Team processes for adaptive and innovative outcomes

Exploring the role of leaders in enabling adaptive capacity in hospital teams - a multiple case study

BACKGROUND

Resilient healthcare research studies how healthcare systems and stakeholders adapt and cope with challenges and changes to enable high quality care. Team leaders are seen as central in coordinating clinical care, but research detailing their contributions in supporting adaptive capacity has been limited. This study aims to explore and describe how leaders enable adaptive capacity in hospital teams.

METHODS

This article reports from a multiple embedded case study in two Norwegian hospitals. A case was defined as one hospital containing four different types of teams in a hospital setting. Data collection used triangulation of observation and interviews with leaders, followed by a qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS

Leaders contribute in several ways to enhance their teams' adaptive capacity. This study identified four key enablers; (1) building sufficient competence in the teams; (2) balancing workload, risk, and staff needs; (3) relational leadership; and (4) emphasising situational understanding and awareness through timely and relevant information.

CONCLUSION

Team leaders are key actors in everyday healthcare systems and facilitate organisational resilience by supporting adaptive capacity in hospital teams. We have developed a new framework of key leadership enablers that need to be integrated into leadership activities and approaches along with a strong relational and contextual understanding.

A theoretical exploration of out-group versus in-group perspectives on the dynamics of team effectiveness

Purpose

Past research on transactive memory systems (TMS) often treated the focal team as an isolated entity. Previous literature overlooked two aspects of TMS: its existence beyond the boundaries of the focal team (further referred to as out-group TMS) and the way the out-group TMS helps teams adapt and remain effective when the circumstances change. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the overlooked aspects of TMS on the dynamics of team effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a theoretical perspective and proposes two sets of propositions. First set explores the overlooked construct of out-group TMS and defines the boundaries of its applicability by building on Lewis’ (2003) dimensions of TMS. Second set explores ways in which out-group TMS can combine with in-group TMS to enable higher team effectiveness in fast-paced settings facing uncertainty and change.

Findings

The study’s conceptual perspective builds the grounds for improving scholars’ understanding of the drivers of team effectiveness in relation to the locus of TMS. The study investigates ways to combine in-group and out-group TMS and conceptually discusses their effects on team effectiveness: a mediation, an interaction and an additive model. The investigation concludes that out-group TMS plays a critical role and that overlooking its impact can be devastating for organizations in fast-paced environments.

Originality/value

This study unveils the unique and previously underexplored dynamics of transactive memory in teams with looser boundaries. Further, it extends scholars’ understanding of team cognition in contemporary, fast-paced business environments.

When Leadership Powers Team Learning: A Meta-Analysis

Team learning behavior is found to be one of the most effective team processes, as learning behavior at the team level (e.g., sharing, discussing, and reflecting on knowledge and actions) enables teams to adapt existing or develop new knowledge. Team leadership behavior is considered a critical accelerant for creating conditions that are essential to engage in team learning behavior, such as a safe environment. Yet despite the growing amount of research in team learning, this relationship remains unclear. Meta-analytic techniques were used to examine when team leadership behaviors support team learning behavior and how the task type moderates that relationship. Forty-three empirical studies reporting 92 effect sizes were synthesized. Analyses show that team leadership behavior explains 18% of the variance in team learning behavior. Furthermore, results indicate that person-focused leaders foster team learning for both adaptive and developmental tasks, whereas task-focused leaders influence team learning for adaptive tasks only.

Antoni C. Reflective team learning: linking interfering events and team adaptation

Purpose

– This study aims to contribute to the team learning literature, by analyzing how reflective team learning is related to interfering events and to subsequent team adaptation.

Design/methodology/approach

– Longitudinal data were obtained from 33 project teams consisting of 131 students. Participants answered an online questionnaire three times during the term. The data were analyzed at the team level by conducting multiple hierarchical regression and bootstrap analyses.

Findings

– Results show an indirect effect of interfering events on team adaptation through reflective team learning, supporting recent models of episodic team processes and interruptive events. Findings indicate that reflective team learning is related to situational events and subsequent team adaptation. It was concluded that events that interfere with team action in a given time period stimulate the occurrence of reflective behavior, resulting in team adaptation.

Research limitations/implications

– The sample size is rather small, the context is very specific and the study focuses on reflective team learning. Therefore, future studies should try to replicate the findings with larger samples in other work contexts and also explore other facets of team learning.

Practical implications

– The findings are valuable for managers because they highlight the opportunities interferences offer for team learning and how they can be used to achieve team adaptation.

Originality/value

– This study contributes to team learning research by shedding light on emerging conditions of team learning processes. It provides empirical support for current models of team learning and team adaptation by analyzing longitudinal data.