Project teams within a change process.
What influences do faultlines have?
Master Thesis MSc BA – Change Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
August 2014
R.W.J. Westerhuis
S1791532
Leimuidenstraat 23/2
1059 EE Amsterdam
r.w.j.westerhuis@student.rug.nl
Word count: 16.763
Supervisor University:
Dr. J. Rupert
Second Assessor University:
Dr. J.F.J. Vos
Project teams within a change process.
What influences do faultlines have?
ABSTRACT
This study explores the relationship between activated faultlines and team effectiveness. With activated faultlines individuals perceive subgroups based on demographic attributes. Three cross-‐functional project teams that are established as part of an organizational change program are researched. The findings show that participation in a change program can enhance knowledge exchange and team effectiveness. As a result, individuals perceive activated faultlines less and team effectiveness is high. Another finding suggest that a faultline trigger event can evolve over time, such that the activation of faultlines slowly emerges.
Keywords: Diversity, faultlines, activated faultlines, intervention, organizational change.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank some people that have been really helpful during the process of writing my thesis. First of all I would like to thank Joyce Rupert for being my supervisor. Her feedback, inspiration and guidance have helped me a lot. Secondly I would like to
thank all the people of the department that I was able to research in. They have given me a lot of support and provided a great opportunity to do in depth research. Thirdly I would like to thank my parents for financially supporting me during the time of research. Fourth I would like to thank my fellow students Mark Damink, Tessa Swanenberg and Lisanne Jonkman for their help but mostly for making my time as a MBA Change Management student great. At last, I would like to thank my sister and friends, as I am
really grateful for their help, support and encouraging words.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 52. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 9
3. METHODOLOGY 15
3.1.
RESEARCH DESIGN 15
3.2.
CASE 15
3.3.
DATA COLLECTION 17
3.4.
DATA ANALYSIS 23
4. RESULTS 26
4.1.
GROUP INTERVENTION 26
4.2.
TEAM 1 26
4.3.
TEAM 2 29
4.4.
TEAM 3 33
4.5.
CONTEXT 38
4.6.
CROSS CASE ANALYSIS. 42
5. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION 46
5.1.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS 46
5.2.
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS 47
5.3.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS 48
5.4.
LIMITATIONS 49
5.5.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS 49
1. INTRODUCTION
In this modern era, organizations face an ever-‐changing environment. Rapid technological developments, political changes, a changing workforce and changing work practices are some of the environmental issues that organizations find themselves confronted with (Burnes, 2004; Cawsey et al., 2012). What at first seems just an external event, might impact the organization internally. As a result organizations face a need for change constantly. As an academic theme, the issue of organizational change has been of significant concern in the organizational literature of the last decades. A significant increase in large-‐scale change efforts within organizations is seen, while success rates have proven to be astonishingly low (Beer & Nohria, 2000). According to Balogun and Hope Hailey (2008), for instance, as many as 70 percent of the change programs do not achieve their intended outcomes. Burnes (2009) states that only one third of organizations
managed change successfully.
As a result of globalization, organizations face an increased diversity in their workforce. (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). Diversity is defined as: ‘any attribute that another person may use to detect individual differences’ (Mannix & Neille, 2005, p33). Although effects of diversity within organizations have been researched heavily, outcomes show contradictory results. On the one hand, it is found that different perspectives lead to productive conflicts (Mannix & Neale, 2005; Rupert, 2012). Also, creativity, improved problem solving and performance were positively associated with diversity (Mannix & Neale, 2005; Rupert, 2012). On the other hand, however, factors such as disintegration, relational conflicts, miscommunication and lowered performance are negatively related to diversity (Mannix & Neale, 2005; Rupert, 2012). As a reaction to the contradictory effects of diversity, Lau and Murnighan (1998) introduced the concept of faultlines. Faultlines are ‘ hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more attributes’ (Lau & Murnighan, 1998, p328). Faultlines provide more insights in the group dynamics that can occur within diverse teams. Traditionally, research on diversity only looked at one or two specific attributes of diversity at a time. However attributes in a team can interact and as a result, dynamics can come into play within teams. Faultline research takes into account more than one or two attributes of diversity and is therefore able to explain the complex and dynamic environment that diversity creates in a
team (Rupert, 2012).
