There is a general assumption in the team literature that more teamwork is always better, especially when knowledge integration is key. Yet, teamwork is not always required in knowledge work. By adopting a case-based approach using a total of 88 interviews from four project teams operating in different companies in Sweden and the USA, three knowledge processes are explored as to how they are leveraged in team-based knowledge work (TBKW). A framework of four types of TBKW is delineated: standardized, modular, integrative and collaborative, which are distinguished by the structure of the problem (ill- vs well-structured) faced by the team and knowledge composition (heterogeneous vs homogenous) within the team. Theoretical and practical implications are addressed and future research directions are discussed.
Ackoff RL ( 1999) Re-creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Oxford University Press.
2.
Adler PS, Borys B. ( 1996) Two types of bureaucracy: Enabling and coercive . Administrative Science Quarterly41(1): 61-89.
3.
Adler PSKwon S., and Heckscher C. ( 2008) Professional work: The emergence of collaborative community . Organization Science19(2): 359-76.
4.
Alvesson M. ( 2004) Knowledge Work and Knowledge Intensive Firms. New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
Ancona D., Caldwell D. ( 1992) Demography and design: Predictors of new product team performance. Organization Science3(3): 321-41.
6.
Andriopoulos C. ( 2001) Determinants of organisational creativity: A literature review. Management Decision39(10): 834-40.
7.
Argote L., McEvily B., Reagans R. ( 2003) Managing knowledge in organizations: An integrative framework and emerging themes. Management Science49(4): 571-82.
8.
Argyris C., Schön D. ( 1996) Organizational Learning. Theory, Method, Practice . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley .
9.
Austin J. ( 1997) A cognitive framework for understanding demographic influences in groups. International Journal of Organizational Analysis5(4): 342-59.
10.
Barrick MR, Bradley BH, Kristof-Brown AL, and Colbert AE ( 2007) The moderating role of top management team interdependence: Implications for real teams and working groups. Academy of Management Journal50(3): 544-57.
11.
Bell BS, Kozlowski SWJ ( 2002) A typology of virtual teams: Implications for effective leadership. Group and Organization Management27(1): 14-49.
12.
Berlo DK ( 1960) The Process of Communication. San Francisco, CA: Reinhart Press.
13.
Blackman D., Sadler-Smith E (2009) The silent and the silenced in organizational knowing and learning. Management Learning40(5): 569-85.
14.
Bock GW, Kim Y. ( 2002) Breaking the myths of rewards: An exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge sharing. Information Resources Management Journal15(2): 14-25.
15.
Brodbeck FC, Kerschreiter R., Mojzisch A., and Schultz-Hardt S. (2007) Group decision-making under conditions of distributed knowledge: The information asymmetries model . Academy of Management Review32(2): 459-79.
16.
Burns T., Stalker GM ( 1961) The Management of Innovation. London : Tavistock Publishers.
17.
Chatman J., Polzer JT, Barsade SG, and Neale MA ( 1998) Being different yet feeling similar: The Influence of demographic composition and organizational culture on work processes and outcomes . Administrative Science Quarterly43(4): 749-52.
18.
Chi MTH, Glaser R. ( 1985) Problem solving ability. In R.J . Sternberg (ed.) Human Abilities: An Information-Processing Approach. New York: W.H. Freeman, pp. 227-50.
19.
Chizhik AW, Alexander MG, Chizhik EW, and Goodman JA ( 2003) The rise and fall of power and prestige orders: Influence of task structure. Social Psychology Quarterly66(3): 303-17.
20.
Clark KB, Fujimoto T. ( 1989) Overlapping problem solving in product development . In K Ferdows (ed.) Managing International Manufacturing. Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 41-51.
21.
Clark KB, Wheelwright SC ( 1992) Organizing and leading "Heavyweight" development teams . California Management Review34(3): 9-28.
22.
Cohen SG, Bailey DE ( 1997) What makes teams work: Group effectiveness research from the shop floor to the executive suite. Journal of Management23(3): 239-90.
23.
Cohen SG, Ledford GE ( 1978) The effectiveness of self-managing teams: A quasi-experiment . Human Relations47(1): 13-43.
24.
Courpasson D. ( 2000) Managerial strategies of domination: Power in soft bureaucracies . Organization Studies21(1): 141-61.
25.
Cummings TG ( 1978) Self-regulating work groups: A socio-technical synthesis . Academy of Manage-ment Review3(3): 625-34.
26.
Davenport TH, Prusak L. ( 2000) Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Dixon S., Meyer KE, and Day M. ( 2007) Exploitation and exploration learning and the development of organizational capabilities: A cross-case analysis of the russian oil industry . Human Relations60(10): 1493-523.
29.
Donnellon AM, Scully M. ( 1994) Teams, performance and rewards: Will the post-bureaucratic organization be a post-meritocratic organization? In C Heckscher, and A Donnellon, (eds) The Post Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives on Organizational Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE , pp. 63-90.
30.
Edmondson A. ( 1999) Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams . Administrative Science Quarterly44(2): 350-83.
31.
Edmondson AC, McManus SE ( 2007) Methodological fit in management field research . Academy of Management Review32(4): 1155-79.
