Feedback as intervention for team learning in virtual teams: the role of team cohesion and personality

Scholars and practitioners agree that virtual teams (VTs) have become commonplace in today's digital workplace. Relevant literature argues that learning constitutes a significant contributor to team member satisfaction and performance, and that, at least in face-to-face teams, team cohesion fosters team learning. Given the additional challenges VTs face, e.g. geographical dispersion, which are likely have a negative influence on cohesion, in this paper we shed light on the relationship between team cohesion and team learning. We adopted a quantitative approach and studied 54 VTs in our quest to understand the role of feedback in mediating this relationship and, more specifically, the role of personality traits in moderating the indirect effect of team feedback and guided reflection intervention on TL through team cohesion within the VT context. Our findings highlight the importance of considering aspects related to the team composition when devising intervention strategies for VTs, and provide empirical support for an interactionist model between personality and emergent states such as cohesion. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed

Policy Implications. How to Support Decision-Makers in Setting and Solving Complex Problems

Stakeholders participation in the field of the public decision stimulates learning processes able to generate common knowledge based on shared information. In fact, by including different stakeholders in the decision process different knowledge domains can be integrated. To facilitate this processes, Decision Support Systems (DSSs) have been framed to support stakeholders in decision making for specific purposes. The contribution aims at reflecting on stakeholder participation and to propose a possible participatory process in the context of the location of healthcare facilities based on the methodological framework developed by Simon extended to the scale of Arnstein. Connections of the study within the line of research concerning the “Policy Analytics” perspective are proposed highlighting the importance of the combination of data-driven with value-driven approaches. Moreover, this conclusive chapter will synthetize main achievement and findings of the book