Team leader experience in improvement teams: A social networks perspective
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2015.05.001 |
| Date | 01 July 2015 |
| Published date | 01 July 2015 |
Journal
of
Operations
Management
37
(2015)
13–30
Contents
lists
available
at
ScienceDirect
Journal
of
Operations
Management
j
o
ur
na
l
ho
mepage:
www.elsevier.com/locate
/jom
Team
leader
experience
in
improvement
teams:
A
social
networks
perspective
George
S.
Easton1,
Eve
D.
Rosenzweig∗
The
Goizueta
Business
School,
Emory
University,
1300
Clifton
Road
NE,
Atlanta,
GA
30322,
United
States
a
r
t
i
c
l
e
i
n
f
o
Article
history:
Received
1
September
2014
Received
in
revised
form
29
April
2015
Accepted
4
May
2015
Available
online
11
May
2015
Accepted
by
D.R.
Guide
Keywords:
Team
leader
experience
Team
leader
social
capital
Social
network
analysis
Learning
Quality
improvement
teams
Six
sigma
a
b
s
t
r
a
c
t
In
this
research,
we
disentangle
the
relationship
between
several
key
aspects
of
a
team
leader’s
experience
and
the
likelihood
of
improvement
project
success.
Using
the
lens
of
socio-technical
systems,
we
argue
that
the
effect
of
team
leader
experience
derives
from
the
social
system
as
well
as
the
technical
system.
The
aspects
of
team
leader
experience
we
examine
include
team
leader
social
capital
(a
part
of
the
social
system)
and
team
leader
experience
leading
projects
of
the
same
type
(a
part
of
the
technical
system).
We
examine
four
different,
yet
related,
dimensions
of
a
team
leader’s
social
capital,
which
we
moti-
vate
based
on
the
social
networks
literature.
One
dimension,
team
leader
familiarity,
suggests
that
social
capital
is
created
when
team
leaders
have
experience
working
with
current
team
members
on
prior
improvement
projects,
and
that
such
social
capital
increases
the
likelihood
of
improvement
project
suc-
cess.
We
develop
three
additional
dimensions,
using
social
network
analysis
(SNA),
to
capture
the
idea
that
the
improvement
team
leader’s
social
capital
extends
beyond
the
current
team
to
include
everyone
the
leader
has
previously
worked
with
on
improvement
projects.
Contrasting
our
SNA-based
dimensions
with
team
leader
familiarity
enables
us
to
better
understand
the
impact
of
a
team
leader’s
social
capital
both
inside
and
beyond
the
team.
We
also
examine
the
effect
of
a
team
leader’s
experience
leading
prior
projects
of
the
same
type,
and
consider
the
extent
to
which
organizational
experience
may
moderate
the
impact
of
both
team
leader
social
capital
and
same-type
project
experience.
Based
on
analysis
of
archival
data
of
six
sigma
projects
spanning
six
years
from
a
Fortune
500
consumer
products
manufacturer,
we
find
that
two
of
our
SNA-based
dimensions
of
team
leader
social
capital,
as
well
as
experience
leading
projects
of
the
same
type,
increase
the
likelihood
of
project
success.
In
addition,
we
show
that
organizational
experience
moderates
the
relationship
between
team
leader
same-type
project
experience
and
project
success.
However,
this
is
not
the
case
for
the
relationship
between
the
dimensions
of
team
leader
social
capital
and
project
success.
These
results
provide
insights
regarding
how
dimensions
of
team
leader
experience
and
organizational
experience
collectively
impact
the
operational
performance
of
improvement
teams.
©
2015
Elsevier
B.V.
All
rights
reserved.
1.
Introduction
Recent
empirical
research
in
the
operations
management
litera-
ture
that
studies
the
effects
of
experience
on
team
performance
has
found
a
divergence
in
results
between
work
teams
and
improve-
ment
teams.
Specifically,
while
a
team
leader’s
experience
has
been
found
to
improve
operational
performance
in
both
work
teams
and
improvement
teams,
the
predominantly
social
dimen-
sion
of
team
familiarity
(the
extent
to
which
team
members
have
∗Corresponding
author.
Tel.:
+1
404
727
4912;
fax:
+1
404
727
2053.
E-mail
addresses:
george.easton@emory.edu
(G.S.
Easton),
eve.rosenzweig@emory.edu
(E.D.
Rosenzweig).
1Tel.:
+1
404
727
3326;
fax:
+1
404
727
2053.
prior
experience
working
together)
has
not
been
found
to
matter
in
improvement
teams
(Easton
and
Rosenzweig,
2012;
Huckman
et
al.,
2009;
KC
and
Staats,
2012;
Moore
and
Lapre,
2015;
Reagans
et
al.,
2005;
Staats,
2012).