Moreover, there is two major issues that organizations deal with every day: (1) organizations find themselves confronted with a need for organizational change and (2) organizations are faced with a diverse workforce, from which diverse work teams are a result. Subsequently, research on faultlines is able to explain the complex and dynamic environment
What still lacks in the literature on the concept of faultlines however is the dynamics of diversity attributes within processes of organizational change. Thus far, diversity and
organizational change have mostly been researched separately. There have been studies that researched organizational change in relation to diversity, but these studies were focused on only one attribute (Caldwell, Herald & Fedor, 2004; Hornung & Rousseau, 2007, Jetten, O’Brien & Tindall, 2002). In contrast, faultline research takes in account more than one or two attributes of diversity. Therefore a faultline approach could elaborate our understanding of how dynamics of
diversity attributes influence change processes.
Research on faultlines distinguishes between dormant and activated faultlines. Dormant
faultlines can be referred to as: ‘the demographic alignment across members that may (or may not) divide a group into subgroups based on objective demographic alignment across members’ (Jehn & Bezrukova, 2010, p. 26). Activated faultlines differ from dormant faultlines in a way that they are actually perceived by individuals and become salient. Bodenhausen (2011) states that for this reason, activated faultlines are considered in research, because it can predict causal relationships for group dynamics and outcomes better than it could with dormant faultlines. This exploratory research will be conducted within a department that is about to start an organizational change program. Three main issues are underlying this change program: (1) the internal client ventilated to be unsatisfied with quality and quantity of the department’s
deliverables, (2) an externally conducted report showed low effectiveness of the department, (3) there is a need to lower costs within the department. An overarching problem, as an external consultancy report showed, is the lack of a ‘good working team’. To overcome these issues, an organizational change program was set up by the department’s management team. All 70 employees of the department were asked to join one of the eleven project teams that were established. All eleven project teams had a different focus, but all project teams had the same goal: improve the organizations effectiveness. Three of these teams, with a total of 16 employees
have been studied for this research.
The following research question will be answered:
How do activated faultlines influence team effectiveness in a change process?
The subsequent part of this thesis is structured as follows: the next section focuses on the theoretical background. Then, the third section describes the methodology of this case study. Section four represents the results and section five discusses the findings. Finally, a conclusion is drawn in section six.
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Faultline researchLiterature on diversity was given a new dimension when Lau and Murnighan (1998) introduced the concept of group faultlines. As mentioned in the introduction, faultlines are hypothetical lines that might lead to separations within groups based on one or more attributes of its members (Lau & Murnighan, 1998). Where research on diversity only takes in account one attribute at a time, the faultline approach allows encompassing the impact of more than one attribute and the interaction among them (Lau & Murnighan, 1998).
Past research has distinguished two categories of faultlines: (1) social category faultlines and (2) informational-‐based faultlines. Social category faultlines take into account
characteristics such as race/ethnic background, nationality, sex, and age as bases for faultlines to be perceived (Bezrukova et al., 2009). Informational characters are underlying attributes of individuals that are directly job related (e.g. functional knowledge, information or expertise, abilities) (Bezrukova et al., 2009). Moreover, two categories of faultlines can be distinguished, based on different attributes of an individual.
Besides the two categories of faultlines, based on different attributes, faultlines can also differ in strength. Lau and Murnighan (1998) refer to an increase of faultline strength if more attributes are highly correlated. For example: if a group of eight people, including four young white female managers who are working at a company since four yours and there are four old black male vice presidents are working at a company for over twenty years, a potential strong faultline is available. If the group would be more mixed and attributes are not aligned, multiple subgroups can be formed and potential faultlines are weaker (Lau & Murnighan, 1998).
potential faultlines activated. When faultlines are perceived (i.e. are activated), they might influence group performance either positively or negatively (Bezrukova et al., 2009: Homan et
al., 2007).
