关键词: 团队双元, 团队反思训练, 元知识共享, 观点采择, “差异化?整合化”框架

Abstract:

Performing explorative and exploitative behaviors simultaneously is a key means for teams to quickly adapt to environmental and task changes. How to improve team ambidexterity is an important topic of concern in theoretical and management practice. Although scholars have conducted preliminary analyses on the antecedents of team ambidexterity, conclusions at the between-team level can only be used to identify ambidextrous teams but not to answer the question of how to cultivate team ambidexterity. Based on the “differentiation-integration” framework, this study argues that the realization of team ambidexterity requires team members to obtain and process different types of information. Open collective reflexivity activities provide a rich source of information for teams. However, reflexivity activities are highly complex and resource-consuming, and companies need to use reflexivity interventions (e.g., team reflexivity training) to guide teams to engage in reflexivity activities on their own initiative. The team information processing model states that teams enhance team effectiveness and adaptability through two paths of information sharing and integration. Based on the above deduction, this study suggests that meta-knowledge sharing and perspective picking are the key cognitive mechanisms through which team reflexivity training positively influences team ambidexterity development.

We test our theoretical propositions in an experimental study and a quasiexperimental study. In Study 1, we conducted a course experiment with students and seven wave measurement waves over 4 months, resulting in 630 observations from 90 teams. We invited 360 undergraduates majoring in economics or management from a university in southern China. We randomly and equally assigned 360 college students into 90 teams and then divided the teams into experimental and control groups. We gave the experimental group team reflexivity training and assisted them with reflexivity activities in subsequent sessions, while the control group was given team building training to avoid a placebo effect. We measured team ambidexterity at all seven measurement waves and team reflexivity after and before intervention using established scales and items. Conditional latent growth modeling was applied to test the slope difference of the team ambidexterity trend between the experimental and control groups. To investigate the theoretical hypotheses in Study 2, we further conducted a quasiexperimental study, which took one year and involved three measurement waves; the study resulted in 222 observations from 74 teams. We invited a total of 656 employees from R&D teams in 26 companies engaged in high-tech industries related to information technology, precision instruments, and biopharmaceuticals in a southern Chinese province in this study. Seventy-four R&D teams were randomly and equally divided into experimental and control groups. We gave the experimental group team reflexivity training in the first month and required them to conduct a formal reflexivity activity at a regular time each week (or two weeks) thereafter. We measured team ambidexterity in the first and second measurement waves and meta-knowledge sharing and perspective taking in the second and third measurement waves. To account for the mediating effect of meta-knowledge sharing and perspective taking between team reflexivity training and team ambidexterity development, latent change score modeling was applied.

The statistical analyses supported our hypotheses. The results of Study 1 showed that teams that did not participate in team reflexivity training showed a nonsignificant downward trend in team duality; in contrast, teams that participated in reflexivity training showed a significant upward trend in team ambidexterity. Based on this, for Study 2, we further analyzed the mediating role of meta-knowledge sharing and perspective taking and improved the external validity of the Study 1 finding with a quasiexperimental research design. It was found that teams' meta-knowledge sharing and perspective taking improved after participating in reflexivity training, which led to an increase in team ambidexterity.

By increasing our understanding of how to improve team ambidexterity and the key information cognitive mechanisms of it, our study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, this study provides rich empirical evidence for ambidexterity research by confirming the role of team reflexivity training in sustainably enhancing team ambidexterity. The findings support the consistent view of team reflexivity training research that it is effective in enhancing team adaptability as a management intervention. At the same time, this study bridges the gap regarding how to help teams build the capacity to perform ambidextrous behaviors, responding to the call for research on “exploring how to guide paradoxical coping into a beneficial developmental process”. Second, based on the “differentiation-integration” framework and the team information processing model, this study infers and confirms that team meta-knowledge sharing and perspective taking are important cognitive processes that influence the development of team ambidexterity through team reflexivity training. The findings are not only consistent with the view that “information exchange and adoption among team members is necessary for team ambidexterity” but also expand ambidexterity research from a cognitive perspective. Meanwhile, the findings enrich the narrow research on the team information processing model in enhancing team adaptability and flexibility and reaffirm the fundamental role of efficient information processing in determining team effectiveness. Third, this study introduces the element of time in the empirical study of team ambidexterity for the first time, deepening the understanding of the nature of ambidexterity dynamics. The results found that team ambidexterity was unable to show positive trends over time, which is consistent with the expected negative self-reinforcing effect. This suggests that our team members are not willing to consistently adopt complex behavioral patterns such as ambidexterity for work but instead prefer specific activities due to behavioral inertia.

Our findings also offer empirical evidence that companies need to provide reflexivity courses for their teams to help members acquire and develop good work rethinking habits. At the same time, supervisors can activate and optimize the team information processing process by developing corresponding systems (e.g., a set time and frequency), providing necessary support (e.g., venue and accompanying guidance), and building a good team climate to continuously improve team ambidexterity.

Key words: Team ambidexterity, team reflexivity training, meta-knowledge sharing, perspective taking, differentiation- integration framework