Deborah G. Ancona

Bio: Deborah G. Ancona is an academic researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: New product development & Team effectiveness. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 50 publications receiving 7885 citations.

Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams.

Abstract: We thank Lotte Bailyn, Keith Mumighan. Elaine RtMnanelli, the Center for Innovation Management Studies. Bob Sutton, and tfie anonymous reviewers at Administrative Science Quarteriy for their support and comments. This article focuses on the activities teams use to manage their organizational environment beyond their teams. We used semistructured interviews with 38 new-product team managers in high-technotogy companies, log data from two of these teams, and questionnaires completed by members of a different set of AB new-product teams to generate and test hypotheses about teams' external activities. Results indicate that teams engage in vertical communications aimed at molding the views of top management, horizontal communication aimed at coordinating work and obtaining feedback, and horizontal communication aimed at general scanning of the technical and market environment. Organizational teams appear to develop distinct strategies toward their environment: some specialize in particular external activities, some remain isolated from the extemal environment, and others engage in multiple external activities. The paper shows that the type of external communication teams engage in, not just the amount, determines performance. Over time, teams following a comprehensive strategy enter positive cycles of external activity, internal processes, and performance that enable long-term team success.*

Demography and Design: Predictors of New Product Team Performance

Abstract: The increasing reliance on teams in organizations raises the question of how these teams should be formed. Should they be formed completely of engineers or should they include a range of specialists? Should they be made up to people who have long tenure in the organization, or those with a wide range of experience? As teams increasingly get called upon to do more complex tasks and to cross functional boundaries within the organization, conventional wisdom has suggested that teams be composed of more diverse members. This study suggests that the answer may not be so simple. Using 409 individuals from 45 new product teams in five high-technology companies, this study investigates the impact of diversity on team performance. We found that functional and tenure diversity each has its own distinct effects. The greater the functional diversity, the more team members communicated outside the team's boundaries. This communication was with a variety of groups such as marketing, manufacturing, and top management. T...

Time: A New Research Lens

Abstract: The article discusses the issue of time as it pertains to organizational research. The author believes that looking at research in terms of time is a powerful tool in assessing organizational phenomena. According to the author, temporal research allows researchers to gain more perspective when looking at organizational issues such as decision making, group performance and organizational transformation. The author notes that the field of temporal research is translated into concepts including pacing, timing and sequencing.

Taking Time to Integrate Temporal Research

Abstract: Research on time in organizations spans disciplines and introduces a wide range of concepts. Here we set out to find an underlying structure to clarify the current state of temporal research. Our examination yields three categories of variables: conceptions of time, mapping activities to time, and actors relating to time. We elaborate intricacies within each category, interrelationships among categories, and assumptions made in each category about the others. We then use the framework to compare existing studies and generate propositions to develop the notion of temporal fit.

Outward Bound: Strategic for Team Survival in an Organization

Abstract: Using an external perspective as a research lens, this study examined team-context interaction in five consulting teams. The data revealed three strategies toward the teams' environment: informing, parading, and probing. Informing teams remain relatively isolated from their environment; parading teams have high levels of passive observation of the environment; and probing teams actively engage outsiders. Probing teams revise their knowledge of the environment through external contact, initiate programs with outsiders, and promote their team's achievements within their organization. In this study, they were rated as the highest performers among the teams, although member satisfaction and cohesiveness suffered in the short run. Results suggested that external activities are better predictors of team performance than internal group processes for teams facing external dependence.

Dynamic capabilities, what are they?

Abstract: This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams

Abstract: This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.

The Search-Transfer Problem: The Role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organization Subunits.

Abstract: This paper combines the concept of weak ties from social network research and the notion of complex knowledge to explain the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits in a...

Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity

Abstract: We describe the development and validation of a new instrument, KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity, designed to assess perceived stimulants and obstacles to creativity in organizational work environments. The KEYS scales have acceptable factor structures, internal consistencies, test-retest reliabilities, and preliminary convergent and discriminant validity. A construct validity study shows that perceived work environments, as assessed by the KEYS scales, discriminate between high-creativity projects and low-creativity projects; certain scales discriminate more strongly and consistently than others. We discuss the utility of this tool for research and practice.

Childhood and Society.

Abstract: Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and