“Coordination and Knowledge Transfer within Teams”
Suzanne Snoeren from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam conducted a research called ―Coordination and Knowledge Transfer within Teams‖ in 44 teams across various organizations, among them the five teams of Intenzz (as shown in Table 20), in July 2009. The 44 teams came from various sectors such as pharmaceutical, insurance/banking, consulting, development/production, and government sector. The teams themselves were of various types including process improvement teams, HR teams, IT teams, administration teams, pension teams, insurances teams, mortgage teams, management teams, service teams, consulting teams, marketing teams, financial teams, real estate teams, communication teams, R&D teams, and sales teams. (Snoeren 2009) This research was done completely independently from the research discussed in this dissertation; therefore it offers an excellent opportunity to compare the findings.
Table 20: Intenzz teams (Source: own data)
Team number Name of the team
1 Business Intelligence Services team 2 NetWeaver Services team
3 Business Process Services team 4 Development Services team
5 Sales team
Snoeren focused her research on teams what she defined as ―a group of individuals who are interdependent because of the tasks they perform, who share responsibility for outcomes, who perform tasks that affect others and who see themselves and who are seen by others as a social entity embedded in one or more larger social systems‖. (Snoeren 2009) Teams were analyzed in four aspects: task interdependence (the team members depend on each other at work), transactive memory (the team members know who knows what in the team), team coordination (management of the dependencies among team members), and team performance (the result what the team creates). Team coordination was split into explicit and implicit coordination. Explicit coordination can be realized via planning (e.g. schedules), communication (e.g. oral or written), and team reflexivity (e.g.
discussing processes or evaluations). Implicit coordination can be provided by anticipation (monitoring other team members and if necessary, proactively offering information or
help) and dynamic adjustment (adapting one‘s behavior to the expected actions of others).
(Snoeren 2009)
The results of this research are summarized in Table 21. The last column shows the mean of all the teams which were analyzed, i.e. teams outside Intenzz as well.
Table 21: Intenzz team scores and mean of all participating teams (Source: Snoeren 2009) Variable Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Mean all
teams (N=44)
Transactive Memory 3.8 3.8 3.9 4.5 3.6 3.6
Task Interdependence 3.0 3.3 3.8 4.1 2.9 3.3
Coordination via
Planning 2.8 3.1 2.8 4.3 3.5 3.5
Coordination via
Communication 3.2 3.9 3.3 4.5 4.5 3.2
Reflexivity: Discussing
Processes 2.8 3.3 3.3 4.5 3.6 3.1
Reflexivity:
Evaluation/Learning 3.4 3.6 3.7 4.5 3.8 3.5
Dynamic Adjustment 2.9 3.2 3.2 4.2 3.8 3.4
Anticipation 3.4 3.8 3.7 4.3 4.0 3.6
Team Performance 3.3 4.6 3.4 4.0 3.7 3.7
The values, which range from 1 to 5 where 5 is the best, are calculated from a web-based survey done among all Intenzz employees. Interesting to note that while the team performance was based on the manager‘s rating of the performance of the team, all the rest was based on employee ratings. It is easy to see in Table 21 that Team 1 has the lowest scores from the five teams; not only the manager rated the team performance the lowest, but the employees rated all the aspects of team coordination and knowledge transfer the lowest too. Team 1 was well-known inside Intenzz to have less informal meetings and lack behind in terms of CoPs. For example, all the CoPs listed in Table 19 were initiated by other teams and members of Team 1 only participated. Another indicator is that Team 1 and Team 2 were of similar size, but while Team 1 had only 91 documents in the Liferay portal, Team 2 had 212 documents (own data).
Six recommendations can be extracted from Chapter 4 (Results) and 5 (Practical implications) of Snoeren‘s research paper (2009). These can be compared to the KM guidelines created in the current research (as listed in Chapter 4.3.3). The following paragraphs contain this comparison.
