1. Group & Organizational Learning

2. Learning Curves
Groups & organizations groups get better at production, the more production they do, with most benefit early on
Developing routines & standard operating procedures to increase efficiency
E.g. Regular meeting times
E.g., Introduction of tools to automate repetitive tasks
Learning task-specific knowledge and skills
E.g., Familiarity effects
Learning team specific knowledge, attitudes & skills
E.g., Learning teammate’s strengths & weaknesses
Learning general teamwork knowledge, attitudes & skills
E.g., How to run a meeting, delegation, planning, info- sharing

3. Learning occurs with production: Empirical learning curves
Reduction in labor hours as cumulative output doubles
Large variability in improvement
Median is 20% decrease with doubling of production
Increase in quality as cumulative output doubles

4. Learning Effects in Automotive
Nov 2017 Consumer reports

5. Learning Effects in Automotive
Nov 2017 Consumer reports

6. Learning Curve: Formula
~20% decrease in cost as cumulative production doubles
Comparable effects in many manufacturing firms
Some evidence for service firms too
Learning curve: Unit cost of production declines with increased production, but at a declining rate
Efficiency or Effectiveness=Constant x Cumulative Production-b
Typically ~20% decrease in cost as cumulative production doubles (with substantial variation)

7. Learning curves happen at multiple levels
Organization/Firm
Factory/Location
Shift within a plant
Work group
Individual worker

8. Surgeons Performing Heart Bypass Surgery
Cardiac surgeons with privileges at multiple hospitals
What is the impact of more experience?
Overall?
Within a hospital
Between hospital
All coronary artery bypass surgeries, PA, 1994
Huckman, R., Pisano, G., Research, D. o., & School, H. B. (2006). The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery. Management Science, 52(4), 473.
Huckman, R., Pisano, G., Research, D. o., & School, H. B. (2006). The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery. Management Science, 52(4), 473.

9. Surgeons Performing Heart Bypass Surgery
Cardiac surgeons with privileges at multiple hospitals
What is the impact of more experience?
Overall?
Within a hospital
Between hospital
All coronary artery bypass surgeries, PA, 1994
Note: Most of the effect occurs when surgeons perform operations in the same hospital
Huckman, R., Pisano, G., Research, D. o., & School, H. B. (2006). The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery. Management Science, 52(4), 473.
Huckman, R., Pisano, G., Research, D. o., & School, H. B. (2006). The Firm Specificity of Individual Performance: Evidence from Cardiac Surgery. Management Science, 52(4), 473.

10. Predicting efficiency of an operation from experience of hospital, team & doctors
Tested in context of total joint replacement surgery groups (hip & elbow)
The more each individual in the team has performed the surgery, the team have performed the surgery together & the more they do this in a hospital that does lots of surgeries, the more quickly the operation goes
Reagans, R., Argote, L., & Brooks, D. (2005). Individual experience and experience working together: Predicting learning rates from knowing who knows what and knowing how to work together. Management Science, 51(6),

11. Joint Replacement Surgery (Reagans, Argote, Brooks, 2005)
Controls are sensible
Operations take longer with older males, hip (vs. elbow) replacement, tumors, complications
Experience improves speed of surgery
Organizational: 100 transplants 18% reduction in time to complete (~34 minutes)
Team: 10 transplants together 5% reduction (~ 10 min)
Individual: Experience increases time for 1st five transplants and then decreases time

12. Familiarity in Software Development
Task familiarity = mean # software changes team members participated in past
Team familiarity = mean # of software changes pairs jointly participated in
DV = Speed to make a change (high = good)

13. When does familiarity help most?
When communication is more difficult
More team members
Geographically distributed teams
When task is smaller (surprise)
Espinosa, J. A., Slaughter, S. A., Kraut, R. E., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2007). Team knowledge and coordination in geographically distributed software development. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(1),

14. Team experience helps flight crews
Measure performance on with complex decisions in simulator
Inexperienced crews = Just formed. Will fly together after the simulation.
Experienced crews = Formed 3 days ago. Have flown together for the past two days.
Working together improves performance, with a larger effect for the more severe errors
(Kanki)
Kanki, B. G., Folk, V. G., & Irwin, C. M. (1991). Communication variations and aircrew performance. International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 1(2),

