Team Scaffolds: How Minimal Team Structures Enable Role-based Coordination

• Main Author: Valentine, Melissa A
• Other Authors: Edmondson, Amy C.
• Language: en_US
• Published: Harvard University 2013
• Subjects: Organizational behavior; Organization theory; Management; coordination; management; minimal team structures; multi-methods; network methods; team scaffolds
• Online Access: http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10818; http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11158256

In this dissertation, I integrate research on role-based coordination with concepts adapted from the team effectiveness literature to theorize how minimal team structures support effective coordination when people do not work together regularly. I argue that role-based coordination among relative strangers can be interpersonally challenging and propose that team scaffolds (minimal team structures that bound groups of roles rather than groups of individuals) may provide occupants with a temporary shared in-group that facilitates interaction. I develop and test these ideas in a multi-method, multi-site field study of a new work structure, called pods, that were implemented in many hospital emergency departments (EDs) and were sometimes designed to function as team scaffolds.