Because
of
this
divergence
in
findings,
and
the
importance
of
team
leader
experience
in
both
work
teams
and
improvement
teams,
we
explore
the
extent
to
which
there
may
be
social
dimensions
of
a
team
leader’s
experience
that
affect
perfor-
mance
in
improvement
teams.
This
leads
us
to
use
a
socio-technical
systems
lens
to
develop
new
hypotheses
concerning
dimensions
of
team
leader
experience
and
their
effects
on
improvement
team
performance.
From
a
socio-technical
systems
perspective,
the
effect
of
team
leader
experience
on
team
performance
derives
from
both
the
social
system
and
the
technical
system.
The
social
system
is
com-
posed
of
people
and
their
relationships,
while
the
technical
system
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2015.05.001
0272-6963/©
2015
Elsevier
B.V.
All
rights
reserved.
14
G.S.
Easton,
E.D.
Rosenzweig
/
Journal
of
Operations
Management
37
(2015)
13–30
pertains
to
processes,
methods,
materials,
tools,
and
technology
(Cummings,
1978;
Ketchum
and
Trist,
1992;
Trist,
1981;
Trist
and
Bamforth,
1951).
One
aspect
of
the
social
system
is
social
capital,
which
is
a
central
theme
in
the
management
literature
on
social
networks
(Borgatti
and
Foster,
2003;
Burt,
1992;
Granovetter,
1985;
Nahapiet
and
Ghoshal,
1998).
Such
research
on
social
capital
suggests
that
a
team
leader’s
social
capital
should
be
related
to
team
performance.
As
a
result,
we
develop
dimensions
of
team
leader
experience
that
focus
both
on
team
leader
social
capital
internal
to
the
team
using
a
team
familiarity-like
measure,
and
team
leader
social
capital
that
extends
beyond
the
current
team
using
approaches
based
on
social
network
analysis
(SNA)
(Bonacich,
1987;
Wasserman
and
Faust,
1994).
The
dimension
of
team
leader
social
capital
internal
to
the
team
that
we
use
in
this
paper
is
based
on
recent
work-team
research
by
Staats
(2012)
and
Moore
and
Lapre
(2015),
which
highlights
the
importance
of
a
team
leader’s
prior
experience
working
with
each
of
the
other
team
members.
We
refer
to
this
kind
of
leader-focused
familiarity
as
team
leader
familiarity.
Perhaps
it
is
just
team
leader
familiarity
that
has
an
effect
in
improvement
teams
rather
than
team
familiarity
more
broadly
as
observed
in
work
teams.
Work
teams
and
improvement
teams
differ
in
important
ways,
which
could
plausibly
explain
the
differences
in
the
effects
of
experience
between
these
two
types
of
teams.
Note
that
improvement
teams
are
generally
temporary
and
tend
to
focus
on
experimentation
and
learning,
while
work
teams
tend
to
focus
on
delivering
products
and
services
and
persist
over
time.
Team
leader
familiarity
captures
the
social
capital
associated
with
the
team
leader
working
with
the
same
people
over
time.
That
is,
the
focus
of
team
leader
familiarity
is
on
the
relationships,
developed
through
shared
experience,
between
the
team
leader
and
members
of
the
current
team.
The
concept
of
social
capital
is
broader,
however,
and
we
argue
that
it
extends
to
the
prior
expe-
rience
that
a
team
leader
has
working
with
a
variety
of
people,
whether
or
not
they
are
members
of
the
team
leader’s
current
team.
That
is,
in
lieu
of
working
with
the
same
people,
what
might
matter
more
to
improvement
project
success
is
the
team
leader’s
previous
experience
working
with
different
people
on
prior
improvement
teams.
Such
a
perspective
is
consistent
with
research
in
the
man-
agement
literature
on
work
teams
that
indicates
that
boundary-
spanning
social
capital,
in
addition
to
social
capital
internal
to
the
team,
is
important
for
team
performance
(Chauvet
et
al.,
2011;
Edmondson
and
Nembhard,
2009;
Faraj
and
Yan,
2009;
Oh
et
al.,
2004).
This
leads
us
to
develop
dimensions
of
team
leader
social
capital
that
extend
beyond
the
team
and
capture
the
team
leader’s
“connectedness.”
These
dimensions
are
based
on
network
central-
ity
methods
from
the
SNA
literature.
Taking
such
a
perspective
is
consistent
with
recent
calls
for
more
applications
of
social
network
theory
in
operations
management
research
(Borgatti
and
Li,
2009;
Ketchen
and
Hult,
2007;
Kim,
2014;
Kim
et
al.,
2011).
Returning
to
the
technical
aspect
of
the
socio-technical
systems
lens,
we
also
hypothesize
that
the
value
of
a
team
leader’s
expe-
rience
is
influenced
by
proficiency
with
the
technical
system.
This
suggests
that
characteristics
of
the
team
leader’s
prior
improve-
ment
projects
may
also
influence
the
likelihood
of
project
success.
