In or Out? Exploring the Inconsistency and Permeability of Team Boundaries

Abstract

Despite the fundamental relevance of team boundaries for team research, scholars have rarely explored their origins and characteristics. Instead, team research commonly assumes the existence of formally defined, stable team boundaries. We challenge this assumption by asserting that beyond formal assignment, team members’ individual perceptions of a team’s boundaries are driven by individual-level categorization processes and team-level task dynamism. Building on multiple team members’ mental representations of team boundaries, we propose that team boundaries are likely mutually inconsistent and vary in their degree of permeability. This permeability and inconsistency serve to clarify how membership change and overlap can induce cognitive and emotional spillovers across teams. The proposed conceptual model links the origins of boundary emergence with their characteristics by explaining how membership structure and dynamics drive the characteristics of team boundaries. This account offers a new perspective on how individual perceptions of work affiliations can shape a team’s boundaries.

An Exploration of Co-Workers’ Group Identification as Moderator of the Leadership-Health Link

“…Thus, in accordance with the 5R Program (Haslam et al, 2017), in a first step (readying), organizations and their members can profit from familiarizing themselves with the importance of social identity processes for team and organizational functioning. Following this, on workgroup, department and organizational level the persons involved (or a delegation of them) can engage in activities to reflecting (i.e., understanding existing formal and informal identities; see also : Wimmer et al, 2019), representing (i.e., defining shared values and behaviors) and realizing (i.e., initiating structures and processes) their shared social identity. This could for example involve group activities to develop a shared set of group values and to bring them into life within the group.…”

Widerstand im Arbeitsprozess

“…Zu formalen Kleingruppen zählen in diesem Sinne alle kleinen Formationen (wechselseitige Wahrnehmung aller Mitglieder), die durch Entscheidungen entstehen und auf ein formal festgelegtes Ziel gerichtet sind, die in Akten, Protokollen, in Aufbau-, Ablauf-, Prozess-sowie Projekt-oder Organigrammen vermerkt sind, wie dies etwa für Teams oder Arbeitsgruppen, Steuerungskreise, teilautonome Fertigungs-und Montagegruppen, Vorstände oder andere projektbezogene Gruppen wie Komitees gilt (auch Kühl, 2019b). Anzumerken ist, dass die Grenzen jener formalen Kleingruppen auf der Handlungsebene kognitiv nicht eindeutig vorzuliegen scheinen (dazu Wimmer et al, 2019;Trainer et al, 2020) und dass der Vergleich der Eigenheiten verschiedener formaler Gruppen bisher wenig wissenschaftliche Aufmerksamkeit erregt hat (dazu Hackman, 1990), auch wenn das allgemeine Forschungsinteresse zu formalen Gruppen kaum mehr zu überschauen ist (soziologisch interessant etwa McGrath et al, 2000;Poole & Hollingshead, 2005;Ramos-Villagrasa et al, 2017;Shuffler et al, 2015). Klassische Fragen behandeln etwa den Zusammenhang von Führerschaft und Zufriedenheit sowie Gruppenkohäsion, insbesondere aber die Frage nach der Effektivität formaler Gruppen, die unter Begriffen wie ›Social Loafing‹, ›Free Ri-ding‹, ›Groupthink‹ oder ›Sucker Effect‹ kritisch betrachtet werden (Moorhead, 1982;Stark et al, 2007).…”

Can Supportive Coaching Behaviors Facilitate Boundary Spanning and Raise Job Satisfaction? An Indirect-Effects Model

“…Finally, while it was outside the scope of this article to examine the drivers of respondents' perceptions of team membership boundaries, future studies might explore the role that a supportive team coach of boundary spanning might play in encouraging team members to reflect upon their perceptions of team boundaries and to increase awareness that perceptions may differ from others inside or outside the team. Wimmer, Backmann, and Hoegl (2019), for example, argued members' perceptions of team boundaries are likely to vary in relation to individual-level attention and social categorization processes and that such variation should be welcomed (see also Mortensen & Haas, 2018).…”