Perceptions of knowledge sharing among small family firm leaders: a structural equation model

Small family firms have many unique relational qualities with implications for how knowledge is passed between individuals. Extant literature posits leadership approach as important in explaining differences in knowledge-sharing climate from one firm to another. This study investigates how leadership approaches interact with family influence to inform perceptions of knowledge sharing. We utilize survey data (n = 110) from owner-managers of knowledge-intensive small family firms in Scotland. Our findings present a choice in leadership intention, contrasting organization-focused participation against family-influenced guidance. Insight is offered on the implications of this leadership choice at both organizational and familial level

Motivational Aspects of Teacher Collaboration

The mutual dependency of teacher collaboration and motivation has emerged as a promising research field. This article now sets out to systematically review peer-reviewed articles on the interconnection of these concepts. It looks at main findings, identifies ambiguities and contradictions in the constructs and highlights their contested nature. It is shown that many studies use different theoretical approaches and conceptual operationalizations. This leads to inconsistent empirical findings. In addition, teacher collaboration is often perceived as a threat to teacher autonomy. This is surprising considering that both teacher collaboration and teacher autonomy positively affect teacher motivation according to many empirical findings

Identity ambiguity and the promises and practices of hybrid e-HRM project teams

The role of IS project team identity work in the enactment of day-to-day relationships with their internal clients is under-researched. We address this gap by examining the identity work undertaken by an electronic human resource management (e-HRM) 'hybrid' project team engaged in an enterprise-wide IS implementation for their multi-national organisation. Utilising social identity theory, we identify three distinctive, interrelated dimensions of project team identity work (project team management, team 'value propositions' (promises) and the team's 'knowledge practice'). We reveal how dissonance between two perspectives of e-HRM project identity work (clients' expected norms of project team's service and project team's expected norms of themselves) results in identity ambiguity. Our research contributions are to identity studies in the IS project management, HR and hybrid literatures and to managerial practice by challenging the assumption that hybrid experts are the panacea for problems associated with IS projects

Team Learning: A Theoretical Integration and Review

With the increasing emphasis on work teams as the primary architecture of organizational structure, scholars have begun to focus attention on team learning, the processes that support it, and the important outcomes that depend on it. Although the literature addressing learning in teams is broad, it is also messy and fraught with conceptual confusion. This chapter presents a theoretical integration and review. The goal is to organize theory and research on team learning, identify actionable frameworks and findings, and emphasize promising targets for future research. We emphasize three theoretical foci in our examination of team learning, treating it as multilevel (individual and team, not individual or team), dynamic (iterative and progressive; a process not an outcome), and emergent (outcomes of team learning can manifest in different ways over time). The integrative theoretical heuristic distinguishes team learning process theories, supporting emergent states, team knowledge representations, and respective influences on team performance and effectiveness. Promising directions for theory development and research are discussed

An Extended Adaptive Structuration Theory Framework for Determinants of Virtual Team Success

Virtual team represents an organizational form which can revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness. Since nineties, virtual teams have been subjected to exhaustive research, mostly focused on the causal relationship between single or multiple constructs and the success variables of virtual teams, such as performance and satisfaction. There have been quite a few reviews on virtual teams which have provided a good overview of the state of virtual team research. These reviews have identified significant constructs in virtual team research, summarized and assessed their findings, proposed frameworks demonstrating the state of present research and posed some challenges and research questions which should be answered by future research on virtual teams. However, existing reviews are too general in terms of portraying relationships, such that their frameworks delineate links among categories of constructs as against among individual constructs themselves. None of the extant reviews identify explicit relationships among the most significant constructs of virtual teams and the research on virtual team performance is still equivocal. An understanding of such explicit relationships between the most significant constructs of virtual teams can get us a deeper insight into how virtual teams achieve effectiveness. Thus, there is a need to structure the current empirical research in order to understand the key direct and indirect drivers of virtual team performance. This study, based on a qualitative review of existing literature on virtual teams, identifies key drivers of virtual team effectiveness and develops a conceptual research framework with 9 propositions linking the identified drivers. It goes beyond the generalized models, such as, AST and Input-Process-Output models and develops a new model EAST (extended adaptive structuration theory) by extending the tenets of AST.This study uses adaptive structuration theory to organize the literature on virtual teams into three broad categories; viz. structural dimensions, social interaction and outcomes, and comes up with hypotheses and research questions linking the above categories

