Abstract
Several large organizations underwent agile transformation processes over the past few years, despite limited theory and empirical research on agile working. The present study draws from the taskwork–teamwork distinction and the proactivity literature to develop a new multilevel model of agile working. We tested this model in a sample of 114 teams ( N = 476 individuals) undergoing an agile transformation at a large German transport and logistics organization. Teams at the end of the agile transformation scored significantly higher on agile work practices, proactivity norms, and team performance than teams at the beginning of the transformation. Results of multigroup structural equation modeling indicated that agile taskwork related indirectly to team performance through a positive relationship with proactivity norms. The positive relationship of agile teamwork with team performance was not mediated by proactivity norms, unlike hypothesized. Finally, we found that agile taskwork increased the likelihood that individual employees benefited from engaging in proactive behavior (specifically, employee intrapreneurship) in terms of in-role performance (i.e., cross-level interaction). This was presumably because of the favorable proactivity norms of teams practicing agile taskwork (i.e., mediated moderation). We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on proactive behavior in teams.
Highlights
Several large organizations such as the Finnish consumer electronics company Nokia (Laanti et al, 2011) and the US-based online retailer Zappos (Bernstein et al, 2016) have spent considerable financial resources in undergoing agile transformation processes
Given that agile work practices are typically implemented in teams, we propose a conceptualization of these practices that builds on the established taskwork– teamwork distinction from the literature on work teams (Fisher, 2014; Marks et al, 2001)
The results indicated that we can examine score differences in responses from teams at the beginning (i.e., Phase 1 and Phase 2) versus the end (i.e., Phase 3 and Phase 4) of the agile transformation, as the confirmatory fit index (CFI) of a model with equality constraints on loadings and intercepts was similar to the CFI of a model without these equality constraints
Summary
Several large organizations such as the Finnish consumer electronics company Nokia (Laanti et al, 2011) and the US-based online retailer Zappos (Bernstein et al, 2016) have spent considerable financial resources in undergoing agile transformation processes. The present study aims to develop and test an integrative multilevel model (see Figure 1) to provide insights regarding how agile working shapes the behaviors and performance of teams and individuals. We introduce the concept of agile work practices, which we predicate on the team literature (Fisher, 2014; Marks et al, 2001). The present study focuses on the most frequently used agile practices as reported in large-scale industry surveys among agile practitioners (VersionOne, 2018) These surveys include respondents from a wide range of organizations that have adopted agile ways of working and are annually conducted by VersionOne, a large US-based software development organization. We focus on the latter and refer to them as agile work practices because they can presumably be used by almost any type of team, beyond the software development context
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