Mitigating the Impact of Functional Dominance in Cross-Functional Process Improvement Teams

摘要

Manufacturing process improvement teams often draw upon cross-functional expertise.However, teams dominated by a single or few functions often do not achieve the desiredinterdisciplinary learning and cooperation, which in turn could negatively affectthe performance of that cross-functional team. Through an empirical analysis of 149manufacturing process improvement teams in six SIC industrial categories, we showthat even after controlling for several factors such as team size, number of functions,gender diversity, ethnicity, number of management levels, and geographic dispersion ofteam members, psychological safety of work environment fully mediates the relationshipbetween functional dominance and team performance.We also confirm that a teamleader possessing high interpersonal justice mitigates the deficiency of dominated teamsand improves team performance by fostering a psychologically safe work environment.Our recommendation therefore is that when a dominated team is unavoidable due to theneeded skill sets or other organizational considerations, to ensure success it is imperativethat the firm chooses a team leader who can promote psychological safety by beingjust, and who can effectively encourage input from all functional team members andgive them objective feedback.