Team scaffolds
Subtitle: how minimal in-group structures support fast-paced teaming
By: Melissa A. Valentine, Amy C. Edmondson
Contributors: Edmondson, Amy C.; Harvard Business School
Edition: Revised edition
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 12-062; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 12-062
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 36
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 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 multi-method research design with qualitative interview and observational data and quantitative operational data analyzed with adapted network methods, we examine whether and how team scaffolds facilitate teaming in a dynamic 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. Implications of team scaffolds for theory and practice are discussed.
Notes: "Revised September 2012" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 28-30).