRID ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF COMMERCIAL MICROFINANCE ORGANIZATIONS , 2010 .

[119]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[120]  JoAnne Yates,et al.  Life in the Trading Zone: Structuring Coordination Across Boundaries in Postbureaucratic Organizations , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[121]  A. Saks,et al.  Organizational socialization tactics and newcomer proactive behaviors: An integrative study , 2006 .

[122]  Jeong-Yeon Lee,et al.  Cognitive Team Diversity and Individual Team Member Creativity: A Cross-Level Interaction , 2012 .

[123]  Richard J. Klimoski,et al.  The Impact Of Expectations On Newcomer Performance In Teams As Mediated By Work Characteristics, Social Exchanges, And Empowerment , 2003 .

[124]  Peter Cappelli,et al.  Talent Management: Conceptual Approaches and Practical Challenges , 2014 .

[125]  Lila L. Carden,et al.  Integration of project management, human resource development, and business teams: a partnership, planning model for organizational training and development initiatives , 2016 .

[126]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  A Dynamic Theory of Expertise and Occupational Boundaries in New Technology Implementation: Building on Barley's Study of CT Scanning , 2004 .

[127]  James A. Pharmer,et al.  When Member Homogeneity is Needed in Work Teams , 2000 .

[128]  Amy C. Edmondson,et al.  Team Scaffolds: How Mesolevel Structures Enable Role-Based Coordination in Temporary Groups , 2015, Organ. Sci..

[129]  David Stark,et al.  The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life , 2009 .

[130]  D. Harrison,et al.  What's the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. , 2007 .

[131]  D. Dikova,et al.  Reflections on organizational team diversity research , 2016 .

[132]  T. Vassil,et al.  Groups That Work , 1988 .

[133]  Benjamin F. Jones,et al.  Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact , 2013, Science.

[134]  J. Levine,et al.  Socialization in Small Groups: Temporal Changes in Individual-Group Relations1 , 1982 .

[136]  Beth A. Bechky.  Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities: The Transformation of Understanding on a Production Floor , 2003, Organ. Sci..

[137]  D. Wegner.  Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind , 1987 .

[138]  Tammy L. Rapp,et al.  Team Effectiveness 1997-2007: A Review of Recent Advancements and a Glimpse Into the Future , 2008 .

[139]  G. Stasser,et al.  Information sampling in structured and unstructured discussions of three- and six-person groups. , 1989 .

[140]  P. Leonardi.  Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems: What Do These Terms Mean? How are They Related? Do We Need Them? , 2012 .

[141]  Beth A. Bechky,et al.  When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives: A Field Study of Problem Solving at Work , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[142]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[143]  R. Keller,et al.  Cross-Functional Project Groups in Research and New Product Development: Diversity, Communications, Job Stress, and Outcomes , 2001 .

[144]  Bart van den Hooff,et al.  Are We on the Same Page? Knowledge Boundaries and Transactive Memory System Development in Cross-Functional Teams , 2015, Commun. Res..

[145]  A. Edmondson,et al.  Team Reflexivity as an Antidote to Team Information-Processing Failures , 2014 .

[146]  D. Knippenberg,et al.  Defying conventional wisdom: A meta-analytical examination of the differences between demographic and job-related diversity relationships with performance , 2012 .

[147]  S. Barley,et al.  Occupational Communities: Culture and Control in Organizations , 1982 .

[148]  Ingrid M. Nembhard,et al.  Making It Safe: The Effects of Leader Inclusiveness and Professional Status on Psychological Safety and Improvement Efforts in Health Care Teams , 2006 .

[149]  D. Beal,et al.  Cohesion and performance in groups: a meta-analytic clarification of construct relations. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[150]  Heidi K. Gardner,et al.  Performance Pressure as a Double-edged Sword , 2012 .