32.
Eppinger SD, Whitney DE, Smith RP, and Gebala DA ( 1994) A model-based method for organizing tasks in product development . Research in Engineering Design6(1): 1-13.
33.
Erhardt NL, Martin-Rios C., and Way SA ( 2009) From bureaucratic forms towards team-based knowledge work systems: Implications for human resource management (special issue on Organizational Learning). International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise1(2): 160-79.
34.
Erhardt NL, Werbel JD, and Shrader CB ( 2003) Board of director diversity and firm financial performance . Corporate Governance: An International Review11(2): 102-11.
35.
Galbraith JR ( 1971) Matrix organizational designs: How to combine functional and project forms. Business Horizons (February): 29-40.
36.
Galbraith JR ( 1973) Designing Complex Organizations. Reading, MA. Addison-Wesley.
37.
Gibson CB, Gibbs JL ( 2006) Unpacking the concept of virtuality: The effects of geographic dispersion, electronic dependence, dynamic structure, and national diversity on team innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly51(3): 451-95.
38.
Gilson L., Shalley CE ( 2004) A little creativity goes a long way: An examination of teams’ engagement in creative processes. Journal of Management30(4): 453-70.
39.
Glaser BG, Strauss AL ( 1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
40.
Grant RM ( 1996) Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Strategic Management Journal17(Winter Special): 109-22.
41.
Gully SM ( 2000) Work team research: Recent findings and future trends . In MM Beyerlein (ed.) Work Teams: Past, Present, and Future. Amsterdam : Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 25-44.
42.
Gupta AK, Smith KG, and Shalley CE ( 2006) The interplay between exploration and exploitation . Academy of Management Journal49(4): 693-706.
43.
Hackman JR ( 1990) Groups That Work (and Those That Don’t). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
44.
Hackman JR, Wageman R. ( 2005) When and how team leaders matter. Research in Organizational Behavior26: 39-76.
45.
Hambrick DC ( 1994) Top management groups: A conceptual integration and reconsideration of the "Team" label. Research in Organization Behavior16: 171-213.
46.
Harrison DA, Price KH, Gavin J., and Florey A. ( 2002) Time, teams, and task performance: Changing effects of surface and deep-level diversity on group functioning. Academy of Management Journal45(5): 1029-45.
47.
Heckscher C, Adler P (eds) (2006) The Firm as a Collaborative Community: Reconstructing Trust in the Knowledge Economy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
48.
Hickson DJ, Pugh DS, Pheysey DC ( 1969) Operations technology and organization structure: An empirical reappraisal. Administrative Science Quarterly14(3): 378-97.
49.
Hobday M. ( 2000) The project-based organisation: An ideal form for managing complex products and systems? Research Policy29(7/8): 871-93.
50.
Hoffer Gittell J. ( 2001) Supervisory span, relational coordination and flight departure performance: A reassessment of postbureaucratic theory. Organization Science12(4): 468-83.
51.
Hollenbeck JR, Ilgen DR, Sego DJ, Hedlund J., Major DA, and Phillips J. ( 1995) The multi-level theory of team decision making: Decision performance in teams incorporating distributed expertise. Journal of Applied Psychology80(2): 292-316.
52.
Jackson SE, Erhardt NL ( 2004) Building social connections to gain the knowledge advantage . In M Goldsmith, E Morris and A Ogg (eds) Leading Organizational Learning: Harnessing the Power of Knowledge . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass , pp. 255-65.
53.
Jackson SE, Joshi A., and Erhardt NL ( 2003) Recent research on team and organizational diversity: SWOT analysis and implications. Journal of Management29(6): 801-30.
54.
Jassawalla AR, Sashittal HC ( 1999) Building collaborative cross-functional new product teams . Academy of Management Executive13(3): 50-63.
55.
Jehn KA, Northcraft GB, Neale MA ( 1999) Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly44(4): 741-63.
56.
Jordan S., Messner M., and Becker A. ( 2009) Reflection and mindfulness in organizations: Rationales and possibilities for integration. Management Learning40(4): 465-73.
57.
Joshi A., Roh H (2009) The role of context in work team diversity research: A meta-analytic review. Academy of Management Journal53(3): 599-627.
58.
Katz-Navon TY, Erez M. ( 2005) When collective and self-efficacy affect team performance . Small Group Research36(4): 437-65.
59.
Katzenbach JR, Smith DK ( 1993) The discipline of teams. Harvard Business Review71(2): 111-21.
60.
Keller RT ( 2001) Cross-functional project groups in research and new product development: Diversity, communications, job stress and outcomes . Academy of Management Journal44(3): 547-55.
61.
Kirkman BL, Mathieu JE ( 2005) The dimensions and antecedents of team virtuality . Journal of Management31(5): 700-18.
62.
Kogut B., Zander U. ( 1992) Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology. Organization Science3(3): 383-97.
63.
Kozlowski B., Bell B. ( 2003) Work groups and team in organizations. In WC Borman, DR Ilgen and RJ Klimoski (eds) Handbook of Psychology: Industrial and Organizational Psychology12. London: Wiley, pp. 333-75.
