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This contribution aims to evaluate structural team constellations (STCs) – a team intervention related to the better known family structure constellations.

In total, 67 team members from 14 working teams carried out an STC. They were surveyed at three measuring points by means of a questionnaire on their evaluation of task and relationship conflicts and on their satisfaction with the therapeutic alliance with the constellator.

Stable decreases were shown in both conflict variables. Participants who evaluated the conflict variables more positively over the course of time were also more satisfied with the therapeutic alliance with the constellator.

Given the low time requirements involved, STCs can be considered recommendable compared with other team interventions.

Although constellations are experiencing a boom in German‐speaking countries, there are hardly any studies in English on this method. This paper is one of the first contributions towards the establishment of the method in the Anglo‐American area.

This paper aims to examine the use of Cross-Functional Bridge (CFB) in dyadic relationships towards enhancing organisational performance. Prior research has flagged conflict in interfunctional relationships. Research on managing such conflict context is, however, limited.

Analysing 20 in-depth interviews conducted in UK financial services organisations, this study explains how the CFB is used to manage interfunctional relationship conflict and enhance performance.

This study underlines three core insights about intragroup working relationship: cultural and disciplinary differences and boundary fencing are core features of, and conflict drivers in, the accounting – marketing interface; CFB is a tool for analysing and managing these conflict drivers; and organisations that use this tool achieve improved organisational performance, an outcome that is enhanced and sustained through the team psychological enhancement factor of the conflict management strategy. Also, this study underlines the need to ensure a fit between conflict management strategy and conflict types.

This research has several limitations. It explores only accounting – marketing working relationship in UK financial services organisations. Also, it explores only relationship conflict and cultural and disciplinary diversity and boundary fencing factors. Finally, this study suggests a mediating influence of psychological well-being on the CFB – performance link, a conclusion that is based on a methodologically inadequate tool: causes and effects associations are better assessed quantitatively (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004).

The paper highlights insights for analysing and resolving conflicts towards harmonious dyadic relationships. Importantly, managers who use the flagged CFB tool would achieve psychological enhancement in team, and extendedly enhanced organisational performance. Managers are reminded of the need to adequately address the emotional substances in relationship conflicts, as failure to do this will lead to conflict escalation, transformation and negative performance.

The paper offers theory testing and theory building knowledge. The CFB insight is a major highlight, one that lays a brick for future development, especially concerning its modus operandi, motivators and how to maximize its performance value.

The aim of this paper is to present the Italian version of the Aston Team Performance Inventory (the ATPI), to assess its psychometric properties and whether its factor structure reflects the input-process-output (I-P-O) model.

The ATPI was administered to 702 Italian employees working in teams, recruited from the National Health Service (50.3 percent) and from public and private organizations (49.7 percent). To assess the psychometric properties of the ATPI's items, evaluation of discriminating power was performed. In addition to the reliability analyses, a confirmatory factor analysis of the full I-P-O model was also conducted.

Significant results of the Italian version of the ATPI arise from the psychometric properties, dimensions and factor structure. Results align with the English version of the inventory.

The sample was limited and was not selected randomly. Future research should, therefore, expand the sample size and involve several types of Italian organizations. Considering these significant results, future research should validate the Italian version of the ATPI.

To the authors' knowledge, the Italian literature is missing instruments for the assessment of team performance in organizations. Consequently, the present study provides evidence of the value of the Italian version of the ATPI.

The purpose of the paper is twofold: first, it develops a knowledge‐based view of the development of networks in new venture settings and second, it provides a dynamic view of knowledge networks. That is, it aims to pay attention to the development and destruction of networks.

The paper follows a grounded theory approach to develop the model of dynamic knowledge networks. The interviewees came from the following backgrounds: university researchers engaged in entrepreneurial ventures; entrepreneurs that run spin‐off companies; entrepreneurs in a university incubator or science park; incubator managers; university innovation managers; and innovation fund administrators.

The paper finds that the 3C model which is developed from qualitative findings has three core dimensions: knowledge exchange, knowledge structure and network dynamics that stretch across three key new venture phases: conceptualization, commercialization and cultivation. The paper also finds that entrepreneurs build networks because of their particular knowledge needs, once fulfilled these networks are destroyed and new networks are established. The 3C model therefore provides a dynamic perspective on knowledge networks.

The paper shows that a grounded theory approach is limited by it generalisability. The paper has developed a detailed view of knowledge networks in a particular context. Therefore, future research could usefully apply this model to other settings. It would also be useful to conduct further exploratory research into the interimistic nature of knowledge networks.

The paper points to the importance of cross‐boundary knowledge exchange. It needs to look beyond the boundary of a particular unit, such as a firm, to develop the understanding of the dynamics of knowledge management. Second, the context of the knowledge network becomes important managerially. The network has a purpose. It is knowledge‐need driven and this purpose changes remarkably over time. Finally, the creative destruction of knowledge networks needs to be anticipated and managed.

The paper provides a knowledge‐based perspective on entrepreneurial networks. The 3C‐model, which is grounded in reliable data includes several stakeholders in an entrepreneurial network which is in itself valuable and original.

Despite much attention being devoted to shared leadership, the negotiation of such arrangements remains underexplored. In parallel, the revival of interest in matrix structures reveals their challenges but neglects the dynamics of shared leadership. In this case study, the author analyzes the tensions experienced by senior managers of a healthcare organization transitioning from a hierarchical to matrix structure as they negotiate their leadership roles in this new arrangement.

The author interviewed 16 senior managers, observed their meetings and analyzed documents. These data were combined with secondary data including previous interviews and observations of this top leadership team. The author then conducted an inductive data analysis.

