ADDRESSING PERFORMANCE TENSIONS IN MULTITEAM SYSTEMS: BALANCING INFORMAL MECHANISMS OF COORDINATION WITHIN AND BETWEEN TEAMS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ziegert, Jonathan C.; Knight, Andrew P.; Resick, Christian J.; Graham, Katrina A.
• 署名单位: Drexel University; Washington University (WUSTL); Suffolk University
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2019.1043
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 158-185
• 关键词: RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT; intragroup conflict; DIFFERENCE SCORES; BOUNDARY; ORGANIZATIONS; diversity; task; time; PERSPECTIVE; CONGRUENCE

摘要

Due to their distinctive features, multiteamsystems (MTSs) face significant coordination challenges-both within component teams and across the larger system. Despite the benefits of informal mechanisms of coordination for knowledge-based work, there is considerable ambiguity regarding their effects inMTSs. To resolve this ambiguity, we build and test theory about how interpersonal interactions among MTSmembers serve as an informal coordination mechanism that facilitates team and system functioning. Integrating MTS research with insights from the team boundary spanning literature, we argue that the degree to which MTS members balance their interactions with members of their own component team (i.e., intrateaminteractions) and with the members of other teams in the system (i.e., interteam interactions) shapes team- and system-level performance. The findings of a multimethod study of 44 MTSs composed of 295 teams and 930 members show that as interteam interactions exceed intrateam interactions, team conflict arises and detracts from component team performance. At the system level, a balance between intrateam and interteam interactions enhances system success. Our findings advance understanding of MTSs by highlighting how informal coordination mechanisms enable MTSs to overcome their coordination challenges and address the unique performance tension between component teams and the larger system.