This research aims to find out how activated faultlines influence an
organizational change attempt. This means that contrary to Gover and Duxbury (2012)
organizational change is not necessarily seen as a trigger event. This research claims that other events, issues or contexts may have activated dormant faultlines prior to an actual
organizational change was attempted. In order to gain more knowledge about how activated faultlines influence organizational change, it is necessary to gain insight in the difference between dormant and activated faultlines.
Dormant vs. activated faultlines
Dormant faultlines can be referred to as the potential hypothetical lines that divide a group into subgroups based on demographic attributes (Lau & Murnighan, 1998). Faultlines can go
unnoticed for many years without influencing team processes (Lau & Murnighan, 1998).
Social vs. information based categories of faultlines
As noted before, two categories of faultlines can be distinguished: 1) social category faultlines (e.g. age, gender, race), and (2) informational-‐based faultlines (e.g. education, work experience) (Bezurkova et al., 2009). Faultlines based on social categories and faultlines based on
informational categories may have different implications for groups (Bezrukova et al., 2009). Lau and Murnighan (2005) have studied faultlines formed along the social category faultlines. They saw increased learning behavior and satisfaction as a result. Li and Hambrick, (2005) refer to tension and low performance. Thatcher et al. (2003) studied a number of different attributes as potential faultline bases, however, according to Bezrukova et al. (2009, p37) ‘little is known about how the nature of members’ alignments (social category versus informational) may affect performance in diverse workgroups. The main difference between social category faultlines and informational-‐based faultlines is the fact that social category faultlines are easily observable and not task relevant. Perceptions and behavior are mainly shaped through categorization,
stereotyping and prejudice (Bezrukova, 2009). Mannix and Neale (2005) refer to studies on diversity in teams from the last 50 years. This overview has shown that social category differences tend to more likely have negative effects on effectiveness of groups. Informational-‐ based faultlines are task relevant and bring a broader area of relevant information to the people. Task relevant skills that group members bring to the team are more easily perceived (Bezrukova et al., 2009). Bezurkova et al. (2009) state that informational-‐based characteristics offer greater cognitive resources to the group than other types of diversity (e.g. differences in knowledge and expertise). Mannix and Neale (2005) state that informational-‐based faultlines are more often positively related to performance, for example in terms of creativity or group problem solving. However this is only seen when the group process is carefully controlled. This is in line with the ‘healthy divides’ that Bezrukova et al. (2009, p. 37) refer to in relation to informational-‐based faultlines. Gibson and Vermeulen (2003), say that by using the teams’ cognitive resources, effective decision-‐making processes and enhances learning is a result. Bezrukova et al. (2009) show it matters whether there is alignment on social categories faultlines or informational-‐ based categories as it may trigger different processes, resulting in different effects on group behavior. In conclusion, taking into account the social-‐ or informational-‐based category as bases for faultlines to be perceived might lead to different results in-‐group behavior.
faultlines present.
In order to discover the influence of activated faultlines on team effectiveness of the newly formed teams that are part of a change program, it is necessary to increase understanding about the change program a of the department in which this research is conducted.
Participation
As mentioned before, the management team of the department, asked all employees to actively participate in one of the project teams of their choice as part of the change program.
Participation refers to the involvement of employees in decision-‐making (Pardo-‐del-‐Val, Martínez-‐Fuentes & Roig-‐Dobón, 2012). By participating, employees are asked to think in a strategic way, to have a mindset that puts the client central and a focus on bettering the functionality of the organization (Pardo-‐del-‐Val, Martínez-‐Fuentes & Roig-‐Dobón, 2012). The management team’s reason to ask for this participation was because participation was thought to be positively associated with organizational change success. Multiple studies have researched the influence of participation on organizational change. Participation is believed to reduce resistance towards change, results in lower stress and higher support with change and positively influencing the success of change (Lines, 2004). Price and Chahal (2006) mention “greater degree of consultation and worker participation, both in the development of the strategic vision and the implementation of change, should increase ownership, thus reducing anxiety and stress that often drives resistance to change” (Price & Crahal, 2006, p. 250). Cawsey et al. (2012, p. 323) state: “involving others can bring new energy and ideas and cause people to believe they can be part of the change”. Bouma (2009) argues it is not clear whether there is a direct relation between participation and change success. However an indirect relationship, with intermediary effects between participation and organizational change is proposed (Bouma, 2009). Moreover effects of participation can lead to different outcomes: feelings such as ownership and being part of the change, support for the change as well as reduced feelings of anxiety and stress. Whereas some do see a direct relationship between participation and organizational change success, others see this relation with intermediary effects.