The author's analysis reveals that the tensions experienced by senior managers as they negotiate their roles reflect the co-existence of leadership surpluses (too much leadership) and deficits (too little leadership) in matrix organizations. The author argues that surpluses and deficits are not mutually exclusive but are interrelated and shows how leadership surpluses can create leadership deficits.

The author’s findings suggest that in contexts of leader abundance, actors should explore leadership voids. Particular attention should be paid to incidents of intrusion and exclusion, moments of transition and intense role negotiation, as those contexts are particularly conducive to leadership deficits.

While previous work on matrix structures focuses on leadership surpluses, the author discusses leadership deficits. The author explores how more leaders do not necessarily mean more leadership, but instead how more leaders may result in leadership voids.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

Although empirical tests of effective lean-team leadership are scarce, leaders are often blamed when lean work-floor initiatives fail. In the present study, a lean-team leader’s work values are assumed to affect his or her team members’ behaviors and, through them, to attain team effectiveness. Specifically, two of Schwartz et al.’s (2012) values clusters (i.e. self-transcendence and conservation) are hypothesized to be linked to team members’ degree of information and idea sharing and, in turn, to lean-team effectiveness. The paper aims to report the examination of these hypotheses.

Survey responses (n=429) of both leaders and members of 25 lean-teams in services and manufacturing organizations were aggregated, thereby curbing common-source bias. To test the six hypotheses, structural equation modeling was performed, with bootstrapping, linear regression analyses, and Sobel tests.

The positive relationship between lean-team effectiveness and leaders’ self-transcendence values, and the negative relationship between lean-team effectiveness and leaders’ conservation values were partly mediated by information sharing behavior within the team.

Future research must compare the content of effective lean-team values and behaviors to similar non-lean teams.

Appoint lean-team leaders with predominantly self-transcendence rather than conservation values: to promote work-floor sharing of information and lean-team effectiveness.

Human factors associated with effective lean-teams were examined, thereby importing organization-behavioral insights into the operations management literature: with HRM-type implications.

Social capital plays an important role in transforming knowledge within and across inter-firm business networks in industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore different kinds of transfer mechanism such as “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” within a case network of the Danish offshore windmill industry. Its aim is to describe how these mechanisms interactively support value co-creation among the involved enterprises and how social capital, residing in the relationships between actors from the firms, is influenced by the different transfer mechanisms.

Based upon a single case study, the paper demonstrates “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” as distinct, yet related, mechanisms for inter-firm business networking. The sample used covers selected key actors from the network as well as third-party experts from the Danish windmill industry, which together represent the most important knowledge-offering and knowledge-demanding domains.

Activities associated with “bridging” and “bonding” clearly matter for creating value for the business network and the industry alike, as they are supportive of strategic capability development (for instance, high-skilled work). While producers and supply companies apply such “bridging,” “bonding,” and additional “protecting” mechanisms based upon their predominant position, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, need to shape teams to do so. A major finding of the study is, thus, that team-based interrelationships among SMEs activate “bridging,” “bonding.” and “protecting” initiatives which are particularly supportive of capability improvement and industry growth. They enable the transfer of relevant capabilities between different projects where actors within SMEs organizations learn to activate and use such knowledge transfer mechanisms. Moreover, asymmetrical dependency-relationships can be partly overcome by shaping and using the mechanisms on the part of SMEs in the network.

To date, brokerage is still an under-explored topic with regard to inter-firm business networks. This case study contributes to the research by illustrating important and distinct qualitative aspects of brokerage, which are conceptualized as “bonding,” “bridging,” and “protecting” initiatives on the part of brokers. The study highlights that not only strong actors with central positions can step into the role as a broker. Even less resourceful actors within asymmetrical relations can act as broker and compensate a lack of resources or strengthen their position within the industry network. Consequently, value co-creating processes within industry networks can also be boosted by brokerage initiated by small companies.

This paper aims to examine the impact of leadership style and team context on structural and psychological empowerment perceptions in project teams.

It was posited that span of control and within team interdependence will positively and significantly influence both structural and psychological empowerment. Person‐orientated leadership style was also expected to positively impact both structural and psychological empowerment while task orientated leadership style was expected to have a negative impact. These hypothesized relationships were examined using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) with data obtained through a parallel quantitative questionnaire survey of construction client, consultant and contractor organizations in Hong Kong.

No significant relationship was found between span of control and any facet of empowerment while team interdependence had a positive and significant relationship with psychological empowerment but not structural empowerment. Task‐orientated leadership was positively and significantly related to psychological empowerment in the full sample and contractor teams but not in consultant and client teams. Person‐orientated leadership was positively and significantly related to psychological empowerment in the full sample, consultant and client teams but not in contractor teams.

The link between leadership style, team context and three facets of empowerment are examined compared with previous studies often focusing on one facet. Sub‐sample analysis enabled more subtle differences of the impact of leadership style in different context to be revealed, an indication that samples may not be homogeneous.

This chapter examines key drivers of variation in adaptive capacity of project network organizations (PNOs). PNOs are defined as strategically coordinated sets of longer-term, yet project-based relationships, which provide for both stability and change in volatile project businesses. While prior research has emphasized the adaptive role of flexible structures and agency, the author focuses on the role of project variety and contextual embedding and disembedding in building adaptive capacity. Comparing two PNOs in TV movie production, the author argues that differences in adaptive capacity are a function of inter-context connectivity, that is, the level of task and team linkages among diverse project contexts, and the degree to which network ties and relational practices have “dual quality” in being valuable both within and beyond specific project contexts. Findings have important implications for project, network, and organization research.