Recommendation 1: ―Team 1 scores below average on anticipation within the team.‖ and
―Team 1, 2 and 3 score below average on dynamic adjustment.‖ When analyzing this recommendation, it is important to consider that according to Khan & Lodhi &
Makk (2010), sharedness accuracy is a prerequisite for anticipation. Sharedness accuracy describes how precise knowledge the team members have about the specific situation and about each others. Longevity, e.g. through the use of habitual routines (Gersick & Hackman 1990), knowledge diversity, trust and group efficacy contribute to sharedness accuracy. (Langan-Fox & Anglim & Wilson 2004, Levesque & Wilson & Wholey 2001, Rico et al. 2008) The component of longevity is in line with the guideline of the current research about having more formal and informal meetings among employees. Knowledge diversity is in line with the guideline promoting communities of practice. Trust is best achieved in CS, which is among the guidelines as well.
Recommendation 2: ―Team 1 scores below average on reflexivity: discussing processes, which means that the members could improve their reflexive behaviour, for example, by reflecting the way things are usually done in the team and reflecting on the team objectives.‖ This recommendation is in line with the KM guidelines promoting more meetings among employees and creating conditions for as much CS as possible. (De Dreu 2007) Open discussion in the model of CS offers the best ground for open reflection (Shih 2008, Jehn 1995, Pelled 1996), higher frequency in communication alone is not enough. (Foo et al. 2006)
Recommendation 3: ―Team 1, 2, and 3 could improve their coordination via planning.‖
The author does not see a direct link between this recommendation and the KM guidelines created in the current research. It is understandable, because the guidelines of this research are not specific to organizational setting, while Snoeren‘s recommendations are targeted to teams. Teams require more initial
knowledge about collective object of activity and division of labor than less formal groups such as an informal networks or CoP‘s. (Wenger 1998) Similarly, Ciborra &
Patriotta (1996) point out too that in less formal organizational settings the lack of rules can be compensated by a strong shared knowledge, core values, and attitudes.
Recommendation 4: ―It is important for every team to develop a transactive memory system among the team members. In order to do so, the team members must know about each other‘s knowledge and expertise and make us of it. This can be accomplished by training the team members in sharing knowledge, expertise and informing each other. Regular team meetings are a useful opportunity to pay attention to this. Another idea would be to arrange special team meetings, for example, every two months to spend time developing the transactive memory system among the team members.‖ This recommendation is in line with the guideline to organize more knowledge sessions, because preparing such events offers a lot of opportunities for cooperation and getting to know each other‘s expertise. As the guidelines mentioned it, working in CoP‘s and the use of the internal portal can serve the same purpose. The use of LinkedIn and such networks can help to realize this recommendation too, but LinkedIn is not limited to internal deployment, actually it is even better suited for knowledge sharing across the boundaries of the organization. Yammer, on the other hand, supports daily contact among geographically distant consultants; therefore it is perfectly suited for developing transactive memory.
Recommendation 5: ―The manager should support and encourage the sharing of knowledge and expertise among the team members. Teams make use of a mix of coordination mechanisms to achieve the team tasks. It is important for teams not only to use team coordination the way they are used to but also to improve it.‖ This recommendation is not very explicit about how to improve team coordination and knowledge sharing. The KM guidelines are more specific in suggesting to create conditions for as much CS as possible to facilitate moving from EM to CS.
Recommendation 6: ―Teams should spend time on improving team coordination. This should be an issue in team meetings. During team meetings the coordination processes within the team should be evaluated and based on this evaluation
improved. The team manager has a facilitating and monitoring role in this.‖ This is a general recommendation covering points which have already been discussed in the previous recommendations.
Looking at these recommendations, it can be concluded that they are in line with the KM guidelines created in the current research. Besides the large overlap, there are differences as well. The recommendations cover team coordination beyond ―just‖ knowledge sharing.
On the other hand, the KM guidelines cover knowledge sharing with the customers too (―Intenzz should try to help consultants get AR benefits alongside MP to further strengthen the motivation for consulting‖ in Chapter 4.3.3.), not ―just‖ internal relationships.
The differences are understandable considering that the two research studies had different goals. On the other hand, the large overlap between the recommendations and the guidelines indicate that the guidelines created in this research are indeed valid and serve the benefit of the organization.