Another reason for the management team of this department to choose to establish
process: (1) there are positive effects between participation and organizational change success and (2) a focused intervention towards overcoming the lack of a ‘good working team’ and to
stimulate communication and interaction among employees.
This research not only explores the activated faultline dynamics at play. It is also able to explore how these activated faultlines influence an organizational change process in which participation is used. By researching the newly established cross-‐functional teams and their team effectiveness, this research is able to explore how a team deals with and effectively manage individual and subgroup differences being part of an organizational change process. This
approach differs from other research in a way that it focuses on teams that are part of a change program in order to make the employees participate. It therefore allows us to explore the relation between faultlines and organizational change in a different way.
Context
Lastly,
this explorative approach also allows discovering information about the context that is present at the research site. Context is referred to as circumstances or external or internal conditions that have shown to influence organizational effectiveness (Oreg et al., 2011). Context includes issues such as organizational culture, gender composition in the overall organization or features of the task (Mannix & Neale, 2005). Racial diversity for instance can either be positive or negative, depending on the organizational context (Kochan et al., 2003). Temporal issues are also important; the effects of diversity might change over time (Mannix & Neale, 2005). Context is seen as the backdrop of what people notice and why they perceive things. Another example is organizational culture, a potential moderator to cooperative or competitive behavior in diverse settings (Chatman et al., 1998). Related to this Chrobot-‐Mason et al. (2009) state that only a few studies have examined the relative impact that distal factors (e.g. societal or organizational culture) have compared to factors that be seen as more proximal (e.g. relationships with leaders and peers) Yammarino et al. (2005) state that understanding both distal and proximalcontextual factors can be beneficial for our understanding of business phenomena.
3. METHODOLOGY
This section provides information on the research design employed in this study. First, the research design will be elaborated on, followed by the case context. Finally the data collection and data analysis will be described.
3.1. Research design
A case study method was employed in order to study what effect activated faultiness have on team effectiveness within a change process. The case study method used can be referred to as ‘an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’ (Yin, 1981, p. 19). According to Eisenhardt (1989) a case study is a research strategy particularly focused on understanding the dynamics that are present within a single setting and, subsequently, translate this knowledge into new theory. Boonstra and Van Offenbeek (2010) state that a case study is able to unravel complexities and ‘permits an in-‐depth analysis of evolving interaction processes and their outcomes’ (Boonstra & Van Offenbeek, 2010, p. 542) in a natural setting (Yin, 2009). Moreover, this case study allows us to explore the effect of already activated faultlines on a newly composed project team in a change process.
3.2. Case
The Information Management Organization (IMO) of a large airline company is the focus group of this research. There are 70 people working at this sub department. They are seen as one departmental group, within the overall company (See figure 1). Roughly, the sub department has two tasks: (1) Innovation, focused on optimizing the business processes and the organization-‐ and information systems as well as a preparing the operations department for its future. (2) Continuity, focused on guaranteeing the continuity of applications such that operations can work efficiently and effectively. The IMO is divided over two levels within an office building (i.e. the third level and the seventh level).
Figure 1 – Simplified view on departmental layers within the company and the position of the case environment.
3.2.1. Change
In the last months of 2013, the Management Team (MT) of the department (i.e. IMO) decided for a change program. Several issues had been raised over the past months: (1) the operations department ventilated it was not pleased with the quality and quantity of the IMO deliverables. (2) A report written by an external consulting company, highlighted elements that the IMO should improve on to improve effectiveness (e.g. introduce a project management office, change cultural aspects, such as attitudes towards colleagues). (3) New targets to ensure money savings were introduced by top management in response to the economic crises.
