Team scaffolds
Subtitle: how minimal in-group structure support fast-paced teaming
By: Melissa A. Valentine, Amy C. Edmondson
Contributors: Edmondson, Amy C.; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 12-062; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 12-062.
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 43
Description: Across many industries, particularly in health care delivery, interdependent work is performed under conditions that make bounded stable teams infeasible, creating a need to understand factors that foster teaming in the absence of team stability. Teaming refers to coordination and mutual adjustment that occurs during episodes of interdependent work. The present research investigates teaming in the high-stakes, fast-paced setting of a hospital emergency room, and focuses on the effects of a new organizational structure, which we call a team scaffold, on teaming effectiveness and performance outcomes. Using a hybrid research design that adapts and blends quantitative network methods with qualitative interview and observational data, we examine whether and how team scaffolds facilitate teaming in a dynamic, knowledge-intensive work environment. Although team scaffolds were implemented with little or no membership stability, their introduction triggered significant changes in teaming networks and behaviors in ways that improved operational performance.
Notes: "January 2012" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references.