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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 March 2021

Iris A.G.M. Geerts, Joyce J.P.A. Bierbooms and Stefan W.M.G. Cloudt

This two-part study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on team development by examining the development of self-managing teams (SMTs) in healthcare. Based on an…

3338

Abstract

Purpose

This two-part study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on team development by examining the development of self-managing teams (SMTs) in healthcare. Based on an exploration of the team development literature, a perspective on SMT development was created, which suggested that SMTs develop along a non-sequential pattern of three processes–team management, task management and boundary management and improvement–that is largely the result of individual, team, organizational and environmental-level factors.

Design/methodology/approach

The perspective on SMT development was assessed in a Dutch mental healthcare organization by conducting 13 observations of primary mental healthcare SMTs as well as 14 retrospective interviews with the self-management process facilitator and advisors of all 100 primary mental healthcare SMTs.

Findings

Empirical results supported the perspective on SMT development. SMTs were found to develop along each of the three defined processes in a variety or possible patterns or simultaneously over time, depending on many of the identified factors and three others. These factors included individual human capital, team member attitudes and perceived workload at the individual level, psychological safety, team turnover, team size, nature of the task and bureaucratic history at the team level, and management style and material and social support at the organizational level.

Practical implications

This study provides a non-sequential model of SMT development in healthcare, which healthcare providers could use to understand and foster SMTs development. To foster SMT development, it is suggested that cultural change need to be secured alongside with structural change.

Originality/value

Even though various team development models have been described in the literature, this study is the first to indicate how SMTs in the healthcare context develop toward effective functioning.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 35 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 22 February 2024

Ia Williamsson and Linda Askenäs

This study aims to understand how practitioners use their insights in software development models to share experiences within and between organizations.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to understand how practitioners use their insights in software development models to share experiences within and between organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a qualitative study of practitioners in software development projects, in large-, medium- or small-size businesses. It analyzes interview material in three-step iterations to understand reflexive practice when using software development models.

Findings

The study shows how work processes are based on team members’ experiences and common views. This study highlights the challenges of organizational learning in system development projects. Current practice is unreflective, habitual and lacks systematic ways to address recurring problems and share information within and between organizations. Learning is episodic and sporadic. Knowledge from previous experience is individual not organizational.

Originality/value

Software development teams and organizations tend to learn about, and adopt, software development models episodically. This research expands understanding of how organizational learning takes place within and between organizations with practitioners who participate in teams. Learnings show the potential for further research to determine how new curriculums might be formed for teaching software development model improvements.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 15 May 2019

Laura-Maija Hero and Eila Lindfors

Collaboration between universities and industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation. Educational institutions are encouraged to build partnerships and…

14206

Abstract

Purpose

Collaboration between universities and industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation. Educational institutions are encouraged to build partnerships and multidisciplinary projects based around real-world open problems. Projects need to benefit student learning, not only the organisations looking for innovations. The context of this study is a multidisciplinary innovation project, as experienced by the students of an University of Applied Sciences in Finland. The purpose of this paper is to unfold students’ conceptions of the learning experience, to help teachers and curriculum designers to organise optimal conditions and processes, and support competence development. The research question was: How do students in higher professional education experience their learning in a multidisciplinary innovation project?

Design/methodology/approach

The study took a phenomenographic approach. The data were collected in the form of weekly diaries, maintained by the cultural management and social services students (n=74) in a mandatory multidisciplinary innovation project in professional higher education in Finland. The diary data were analysed using thematic inductive analysis.

Findings

The results of the study revealed that students’ understood the learning experience in relation to solvable conflicts and unusual situations they experienced during the project, while becoming aware of and claiming their collaborative agency and internalising phases of an innovation process. The competences as learning outcomes that students could name as developed related to content knowledge, different personal characteristics, social skills, emerging leadership skills, creativity, future orientation, social skills, technical, crafting and testing skills and innovation implementation-related skills, such as marketing, sales and entrepreneurship planning skills. However, future orientation and implementation planning skills showed more weakly than other variables in the data.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that curriculum design should enable networked, student-led and teacher supported pedagogical innovation processes that involve a whole path from future thinking and idea development through prototyping to implementation planning of the novel solution. Teachers promote deep comprehension of the innovation process, monitor and ease the pain of conflict if it threatens motivation, offer assessment tools and help in recognising gaps in individual competences and development needs, promote more future-oriented, concrete and implementable outcomes, and facilitate in bridging from innovation towards entrepreneurship planning.