Examples of the problems within the department were mostly seen in large projects
(i.e.>10 mln Euro.) One large project failed. Another large project was put on hold late 2013. As a result, the operations department did not receive according to contract. Their needs where unfulfilled and the relation between the IMO and operations department was damaged. IS and IMO were having discussions about tasks and responsibilities that belong to either of the two departments. What was mainly visible, and also mentioned by the external consultancy company, in all the problems at the department was the lack of a good working team.
Moreover, the need for change had been shown and a change program was introduced to
tackle several issues within the process of the department at the same time. Given the problems with both partners (i.e. operations department and IS), the IMO was losing its reason for
Airline Company
Passenger Service
Department Cargo Service Department Engineering & Maintenance Department
Operations
existence. The MT asked all 70 employees to participate in the change program in order to ‘make
it everyone’s party’. Within the program, eleven different project teams were established of
which three were researched within this research. All project teams had a different focus.
Employees were all asked by the department’s management team to join a project team of their choice. To ensure representativeness however, the project teams had to be composed of
employees with different roles and functions from both levels of the department. No intervening in the application process was needed to establish this.
Figure 2 shows an overview of the change program. It shows the time-‐scale, the different process steps and it provides information about the time that the researcher was present at the site.
Figure 2 – Change program overview. Time-‐scale, process steps and phases in which research was conducted.
Moreover, at the end of February, eleven cross-‐functional project teams were
established. All eleven teams had a different focus to contribute to the overall program. This study focused on three of these eleven teams within the program. Participation from the employees was considered highly important within the change program.
3.3. Data collection
1989, p. 538).
3.3.1. Observations
There are different forms of observations. Structured and unstructured observations are found to be at the ends of a continuum. Structured observations use pre-‐coding and the observations focuses on when, how often, or for how long pre-‐coded behaviors occur (Jupp, 2006). In contrast, unstructured observation focuses on behaviors without using a clear theoretical framework (Jupp, 2006). For this research a less-‐structured observations method was used. According to Sapsford and Jupp, (2006) ‘Less structured observations are characterized by flexibility and a minimum of prestructuring’ (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006, p. 62). This allows the researcher to ‘produce detailed, qualitative descriptions of human behavior; focusing on social meanings and shared culture ‘ (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006, p. 62). Observations involve spending long periods of time in the field. Relationships can be built and participation means interactions with subjects (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006). Moreover, the production of detailed data on the
behavior of a particular group in a particular setting is possible due to observations (Sapsford &
Jupp, 2006).
The researcher used the method of participant observations, ‘participant observations
connects the researcher to the most basic of human experiences, discovering through immersion and participation the how’s and why’s of human behavior in a particular context’ (Guest, Namey, Mitchell, 2013, p75). Observations were collected in field notes. The field notes were taken throughout the day. It describes both at which event, activity or meeting the notes were taken; as well as the ideas that the researcher had while observing; at last the field notes also contain information about the context of the event or behavior that was shown (Creswell, 2006). To overcome the issue of distortion in memories, which can be a threat to the validity of the research (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006), notes were taken during the day, as well as at the end of the
day.
Guest, Namey & Mitchell (2013) refers to different categories a researcher can focus on during observations. Table 1 explains the categories that were the focus of this research: (1) the appearance, (2) physical behavior and gestures, (3) personal space and (4) people who stand out (Guest, Namey & Mitchell, 2013, p. 91-‐92)
Category Includes Explanation
Appearance Clothing, age, gender, physical appearance
Physical behavior and gestures What people do, who does what, who interacts with whom, who is not interacting
How people us their bodies and voices to communicate different emotions, what people’s behaviors indicate about their feelings toward one another, their social rank, or their profession.
Personal space How close people stand to one another
What people’s preferences concerning personal space suggest about their relationships.
