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The importance of care for project team effectiveness
Type
dissertation project
Start Date
01 August 2006
End Date
31 July 2007
Status
completed
Keywords
Communities of Practice
Innovation Management
Innovation Management
Description
The concept of communities of practice has presented itself to be extremely useful in helping us to understand how emergent groups of practitioners indulge in effective knowledge sharing. Out of this concept, this study develops a causal model that represents some factors that are deemed to positively influence the knowledge-sharing behaviour of a formal work group.
Out of the theory of communities of practice, three distinct factors that are deemed to affect knowledge sharing in project teams arise: degree of self-organisation, affection commitment towards the team and the intensity of a care culture inside the team. These factors give rise to six hypotheses on the influence on the endogenous constructs knowledge sharing and team effectiveness.
This causal model is then tested in a specific setting on highly innovative project teams in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. A sample of 108 respondents is used to test the proposed causal model using variance based structural equations modelling with the PLS method.
As a result of this study, the positive effect of a higher degree of self-organisation and care on knowledge sharing as well as effectiveness can be shown. However, the study shows that the construct of affective commitment towards the team has a negative effect on knowledge sharing. In effect, this means that a team can sustain a high level of knowledge sharing whilst its members are not emotionally attached to the team itself. Even though they still have to be capable of working under the conditions of self-organisation and be able to show a high care attitude towards their colleagues, such ill-committed team members are no hindrance for the overall performance of the team.
The result of this recognition is that it is favourable to support measures that increase a team's ability to self-organise and, even more importantly, to foster a caring attitude of all team members towards each other. A focus on increasing the emotional attachment of a team member to a rather short lived structure, such as project teams seems to be less favourable.
Out of the theory of communities of practice, three distinct factors that are deemed to affect knowledge sharing in project teams arise: degree of self-organisation, affection commitment towards the team and the intensity of a care culture inside the team. These factors give rise to six hypotheses on the influence on the endogenous constructs knowledge sharing and team effectiveness.
This causal model is then tested in a specific setting on highly innovative project teams in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. A sample of 108 respondents is used to test the proposed causal model using variance based structural equations modelling with the PLS method.
As a result of this study, the positive effect of a higher degree of self-organisation and care on knowledge sharing as well as effectiveness can be shown. However, the study shows that the construct of affective commitment towards the team has a negative effect on knowledge sharing. In effect, this means that a team can sustain a high level of knowledge sharing whilst its members are not emotionally attached to the team itself. Even though they still have to be capable of working under the conditions of self-organisation and be able to show a high care attitude towards their colleagues, such ill-committed team members are no hindrance for the overall performance of the team.
The result of this recognition is that it is favourable to support measures that increase a team's ability to self-organise and, even more importantly, to foster a caring attitude of all team members towards each other. A focus on increasing the emotional attachment of a team member to a rather short lived structure, such as project teams seems to be less favourable.
Leader contributor(s)
Herting, Stephan
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
Strategisches Management
Innovationsmanagement
Knowledge Management
Innovationsmanagement
Knowledge Management
Method(s)
Quantitiative Primärerhebung
Strukturgleichungsmodelle
Strukturgleichungsmodelle
Range
Institute/School
Range (De)
Institut/School
Division(s)
Eprints ID
30393
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PublicationThe importance of care for project team effectiveness(Difo-Druck, 2007)Herting, StephanThe concept of communities of practice has presented itself to be extremely useful in helping us to understand how emergent groups of practitioners indulge in effective knowledge sharing. Out of this concept, this study develops a causal model that represents some factors that are deemed to positively influence the knowledge-sharing behaviour of a formal work group. Out of the theory of communities of practice, three distinct factors that are deemed to affect knowledge sharing in project teams arise: degree of self-organisation, affection commitment towards the team and the intensity of a care culture inside the team. These factors give rise to six hypotheses on the influence on the endogenous constructs knowledge sharing and team effectiveness. This causal model is then tested in a specific setting on highly innovative project teams in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. A sample of 108 respondents is used to test the proposed causal model using variance based structural equations modelling with the PLS method. As a result of this study, the positive effect of a higher degree of self-organisation and care on knowledge sharing as well as effectiveness can be shown. However, the study shows that the construct of affective commitment towards the team has a negative effect on knowledge sharing. In effect, this means that a team can sustain a high level of knowledge sharing whilst its members are not emotionally attached to the team itself. Even though they still have to be capable of working under the conditions of self-organisation and be able to show a high care attitude towards their colleagues, such ill-committed team members are no hindrance for the overall performance of the team. The result of this recognition is that it is favourable to support measures that increase a team's ability to self-organise and, even more importantly, to foster a caring attitude of all team members towards each other. A focus on increasing the emotional attachment of a team member to a rather short lived structure, such as project teams seems to be less favourable.Type: doctoral thesis