Originality/value

The multidisciplinary innovation project described in this study provides a pedagogical way to connect higher education to the practises of society. These results provide encouraging findings for organising multidisciplinary project activities between education and working life. The paper, therefore, has significant value for teachers and entrepreneurship educators in designing curriculum and facilitating projects. The study promotes the dissemination of innovation development programmes in between education and work organisations also in other than technical and commercial fields.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 24 June 2022

Mandlakazi Ndlela and Maureen Tanner

Literature reveals ongoing debates around the role of business analysts in agile software development (ASD) teams. This can be attributed, in part, to a knowledge gap concerning…

2722

Abstract

Purpose

Literature reveals ongoing debates around the role of business analysts in agile software development (ASD) teams. This can be attributed, in part, to a knowledge gap concerning how business analysts contribute to overall team capabilities, particularly those which are essential in enabling teams to respond to fast-paced environmental changes. The purpose of this study was to address this gap by investigating how business analysts (BAs) contribute to the dynamic capabilities of ASD teams.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a deductive approach, this study adapted and applied a research model based on the team dynamic capabilities (DC) theory to explore the contributions of BAs in agile teams. The study was executed using a qualitative, single case study research strategy directed at an ASD team in the financial services industry. Moreover, data were collected through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews; a focus group; non-participant observation and physical artefacts review. The thematic analysis technique was used to analyse the data.

Findings

The study contributes to teams DC theory through four theoretical propositions centred on the role of BAs. The proposition highlights how BAs relationship management, tacit knowledge sharing, task mental models and transactive memory are key contributors of ASD teams' DC. The study also found that BAs contribute to ASD teams' ability to embrace agile principles 2, 4, 6 and 12. This study can inform the design of capacity development programmes for individual team members and BAs and thus help managers curate teams that will best promote DC.

Practical implications

This study can inform the design of capacity development programmes for individual team members and BAs and thus help managers curate teams that will best promote DC.

Originality/value

This study builds on the relatively few studies which focus on DC within software development (SD) teams and ASD project teams. Moreover, the study explores how an individual (i.e. a BA) can contribute to the DC of a team.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 36 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 May 2018

Kirsi Aaltonen and Virpi Turkulainen

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the understanding of socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings, using project alliance – the most…

2855

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the understanding of socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings, using project alliance – the most contemporary approach to the management of large and complex projects – as an example. In particular, the paper also assesses how informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to facilitate relational capital in such a setting.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by two case studies of complex infrastructure projects in a Northern European city. The analysis focuses on how socialization is managed across organizational interfaces within the alliance organization during the project tendering and development phase to create relational capital.

Findings

The findings indicate that significant emphasis is put on socialization in project alliances. However, while in the tendering phase both informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to create relational capital; in the development phase informal socialization mechanisms are associated with higher levels of relational capital and formal socialization mechanisms are used to maintain the level of relational capital.

Originality/value

While operations and supply chain management research argues that socialization is critical to manage organizational interfaces and to create relational capital in buyer-supplier relationships, research has mainly focused on ongoing operations. This study complements the prior research by developing further insight into socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings; such settings create a unique empirical context, posing different managerial challenges as the results also indicate.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 38 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 September 2023

Melany Hebles, Concepción Yániz-Alvarez-de-Eulate and Lourdes Villardón-Gallego

The debriefing is a procedure based on intra-team feedback, which has frequently been applied in university formation in health but has been less used in business. The aim of this…

Abstract

Purpose

The debriefing is a procedure based on intra-team feedback, which has frequently been applied in university formation in health but has been less used in business. The aim of this research is to analyse best practices in the actual implementation of debriefing in organisations, based on criteria the guidelines for carrying out each stage established in the procedure.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve these goals, working teams from different organisations carried out 19 group-debriefing sessions on an authentic work problem. These sessions were observed and analysed following a qualitative approach.