People who stand out Identification of people who receive a lot of attention from others
These people’s characteristics what differentiates them from others, where people consult them or they approach other people, whether they seem to be strangers or well-‐known by others present.
Table 1 – Four categories as identified by Guest, Namey, Mitchell (2013, p. 91-‐92), this research will focus on.
3.3.2. Interviews
In addition to the observations; the researcher conducted interviews. From three project teams, a total of 16 team members were interviewed face-‐to-‐face. Interviews were held individually within a room in which others could not hear the conversation. The interviews were semi-‐ structured. Standardized interview protocols were used (see Appendix A). This combination leaves enough space for exploring issues that arise during an interview but also focuses
specifically an amount of pre stated questions (Van Aken et al., 2012). Using a protocol avoids an overflow of information, which could decrease efficiency and power of analysis (Miles &
Huberman, 1994).
Three projects teams were interviewed. Two project teams consisted of 5 employees,
and one team consisted of 6 employees (see table 2). All 16 team members were interviewed within a two-‐week period in May 2014. The interviews were held in the office building in a closed environment such that no other people could hear the conversation. To ensure the quality of data collected, the researcher chose to interview three complete teams. Interviews took between 40 -‐ 60 minutes. At the start of every interview, as part of the protocol (see Appendix A), interviewees were informed about the anonymity of the interviews, as well as the
confidentiality of the interviews. For transcription purposes the interviewees were asked for permission to record the interviews. The measures in the standardized interview protocol (see
Appendix A) were divided into three areas of interest:
phase, satisfaction and enthusiasm with regard to the change were enquired. Faultlines. Questions were focused on gaining insights in the faultline trigger that caused the activation of faultlines. The critical incidence method (Chrobot-‐Mason et al., 2009) was used to establish these questions. One of the questions that is aiming to provide insights was: “Could you tell me something about a certain event or situation in which you became aware of
differences between yourself and others?” Other questions were focused on the faultline bases: “Which differences did you become aware of in this specific event or situation?”
Group interaction. In order to find out more about the participation of the team
members in the newly composed teams, questions regarding the group interaction were linked to how employees participate: “How would you describe the group interaction within this group?
How does this influence your participation?” Sub questions were focused on how the interviewee
feels about being part of the team. Also it was asked what the collaboration does to team members an individual and for the group. Mainly, the three aspects of team effectiveness were indirectly asked for.
3.3.3. Questionnaire.
A questionnaire was used to gather demographic data of the respondents. The questionnaire was filled in directly after the interview. Interviewees were given a short explanation, after which they filled in the questionnaire by themselves. Table 3 shows the demographic data gathered by the questionnaire. Ordered case by case it shows information regarding the
function, gender, age, level of education, field of education and the tenure with the organization, function and group of the interviewees.
Table 3– Demographic data gathered from the questionnaire. Per case, it shows the function, gender, age, level of education, field of education and tenure per interviewee. (*Per year. ** Per month.)
3.3.4. Documentation
about their attendance and provided the researcher with information about the progress of the different projects. Moreover, they were analyzed mostly to generate an even richer picture besides observations and interviews (Myers, 2013). The researcher was able to use the intranet. According to Myers (2013), having access to the company’s intranet is a way to reach richer data.
3.3.5. Role of researcher
During a six-‐month period, the researcher was active as an intern within the company. During this internship, the researcher had other activities (i.e. communicating the need for change; communicating the status of the change; communicating through posters, flyers and
newsletters). These activities allowed him to gain in depth knowledge about the organization and to build a relationship with the subjects. The researcher was present on a daily basis; for 40 hours a week and could perform his own activities besides the internship related activities
there.
From the early start of the internship (i.e. February 2014) the researcher was introduced as an intern, who would also conduct research within the department. It was not told that this would involve observations or interviews. It was chosen not to tell the subjects about the observations or the interviews. Sapsford and Jupp (2006) show that people may, consciously or unconsciously, change their behavior due to the observations. This might intervene with regular, more naturally representations of behavior, potentially threatening the validity of the research. Guest, Namey and Mitchell (2013, p. 89) show a two axis grid in which x-‐axis is the degree of participation relative to the degree of observation, while the y-‐axis is the degree of relevant or
concealment of the researcher role.
