Abstract
Multiple team membership (MTM) is a form of work organization extensively used nowadays to flexibly deploy human resources across multiple simultaneous projects. Individual members bring in their cognitive resources in these multiple teams and at the same time use the resources and competencies developed while working together. We test in an experimental study whether working in MTM as compared to a single team yields more individual performance benefits in estimation tasks. Our results fully support the group-to-individual (G-I) transfer of learning, yet the hypothesized benefits of knowledge variety and broader access to meta-knowledge relevant to the task in MTM as compared to single teams were not supported. In addition, we show that individual estimates improve only when members are part of groups with low or average collective estimation errors, while confidence in individual estimates significantly increases only when the collective confidence in the group estimates is average or high. The study opens valuable venues for using the dynamic model of G-I transfer of learning to explore individual learning in MTM.
Highlights
Multiple team membership (MTM) was defined as the simultaneous allocation of individuals across different teams and tasks (O’Leary et al, 2011) or as a form of membership interdependence across different teams (Margolis, 2020)
Our study builds on research on MTM and G-I transfer of learning to test in an experimental design the MTM advantage over single group membership in improving individual performance in estimation tasks
Our results did not support the hypothesized benefits of MTM, we make some relevant contributions to the literature on MTM
Summary
Multiple team membership (MTM) was defined as the simultaneous allocation of individuals (i.e., employees, students, etc.) across different teams and tasks (O’Leary et al, 2011) or as a form of membership interdependence across different teams (Margolis, 2020). While team literature has focused extensively on studying (single) team membership and the role it plays for the development of individual decision competencies (Curseu et al, 2015), relatively little is known of the effects of MTM on such phenomena (O’Leary et al, 2011). This is a gap in the literature that requires further exploration especially given that MTM is frequently used in organizations (Chen et al, 2019; Berger et al, 2021) and higher education as a form of work organization that allows the flexible use of human resources across a variety of projects and teams. One of our aims is to look at the effects of single vs. multiple team membership on individual performance gains in estimation tasks
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