Findings

After observing a debriefing session in 19 organisations, four categories related to its implementation have been identified: Self-analysis, information, planning and orientation of the development of the team.

Research limitations/implications

It is important to mention some limitations to this work. The major limitation was the lack of published literature related to the debriefing in the area of organisational management. The qualitative and exploratory nature of the study limits the generalisation of the results.

Practical implications

The research has practical implications as the characterisation and description of each phase favours the transfer to implement the debriefing technique adequately in different types of organisations.

Social implications

It has been observed that all forms of debriefing have a common purpose in learning and, team and employee development, due to the powerful transferability and usefulness of debriefing in different contexts. Therefore, knowing the correct use of debriefing is a breakthrough in this area. In addition, including this type of practice will not just facilitate a better performance, it will also help teams to learn to work in a team from their own experiences.

Originality/value

It has been characterised by the process of debriefing from the correct implementation of each phase through the analysis of the narratives that arise in the debriefing sessions carried out.

研究目的

匯報是一個基於團隊內部回饋的程序, 它常見於大學組建的醫療衛生方面, 在商業上則較少使用。本研究擬基於匯報程序中所建立的每個階段, 來分析在組織內實際進行匯報的典範實務。

研究設計/方法/理念

為達至研究目標, 來自不同組織的工作團隊, 就一個真實的工作問題進行了19個匯報會議。研究人員觀察這些會議, 並以定性研究法進行探討和分析。

研究結果

研究人員觀察於19個組織進行的匯報會議後, 找出了四個進行匯報會議的範疇, 自我分析、資料、計劃和團隊發展的取向。

實務方面的啟示

本研究提供了實務方面的啟示, 因研究結果確認了匯報每個階段的特徵的描述, 以及每個階段的描述, 這會幫助在不同種類的組織內進行匯報會議時, 舉行匯報使用之技巧得以靈活調動, 以發揮各技巧的最佳效果。

研究的原創性/價值

研究人員分析有關的匯報會議內的敘述, 並從會議每個階段的正確執行, 找出了匯報程序的各個特徵。

Details

European Journal of Management and Business Economics, vol. 32 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2444-8451

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 11 April 2021

Pascal Dussart, Lise A. van Oortmerssen and Bé Albronda

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into cross-functional team (CFT) members’ points of view on knowledge integration.

3316

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into cross-functional team (CFT) members’ points of view on knowledge integration.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was conducted using Q methodology. The 22 respondents were members of CFTs in information systems development within 7 agencies of the Flemish Government administration.

Findings

The study resulted in three distinct perspectives. To the CFT player, the benefits and added value of information and knowledge diversity of CFTs outweigh the challenges of knowledge integration. By contrast, the CFT sceptic is doubtful that knowledge integration in CFTs can ever work at all. Finally, the organization critic highlights the lack of support from the organization for efficient and effective knowledge integration in CFTs.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study suggest that CFT configurations have important implications for the development of shared team mental models and for teams’ cognitive performance.

Practical implications

Making CFT members aware of their peers’ mental models, ways of working and priorities could help strengthen knowledge integration. To improve knowledge integration in teams, managers should reduce knowledge boundaries that are the result of organizational structuring and power play between departments.

Originality/value

By focusing on daily experiences with knowledge integration, this study reveals that members of CFTs in information systems development hold contrasting perspectives on, and diverging attitudes towards, knowledge integration.

Details

Team Performance Management: An International Journal, vol. 27 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-7592

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 October 2022

Janna Katharina Küllenberg, Debora Niermann, Sonja Becker and Mirjam Körner

Based on a resulting typing model, this paper focuses on four types of leaders (Approachables on the sidelines, Distanced overseers, Realistic succeeders and Dedicated…

Abstract

Purpose

Based on a resulting typing model, this paper focuses on four types of leaders (Approachables on the sidelines, Distanced overseers, Realistic succeeders and Dedicated sensitives), who differ in the analytical core category of “development of awareness.”