Taken figure 3 in account; it can be stated that while doing the observations, the
researcher’s role was less visible and the researcher was highly observational. This means that as Zahle (2012, p. 54) states: ‘intervention was as little as possible by remaining fairly
unobtrusive or non-‐disruptive in the setting being studied’. Because the researcher was also a co-‐worker, it was possible to have casual conversations, to act as an audience member in meetings and work closely together with members, without having the researcher role visible. The researcher role became more apparent when the researcher sent the invitations for the interviews. This was not until mid-‐may. Therefore the researcher had enough time and possibilities to be participatory within the department with a researcher role that was less
visible.
Thus, the researcher was an intern within the department and because his researcher
information was written down on field notes during and at the end of the day. This makes the information that was gathered more rich and trustworthy.
Figure 3– In line with Guest, Namey and Mitchell, (2013), the different roles and visibility a researcher can show.
3.4. Data Analysis
The sixteen conducted interviews were all voice recorded and subsequently transcribed. This resulted in interview transcripts. Additionally, field notes were produced. Both the
transcriptions, as well as the field notes were used together in the analysis of data (Moser & Kalton, 1972). The coding of the transcripts was employed with a mixture of deductive and inductive coding strategies (Miles & Huberman, 1994). At first, a deductive a priori template of codes was created. After which data driven inductive coding was generated. This allowed the researcher to find emerging concepts within the framework that acted as a basis (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Thomas (2006) states that for inductive coding, an analyst has to be more open-‐minded and to be sensitive for the context in which data is collected. Inductive codes are valuable: participants raise issues they find important; this can differ from what researchers think of in advance. Examples of such inductive data are knowledge sharing and need for knowledge
coordination system.
The coding procedure was done in Word. Miles and Huberman (1994) refer to intra-‐ coding: the double coding of all transcripts by the research, as well as to parallel coding: one of every sort of interview is double-‐coded by a fellow researcher. Both intra-‐coding as well as independent parallel coding ensure higher level of reliability of the coding process. A second assessor coded two interview transcripts. Differences in coding were discussed and the code list plus coding was adjusted accordingly.
4. RESULTS
This section provides the results of the analysis of three teams that are part of a change process. In Appendix B, you can find the coding scheme, including quotes from respondents.
All three teams were newly composed in February 2014 as part of a change process. What distinguishes the three teams is the specific topic they were focused on as part of the change process. All teams were part of the same department and located in the same office building. Team members could decide to join a project team voluntarily and assign to a specific topic they were interested in. If a team member made the commitment to be part of a project team, 4 hours a week was made available per employee within his or her resource claims. When employees signed up for a specific topic, a mixture of different team members per team
appeared. This happened naturally. There was no intervention needed to have a normal distribution of employees from different levels, roles or backgrounds to be part of the team. Moreover, teams consisted of members that were located on different levels of the office building and had different expertise, roles and functions within the department.
This results section is structured in a way that first the group intervention is discussed, followed by within case analyses of three project teams. Subsequently the results show that the context had a strong influence on the existence of activated faultlines within the department. The different inducted events from the coding process adding to this context are all elaborated on, and an illustrative model combines them in an overview. Finally a description of the cross-‐ case analysis will follow.
4.1. Group intervention
The newly composed project teams are a new and unique way of cross-‐functional working for this department. The members work on topics that are outside of their normal work and they get to work with people they have little or no contact with normally. By making these project teams part of a change process, a group intervention takes place. The difference between the project teams is the subject focus. However all project teams are focused on the same
overarching goal: to improve the organization’s effectiveness in different areas.
