). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 350-383.

Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 350-383

The study focused on team effectiveness and how it is influenced by team psychological safety. Safety in teams is defined as team behavior and not individual trust. The process of team safety as a group construct provides a social expectation of how team members react to individuals asking questions, seeking feedback, therisk of experimenting and discussing errors. When acceptable in teams, learning takes place.

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The goal of the study was to investigate how team behavior influences the interpersonal context as it relates to psychological safety in the same organization. The author presented eight hypotheses. For the purpose of this project, the focus of the review was on one hypothesis: learning behavior in teams is positively associated with team performance. It is relevant to the research proposal for Timberfoot in that it explains structure alone cannot produce team effectiveness. Any influence that is negatively associated with team psychological safety can reduce team effectiveness.

The author reviewed the literature regarding organization learning as a result of feedback, experimenting and discussions of failures from inside and outside the organization. The phenomena of threat rigidity was considered as reducing cognitive and behavioral flexibility. The literature also revealed that an increase in team psychological safety facilitates learning in the team by reducing excessive concern about a team’s reaction to errors and requests for assistance.

The study was done using qualitative and quantitative methods and was a causal design. Interview and observations were done in phase 1, survey and structured interviews were done in phase 2 and interviews were done in phase 3. Continuous variables were developed from the interviews that measured coaching, psychological safety, the efficacy of the team, team learning behavior, team performance and various demographic characteristics.

The validity of variables was done using several methods. First, an outside expert viewed components of the surveys and conducted several interviews. The expert concurred the variables do measure the constructs. Second, discriminant validity was established by considering the correlation between variables. Between method and trait correlations averaged .25 which shows adequate separation between variables. Finally, correlation analysis was done between responses to team learning and team performance and was statistically significant at an r = .60 and .36 respectively.

Reliability was measured using Cronbach Alpha and was between .50 and .70 in examining the scales of team psychological safety and team performance.

The teams that were involved in the research were from one organization. Over 50 teams from various departments of the firm – sales, manufacturing, information technology, accounting – were involved including nine self-managed teams and three cross-functional teams. Selection of team participants was aided by help from the organization’s internal development manager. The level of analysis was groups.

Data presentation of the findings consisted of tables revealing correlations, ANOVA and regression scores. Conclusions were consistent with the research objective.  The author did find support for the one hypothesis for our study: learning behavior in teams is positively associated with team performance.Quantitative results supported the qualitative findings.

The findings of this study provide that added support is needed for team psychological safety beyond employees being receptive to team structures. The awareness of management is critical to creating the environment where team learning develops and support safety which will increase team effectiveness.