Our task is to adopt a multidisciplinary view
of trust within and between firms, in an effort to
synthesize and give insight into a fundamental
construct of organizational science. We seek to
identify the shared understandings of trust
across disciplines, while recognizing that the
divergent meanings scholars bring to the study
of trust also can add value.

Not So Different After All: A Cross-Discipline View Of Trust

Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in manuals, training programs, organizational charts, and job descriptions. Nevertheless, organizations tend to rely on the latter in their attempts to understand and improve work practice. We examine one such study. We then relate its conclusions to compatible investigations of learning and of innovation to argue that conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work. By reassessing work, learning, and innovation in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three.

/pdf/organizational-learning-and-communities-of-practice-toward-a-5d5ay5q3oh.pdf

Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation

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.

/pdf/psychological-safety-and-learning-behavior-in-work-teams-igq2jhsmtc.pdf

Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams

The ability to transfer best practices internally is critical to a firtn's ability to build competitive advantage through the appropriation of rents from scarce internal knowledge. Just as a firm's distinctive competencies tnight be dificult for other firms to imitate, its best prczctices could be dfficult to imitate internnlly. Yet, little systematic attention has been pcrid to such internal stickiness. The author analyzes itlterrzal stickiness of knowledge transfer crnd tests the resulting model using canonical correlation analysis of a data set consisting of 271 observations of 122 best-practice transfers in eight companies. Contrary to corzverztiorzrzl wisdom that blames primarily motivational factors, the study findings show the major barriers to internal knowledge transfer to be knowledge-related factors such as the recipient's lack oj absorptive capacity, causal anzbiguity, and an arciuous relationship between the source and the recipient. The identification and transfer of best practices cally are hindered less by confidentiality and legal is emerging as one of the most important and obstacles than external transfers, they could be widespread practical management issues of the faster and initially less complicated, all other latter half of the 1990s. Armed with meaningful, things being equal. For those reasons, in an era detailed performance data, firms that use fact- when continuous organizational learning and based management methods such as TQM, bench- relentless performance improvement are needed to marking, and process reengineering can regularly remain competitive, companies must increasingly compare the performance of their units along resort to the internal transfer of capabilitie~.~ operational dimensions. Sparse but unequivocal Yet, experience shows that transferring capaevidence suggests that such comparisons often bilities within a firm is far from easy. General reveal surprising performance differences between Motors had great difficulty in transferring manuunits, indicating a need to improve knowledge facturing practices between divisions (Kerwin and utilization within the firm (e.g., Chew, Bresnahan, Woodruff, 1992: 74) and IBM had limited suc

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/smj.4250171105

Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

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.

Time: A New Research Lens

This article presents a review of the book “Groups That Work (And Those That Don't),” by Richard Hackman.

Groups That Work (and Those That Don't)

Provides ways to design, manage, and maintain more useful work groups--including labor-management committees, staff meetings, advisory groups, and policy committees. In eleven original chapters, reviews current knowledge about groups and explores new directions for understanding them and improving their effectiveness.

Designing effective work groups

This paper examines the role of computer-aided systems (CAS) for enhancing organizational learning in distributed environments. The basic research questions are: how do features of CAS enhance organizational learning, and how does organizational context influence the role of CAS in organizational learning?The theoretical framework focuses on the decision to contribute and adopt knowledge in distributed environments. Specifically, we investigate the intersections between the features of CAS and inhibitors to contributing or adopting knowledge, in the light of different organizational context variables.Two cases of information environments for knowledge sharing are examined: a formal electronic library system and an informal community that uses a variety of communication technologies. The cases are used to illustrate how the intersection between CAS features and the decisions to adopt and contribute enhance or inhibit knowledge sharing.

/pdf/computer-aided-systems-and-communities-mechanisms-for-bxdvgwaws2.pdf

Paul S. Goodman

Papers

Time: A New Research Lens

Groups That Work (and Those That Don't)

Designing effective work groups

Computer-aided systems and communities: mechanisms for organizational learning in distributed environments

New perspectives on organizational effectiveness