15. What is it that groups learn from working together?
Use Ginnett reading on flight crews as a source of hypotheses:
Mission – “First priority is to be on time”
Crew-specific norms-e.g., It’s ok to make suggestions to the captain.
Crew-specific routines – “I’d like you to all stay down when I have the signs on in this weather”
“On the way down, I’ll give you 10 minutes on the no-smoking sign”
Trust – “If you have a problem with the passenger back there, anything wrong with the aircraft, let us know, OK?”
Leadership structure/division of labor -E.g, leadership role in cabin; who will do what in cockpit; Tom to fly first leg;
Personal characteristics. Tom’s open style; High quality of Tom’s landing; Greg’s initiative in checking out ground crew to find aircraft
Familiarity w/ equipment – e.g., Review of aircraft log
Chit-chat => social bonding E.g., Complaints abt next month’s bid package; informal discussions during cruise
Planning ways to operate – Chef attendant's suggestion to announce landing & request bathroom break 20 minutes before landing; planning Milwaukee & Columbus descents if Chicago was closed or they were low on fuel; 16

16. What is it that groups learn from working together?
Reprise of Ginnett paper on flight crews:
Explicit expectations about procedures & rationale
Explicit division of labor/hierarchy
Demonstrating personal attributes
Demonstrating positive attributes trust
Development of personal social relationships
Transactive memory: Knowledge of what each crew member is good at
Mission – “First priority is to be on time”
Crew-specific norms-e.g., It’s ok to make suggestions to the captain.
Crew-specific routines – “I’d like you to all stay down when I have the signs on in this weather”
“On the way down, I’ll give you 10 minutes on the no-smoking sign”
Trust – “If you have a problem with the passenger back there, anything wrong with the aircraft, let us know, OK?”
Leadership structure/division of labor -E.g, leadership role in cabin; who will do what in cockpit; Tom to fly first leg;
Personal characteristics. Tom’s open style; High quality of Tom’s landing; Greg’s initiative in checking out ground crew to find aircraft
Familiarity w/ equipment – e.g., Review of aircraft log
Chit-chat => social bonding E.g., Complaints abt next month’s bid package; informal discussions during cruise
Planning ways to operate – Chef attendant's suggestion to announce landing & request bathroom break 20 minutes before landing; planning Milwaukee & Columbus descents if Chicago was closed or they were low on fuel; 17

17. What is it that teams generally learn as they work together?
Learning at both the individual and group levels
Individual manager learns that person A is good with complex problems but, doesn’t finish projects on deadline
Group learning:
Routines: e.g., Aviation checklists
Technology: e.g., Group decides to physically organize so people who coordinate most are close by (NORAD example).
Specific
Task
People
Environment
General teamwork
Ways to organize
Planning
Appropriate amount of communication
Team-appropriate attitudes

18. Speed for new minimally invasive cardiac surgery
Time to complete surgery by hospital experience
Overall learning at hospital level (5% improvement with doubling of # of operations)
Large differences in rate of learning btw hospitals (M goes from 500 minutes to 132, while average is fm 290 minutes to 210))
Pisano, G. P., Bohmer, R. M., & Edmondson, A. C. (2001). Organizational differences in rates of learning: Evidence from the adoption of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Management Science, 47(6),

