Author
Listed:
- Anna T. Mayo
(Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213)
- Anita Williams Woolley
(Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213)
- Liny John
(Children’s National Hospital, Washington, District of Columbia 20010)
- Christine March
(UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15224)
- Selma Witchel
(UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15224)
- Andrew Nowalk
(UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15224)
Abstract
The rapid growth in the use of teams and multiple team membership has led more organizations to structure work around dynamic teams , characterized by short lifespans and fluid membership boundaries. This approach to organizing work makes it difficult for teams to work efficiently or to support the learning and growth of members. Given the importance of productivity and learning, we ask how these processes can be supported in dynamic teams. We do so in a randomized controlled field experiment conducted with 91 teams in a teaching hospital, a context in which physician trainees must learn while providing patient care in dynamic teams of care providers. We randomly assigned physician teams, or “core” teams, to launch their work with an intervention focused either on internal coordination among the core team members or on external coordination with a changing cast of external contributors such as nurses and specialists. We measured resulting levels of internal and external coordination over teams’ week-long lifespans and observed that external coordination was associated with improved team efficiency, whereas internal coordination was associated with improved individual learning. Post hoc exploratory analysis suggested that individual learning was highest when teams achieved high levels of both internal and external coordination, and it was positively correlated with improvement in the team’s patients’ average length of hospital stay. We discuss the implications of the demonstrated causal effects of team launches, along with our exploratory findings, for the management of dynamic teams and the opportunities to mitigate potential trade-offs between learning and productivity.
Suggested Citation
Anna T. Mayo & Anita Williams Woolley & Liny John & Christine March & Selma Witchel & Andrew Nowalk, 2025.
"Coordination in Dynamic Teams: Investigating a Learning–Productivity Trade-Off,"
Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 967-992, March.
Handle:
RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:36:y:2025:i:2:p:967-992
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2022.16729
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