Design/methodology/approach

Internal team coaching is intended to strengthen leaders in the health care system. The Team Leader Coaching Programme (TLCP) was implemented as an internal coaching instrument at rehabilitation centers using a train-the-trainer format. Twenty-one team leaders were surveyed on their experience of the coaching process they implemented in their teams. The interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory method (GTM) as theoretically discussed by representatives of second-generation GTM (Charmaz, 2014).

Findings

Use of the TLCP proved to be an intervention for initiating and enhancing an awareness development process regarding team leaders' reflections on their own position and leadership role, regardless of their profession. This process was found to be a prerequisite for implementing the learned content. The typing model is discussed given current contextual conditions in the rehabilitation system and their connectivity in practice for integrating coaching elements into daily management.

Originality/value

This article presents a typology of healthcare leaders. Thanks to the reconstructive approach using grounded theory methodology, this article presents an in-depth analysis of the implementation process of a coaching program. The findings are both connectable to applied leadership research and useable for further development of training and interventions to strengthen team leaders in clinical settings.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 June 2022

Toni Mättö, Marko Järvenpää, Pekka Peura, Merja Kangasjärvi and Harri Lehtinen

This case study aims to report a longitudinal analysis of the development and use of local “vernacular” accounting practice and a digital rolling-forecast system known as…

1147

Abstract

Purpose

This case study aims to report a longitudinal analysis of the development and use of local “vernacular” accounting practice and a digital rolling-forecast system known as TeamBudget in a public sector organization.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employs the constructive research approach which utilizes participative observation in the development of TeamBudget over the 15 years since 2004. The empirical data utilized includes eight interviews and documentary data for the system created.

Findings

The study demonstrates how the actions of employees responsible for developing a locally relevant financial planning system, TeamBudget, facilitated the emergence of new accounting routines associated with the newly created system. A locally created accounting system thus became institutionalized into a wider organizational setting over time. The current study presents findings that explain the routinization of informal accounting activities and the subsequent institutionalization process.

Practical implications

Understanding the potential influence of local action on the organization-wide accounting system may foster the creation of accounting tools that could spread participation and commitment throughout a public sector organization, contributing towards enhancing the enabling effect of an organizational accounting system. When designing a local budgeting system, decoupling it from the organizational system may promote its institutionalization.

Originality/value

Antecedents of informal accounting routines have received little research attention. This study illustrates actions relating to local accounting practice were antecedents of accounting routines and subsequent institutional changes in broader organizational practices in a public sector organization. The study demonstrates how vernacular accounting practice can facilitate the institutionalization process.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 34 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 July 2023

Tomasz Mucha, Sijia Ma and Kaveh Abhari

Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, at its core, Machine Learning (ML) offer opportunities for organizations to develop new or enhance existing capabilities…

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Abstract

Purpose

Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, at its core, Machine Learning (ML) offer opportunities for organizations to develop new or enhance existing capabilities. Despite the endless possibilities, organizations face operational challenges in harvesting the value of ML-based capabilities (MLbC), and current research has yet to explicate these challenges and theorize their remedies. To bridge the gap, this study explored the current practices to propose a systematic way of orchestrating MLbC development, which is an extension of ongoing digitalization of organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from Finland's Artificial Intelligence Accelerator (FAIA) and complemented by follow-up interviews with experts outside FAIA in Europe, China and the United States over four years. Data were analyzed through open coding, thematic analysis and cross-comparison to develop a comprehensive understanding of the MLbC development process.

Findings

The analysis identified the main components of MLbC development, its three phases (development, release and operation) and two major MLbC development challenges: Temporal Complexity and Context Sensitivity. The study then introduced Fostering Temporal Congruence and Cultivating Organizational Meta-learning as strategic practices addressing these challenges.

Originality/value

This study offers a better theoretical explanation for the MLbC development process beyond MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) and its hindrances. It also proposes a practical way to align ML-based applications with business needs while accounting for their structural limitations. Beyond the MLbC context, this study offers a strategic framework that can be adapted for different cases of digital transformation that include automation and augmentation of work.

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