Conceptualizing teamwork and group-work in architecture and related design disciplines

This paper reports on the early findings of an Australian Learning Teaching Council (ALTC/OLT) funded project – “Enhancing and Assessing Group and Team Learning in Architecture and Related Design Contexts.” This is a two-year project investigating good practice in Australian higher education for the teaching of teamwork in the design disciplines, with a focus on architecture. Drawing upon a review of the literature and discussions with teachers and practitioners, the paper considers how teamwork is conceived in the context of the design disciplines. The paper explores notions of team and group design activities in the literature, identifying the key elements and characteristics of effective teams and groups. While a great deal of research exists on effective teamwork in organizational, management and general education literature, this research found a clear gap in knowledge relating to teaching teamwork in architecture and related design contexts. Suggestions are made about the ways in which theories on effective teamwork in organisations might elucidate teaching and assessment of effectively functioning student design teams. The literature review prompted five key questions, outlined here, around the conceptualisation of teamwork in design education that were subsequently discussed with educators and practitioners, thus allowing the identification of issues, problems and solutions common to all fields of design

Understanding the effect of IS change: A social capital perspective

This paper argues that by adopting a social capital perspective of the effects of Information Systems (IS) implementation we are able to provide insights into both human and technological aspects of change interventions. This theoretical paper is firmly embedded within socio-technical approaches and aims to conceptualise and address concerns relating to organisational issues of systems and technology management. IS implementation inevitably impacts upon the existing work and social relationships within organisations where there is the potential experience of reduced system effectiveness through a periodic lack of coordination and control. It is evident, in this respect, that the adoption of IS produces challenges to human collaboration which clearly add a social dimension to systems management. The paper broadly outlines how a social capital perspective may determine the areas of focus from IS-driven organisational change and provide indications about potential ways to improve system and technology adoption. This may support more appropriate designs for change interventions that enable organisations to accrue more value from IS

Exploring the Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Practice: Eastern North Carolina Perspectives

Interprofessional health care delivery has the potential to greatly impact the experience, costs, and outcomes of health care. Primary care providers have the capacity to be the tipping point of this change. Primary care providers’ attitudes toward interprofessional care may bolster or impede implementation of the concept. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the attitudes toward interprofessional practice as self-reported by primary care providers in eastern North Carolina (NC). The Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale (ATHCTS), a validated 21-item scale, was used to explore providers’ attitudes toward intentional team-based collaborative practice within a large health system in eastern NC. Providers included physicians, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners. Cronbach’s alpha for the 21-item scale was calculated at .877. A Kruskal-Wallis test was used to examine a between groups analysis of the mean scores, finding no significant difference between the mean scores of the three professional groups. The findings of the nonparametric, cross-observational, quantitative study are discussed in this report. Further exploration of the attitudes of larger numbers of primary care providers is indicated.D.N.P

The emergence of team resilience: A multilevel conceptual model of facilitating factors

With empirical research on team resilience on the rise, there is a need for an integrative conceptual model that delineates the essential elements of this concept and offers a heuristic for the integration of findings across studies. To address this need, we propose a multilevel model of team resilience that originates in the resources of individual team members and emerges as a team-level construct through dynamic person–situation interactions that are triggered by adverse events. In so doing, we define team resilience as an emergent outcome characterized by the trajectory of a team's functioning, following adversity exposure, as one that is largely unaffected or returns to normal levels after some degree of deterioration in functioning. This conceptual model offers a departure point for future work on team resilience and reinforces the need to incorporate inputs and process mechanisms inherent within dynamic interactions among individual members of a team. Of particular, importance is the examination of these inputs, process mechanisms and emergent states, and outcomes over time, and in the context of task demands, objectives, and adverse events. Practitioner points: Team resilience as a dynamic, multilevel phenomenon requires clarity on the individual- and team-level factors that foster its emergence within occupational and organizational settings. An understanding of the nature (e.g., timing, chronicity) of adverse events is key to studying and intervening to foster team resilience within occupational and organizational settings