4.2. Team 1
Focus: Professionalize Project Management 4.2.1. Change
All five members of this team refer to the change mostly in a similar way. One member reflects the overall thought about the change: “The reason is clear to me, within a business process there
reasons: “This department needs to align the process between Business and IT, the IT projects are
not completed sufficiently, that is one. (…) The second is: if people do not know why they are here in the organization or what they are here for, it is never possible to lead to great products efficient and effectively. This is not beneficial for organizations.” (VP1). Another member refers to
“Leadership behavior”, “structured working” and “stopping throwing things over the wall” (BA1) as very specific goals for the change in order to “improve the business process”.
Overall, the goal of the change is to become more efficient and save money. All members are equally enthusiastic, however, all also state that it is early in the process and that it is hard to not be enthusiastic as it’s a voluntary choice to be part of the team. The impact of the change is considered low, as the change only recently started and is ongoing. Four members refer to the phase as ‘early analysis phase’ (PM1, BA1, FAM1-‐FAM2), however one member refers to the ‘implementation phase’ (VP1) taking in account the overall program.
4.2.2. Perceived/Activated Faultlines
Bezrukova et al., (2009) speak about two ways in particular, in which a subjective experience can split a group into relatively homogenous subgroups. One is based on members’ alignment on social category demographic characteristics (e.g. gender, age, marital status). The other is based on members’ alignment on informational characteristics (e.g. work experience, tenure,
functional knowledge). Within this team, only one member referred to age once as a reason for the group to split into homogenous subgroups. The alignment based on informational
characteristics was far more apparent. Over 20 times and mentioned by all group members, a difference in functional background and expertise was mentioned as a reason for subgroups to occur: “the division can be seen if you take your work task into account” (FAM1) and “[the
division] has to do with functional background’ (BA1). Two main work tasks can be distinguished
within the department (i.e. innovation and continuity). Each task is located at a different level of the office building. All members refer to the location of this level, if they talk about the perceived subgroups present in the department: “I am purely working with the business in mind, as all the
others in my division; we are all located on the third floor. And then there is the seventh [floor]. Information Managers, Business Analysts and who else are located over there. I speak to them some times, but a lot less.” (FAM2). It is visible that the office layout helps to make the distinction
between functional backgrounds. It is ‘”those on the seventh floor” or “those on the third floor”.
4.2.3. Group intervention
program that is also focused on making this department ‘a good working team’, being part the team is considered to be a group intervention from a management’s point of view. Moreover this composed team is a unique way of cross-‐functional working. All five members of this group see their working in this group the same as member BA1 describes it: “I like it. It gives me a great
feeling” (BA1).
4.2.4. Project team effectiveness.
During the observations of this team at their weekly meetings, it seemed, that his team
functioned really well. Meetings were structured well, led by a team leader, which was able to be both the team leader as well as a real part of the team. The team worked cohesive, was able to deliver outputs of a high standard. Project members seemed to like each other and get to know each other more and moreover time. This very short summary of what as observed is found to be the same by all five project members. While interviewing them they referred all in the same way to the teams outputs and the consequences that team participation has on its members. For example FAM1 comes with a more general view: “Because there are more groups of different
parts of department working cross functionally, people finally get to know each other a bit more I would say. [..] This makes the bond a more normal one.” (FAM1). Member BA1 as a reaction to the
question what participation in this team does to BA1: “You are together as a group with different
members. Although there are other views, or you look at things from different perspectives. (...) We can all learn from each other. In my opinion, this works well, the way we do it. This makes it fun. It makes me happy to be part of.” (BA1). Team member FAM2 answers to the question what his
participation with this group does to him as: “ It’s great to see how the interaction between, well, division of labor, getting back together, and still produce an end product at a certain moment.” (FAM2) Early July, the internal client was very explicit about the output produced by the team in an informal talk with the researcher: “great quality” and “useful” is what he referred to. At last, the participation influenced member VP1 in a way that he felt “mentally part of this group. That
is what happened.” (VP1). 4.2.5. Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is an inductive theme that was recognized while analyzing the interview data. Four team members discussed knowledge sharing. All these four team members
acknowledged that each and every employee working in the department had a very distinct level of knowledge. Observations from the researcher made it clear that his group was strongly using its own strengths, mostly with knowledge from previous jobs or functions. As FAM2 recons: “