Thus,
experience
leading
the
same
type
of
project
may
be
impor-
tant.
We
consider
projects
to
be
of
the
same
type
if
they
require
a
similar
problem-solving
approach.
We
expect
the
knowledge
a
team
leader
gains
from
leading
one
type
of
improvement
project
to
be
transferred
to
future
projects
of
the
same
type,
therefore
increasing
the
likelihood
of
project
success.
We
also
explore
the
potential
for
organizational
experience,
which
includes
both
social
and
technical
aspects,
to
moderate
the
relationship
between
the
different
dimensions
of
team
leader
experience
that
we
examine
in
this
paper
and
the
likelihood
of
improvement
project
success.
In
doing
so,
we
address
Argote
and
Miron-Spektor’s
(2011,
p.
5)
call
to
investigate
when
“differ-
ent
types
of
experience
are
complements
or
substitutes
for
one
another.”
While
the
bulk
of
the
operations
management
literature
on
experience
and
teams
focuses
on
work
teams,
in
contrast,
in
this
research
we
study
improvement
teams.
We
test
our
hypotheses
using
six
years
of
data
from
improvement
teams
at
a
large
Fortune
500
consumer
products
firm
that
has
extensively
implemented
six
sigma.
Based
on
logistic
regression
analysis
using
a
sample
of
152
team-based
six
sigma
projects,
we
find
that
the
relation-
ship
between
team
leader
experience
and
project
success
can
be
explained
by
two
of
our
SNA-based
dimensions
of
team
leader
con-
nectedness
(a
social
aspect)
as
well
as
by
project
type
experience
(a
technical
aspect).
We
go
on
to
show
that
while
organizational
expe-
rience
diminishes
the
positive
impact
of
team
leader
project
type
experience,
it
does
not
alter
the
relationship
between
team
leader
connectedness
and
project
success.
These
results
go
beyond
previ-
ous
studies
to
provide
a
more
fine-grained
analysis
of
the
effects
of
a
team
leader’s
experience
on
the
performance
of
improvement
teams.
2.
Conceptual
development
In
this
section,
we
provide
the
theoretical
basis
for
our
hypotheses
concerning
dimensions
of
team
leader
experience
and
improvement
team
performance
(see
Fig.
1).
To
provide
context
for
the
development
of
these
hypotheses,
we
begin
by
discussing
improvement
teams
in
six
sigma
systems,
and
describe
in
more
detail
how
they
differ
from
work
teams.
2.1.
Improvement
teams
in
six
sigma
systems
In
six
sigma
systems,
operational
improvement
is
primarily
driven
by
team-based
improvement
projects.
These
six
sigma
project
teams
are
led
and/or
facilitated
by
improvement
special-
ists
(e.g.,
black
belts)
who
are
rigorously
trained
in
a
structured
problem-solving
framework,
and
also
in
the
use
of
statistical
(e.g.,
control
charts)
and
nonstatistical
(e.g.,
flow
charts)
analysis
tools
(Choo
et
al.,
2007b;
Linderman
et
al.,
2003;
Pyzdek
and
Keller,
2009;
Schroeder
et
al.,
2008;
Shafer
and
Moeller,
2012;
Swink
and
Jacobs,
2012;
Zu
et
al.,
2008).
The
majority
of
improvement
projects
in
six
sigma
are
led
by
black
belts,
who
are
extensively
trained
process
improvement
spe-
cialists.
Green
belts
typically
receive
basic
six
sigma
training,
and
most
often
serve
as
project
team
members.
When
green
belts
lead
projects,
they
usually
do
so
with
the
facilitation
and
support
of
a
black
belt.
Master
black
belts
train
and
certify
black
belts,
serve
as
coaches
to
green
belts
and
black
belts,
and
work
to
implement
six
sigma
throughout
the
organization.
In
six
sigma,
improvement
teams
follow
a
formal,
well-defined
problem-solving
process
that
is
akin
to
W.
Edwards
Deming’s
Plan-
Do-Study-Act
cycle
(Deming,
1994).
The
most
common
form
of
the
problem-solving
framework
in
six
sigma
is
a
five-stage
process
referred
to
as
DMAIC
(Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control)
(Pyzdek
and
Keller,
2009).
This
structured
problem-solving
frame-
work
guides
the
team
in
implementing
the
scientific
method
to
diagnose
problems
and
develop
solutions
in
order
to
achieve
project
goals
(Linderman
et
al.,
2003,
2006;
Zu
et
al.,
2008).
The
problem-solving
process,
along
with
the
set
of
analysis
tools,
repre-
sents
standard
team-based
learning
routines
by
which
knowledge
can
be
created,
acquired,
and
implemented
(Argote
and
Miron-
Spektor,
2011;
Benner
and
Tushman,
2002,
2003;
Choo
et
al.,
2007a,b;
Upton
and
Kim,
1998).
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