64.
Kozlowski SWJ, Gully SM, Brown KG, Salas E., Smith EM, and Nason ER ( 2001) Effects of training goals and goal orientation traits on multi-dimensional training outcomes and performance adaptability . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes85(1): 1-31.
65.
Lawrence PR, Lorsch JW ( 1967) Differentiation and integration in complex organizations . Administative Science Quarterly12(1): 1-47.
66.
Leenders R., van Engelen J., Kratzer J. ( 2003) Virtuality, communication, and new product team creativity: A social network perspective. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management20: 69-92.
67.
Leybourne S., Sadler-Smith E. ( 2006) The role of intuition and improvisation in project management . International Journal of Project Management24(6): 483-92.
68.
Luscher L., Lewis MW ( 2008) Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal51(2): 221-40.
69.
March JG ( 1991) Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning . Organization Science2(1): 71-87.
70.
Martin-Rios C., Erhardt N. ( 2008) Organizational knowledge transfer through human resource management: International diffusion of managerial performance management . European Journal of International Management2(2): 170-91.
71.
Meacham JA, Emont NM ( 1989) The interpersonal basis of everyday problem solving . In JD Sinnott (ed.) Everyday Problem Solving: Theory and Applications. New York: Praeger, pp. 7-23.
72.
Miles MB, Huberman AM ( 1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook . Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
73.
Mohrman SA, Cohen SG, and Mohrman AM ( 1995) Designing Team-Based Organizations: New Forms of Knowledge Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass .
74.
Olson ME, Walker CW, and Ruekert RW ( 1995) Organizing for effective new product development: The moderating role of product innovativeness. Journal of Marketing59(1): 48-62.
75.
Pearce C. ( 2004) The future of leadership: Combining vertical and shared leadership to transform knowledge work. Academy of Management Executive18(1): 47-57.
76.
Polanyi M. ( 1966) The Tacit Dimension. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.
77.
Raelin JA ( 2001) Public reflection as the basis for learning. Management Learning32(1): 11-30.
78.
Richard O. ( 2000) Racial diversity, business strategy, and firm performance: A resource-based view. Academy of Management Journal43(2): 164-77.
79.
Ridgeway CL, Johnson C. ( 1990) What is the relationship between socioemotional behavior and status in task groups? American Journal of Sociology95(5): 1189-212.
80.
Rittel H., Webber M. ( 1973) Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Science4(2): 155-69.
81.
Sanchez R., Mahoney JT ( 1996) Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design. Strategic Management Journal17(Winter Special): 63-76.
82.
Schilling MA ( 2000) Towards a general modular systems theory and its application to inter-firm product modularity. Academy of Management Review25(2): 312-34.
83.
Schön DA ( 1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
84.
Simon HA ( 1978) Information processing theory of human problem solving . In WK Estes (ed.) Handbook of Learning and Cognitive Process. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 271-95.
85.
Simon HA ( 1973) The structure of ill-structured problems. Artificial Intelligence4(3/4): 181-201.
86.
Spicer DP, Sadler-Smith E. ( 2006) Organizational learning in smaller manufacturing firms . International Small Business Journal24(2): 133-58
87.
Sproull L., Kiesler S. ( 1986) Reducing social context cues: Electronic mail in organizational communication. Management Science32(11): 1492-512.
88.
Srivastava A., Bartol KM, and Locke EA ( 2006) Empowering leadership in management teams: Effects on knowledge sharing, efficacy, and performance. Academy of Management Journal49(6): 1239-51.
89.
Stewart GL ( 2006) A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance. Journal of Management32(1): 29-55.
90.
Strauss A., Corbin J. ( 1998) Basics of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
91.
Sundstrom E., McIntyre M., Halfhill T., and Richards H. ( 2000) Work groups from the hawthorne studies to work teams of the 1990s and beyond. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice4(1): 44-67.
92.
Thompson JD ( 1967) Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
93.
Tushman ML ( 1978) Technical communication. In R and D laboratories: The impact of project work characteristics. Academy of Management Journal21(4): 624-45.
94.
Van de Poel I., van Gorp AC ( 2006) The need for ethical reflection in engineering design: The relevance of type of design and design hierarchy. Science, Technology and Human Values31(3): 333-60.
95.
Voss JF ( 1988) Problem solving and reasonsing in ill-structured domains . In C Antaki (ed.) Analyzing Everyday Explanation: A Casebook of Methods. London: SAGE, pp. 74-93.
96.
Wall TD, Kemp NJ, Jackson PR, and Clegg CW ( 1986) Outcome evaluation of autonomous workgroups: A long-term field experiment. Academy of Management Journal29(2): 280-304.
97.
Weber M. ( 1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization . Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
98.
Weick KE ( 1993) Collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The mann gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly38(4): 628-52.
99.
Yin RK ( 2003) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
100.
Zack MH ( 1999) Developing a knowledge strategy. California Management Review41(3): 125-45.
101.
Zarraga C., Bonache J. ( 2005) Assessing the team environment for knowledge sharing: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Human Resource Management14(7): 1227-45.