19. Why did hospital M learn faster than a typical team?
Hospital M learned faster than average
Hospital R learned slower than average
Team hand-picked for training by adopting surgeon based on prior experience working together
Adopting surgeon met with all other surgeons in cardiac unit. Perfusionist met with operating room nurse & anesthesiologist to discuss procedure. Surgeon has weekly discussions with cardiologists.
Initial team performed first 15 operations before any rotation. New team members had to observe 4 & be mentored on 2 before joining.
Adopting surgeon encouraged team coordination (e.g., feedback)
Initial team based on who was available
No attempt to introduce procedure to other clinical groups or meeting to discuss cases ahead of time.
Only 3 of 4 in first operation had training. Turnover in next 6 cases.
Little teamwork. "We don't have any real teams here. It's just who gets assigned on any given day” “The nurses are interchangeable. We know our ‘little jog’ and don’t really know what the other people are doing.
Preparation
Cross dept coordination
Stability
perfusionist [per-fu´zhun-ist] a technologist who operates the heart-lung machine during cardiopulmonary bypass.
Hospital M learns much faster
Team hand-picked for training by adopting surgeon based on prior experience working together
High levels of cross departmental cooperation from the beginning
E.g., Perfusionist met with operating room nurse & anesthesiologist to discuss procedure. Surgeon has weekly discussions with cardiologists.
Early cases carefully managed by adopting surgeon
E.g., Initial team performed first 15 operations before any rotation. New team members had to observe 4 & be mentored on 2 before joining.
Adopting surgeon encouraged cooperation within team
E.g, Adopting surgeon encouraged team feedback
Teamwork

20. Effects of group turnover
Lab experiment – Origami task
Turnover: 3-person groups with constant or changing membership
Teams got better with experience
Experience benefited intact teams more
Argote, L., Insko, C. A., Yovetich, N., & Romero, A. A. (1995). Group learning curves: The effects of turnover and task complexity on group performance. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25(6),

21. Learning roles & responsibilities
Devadas & Argote – Effects of turnover in groups with more or less structure
Lab experiment – Origami task
Turnover: 3-person groups with constant or changing membership
Structure: Group given detailed instructions about role & procedures (structure) or not (no structure)
Turnover harms group with least structure the most
Relative task performance
Rao, R. D., & Argote, L. (2006). Organizational learning and forgetting: The effects of turnover and structure. European Management Review, 3(2), 23

22. Team vs. Individual Level Training
Groups trained to assemble a radio
Subjects trained individually
Or in a group training
Tested in group setting
Group trained together did better than those trained individual
Liang, D., Moreland, R., & Argote, L. (1995). Group versus individual training and group performance: The mediating role of transactive memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21,

23. Argote & Moreland: Subsequent research
Motivation isn’t the cause
People trained individually & then given a group building exercise were no better than people trained alone
Learning to work in teams-in-general isn’t the cause
People trained in one group and then moved to another were no better than people trained alone
Moreland, R. L., Argote, L., & Krishnan, R. (2002). Training people to work in groups. Theory and research on small groups,

24. Argote & Moreland: Subsequent research
Motivation isn’t the cause
People trained individually & then given a group building exercise were no better than people trained alone
Learning to work in teams-in-general isn’t the cause
People trained in one group and then moved to another were no better than people trained alone
Only strong effect comes from training & performing in the same group
Transactive memory seems to be the cause
Groups trained together know each others’ strength & weakness & assign tasks accurately
Moreland, R. L., Argote, L., & Krishnan, R. (2002). Training people to work in groups. Theory and research on small groups,

25. Familiarity is not always positive
Groups can also stagnate: E.g., productivity of a research group peaks after 3-5 years of being together
Katz (1982)
Performance (rated by managers) of 50 R&D teams
Tenure = average time people worked in group.

26. Turnover sometimes brings benefits: Brings new ideas into the group
Six students come to lab for 10 minute intro & split into 3-person training & groups
Knowledge quality: Team trained in efficient (7-fold) or less efficient (12 fold) production
Superordinate identity or not:
Superordinate identity
Subgroup identity
Symbols
Single name, colors & pens for 6-person group
Distinct team names, colors & pens for 3-person team
Location
6 interspersed around table
2 team on different sides of table
Reward interdependence
Subjects got a $10 bonus if 6-person group met quota
Subjects got a $10 bonus if 3-person team met quota
Kane, A. A., Argote, L., & Levine, J. M. (2005). Knowledge transfer between groups via personnel rotation: Effects of social identity and knowledge quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 96(1),

27. Effects on knowledge transfer
A group with a poor strategy will accept better ideas from a new member
But primarily if they see themselves as having a common identity

28. Summary: What teams learn as they work together
Group-specific knowledge
Task
People
Environment
General teamwork
Ways to organize
Planning
Appropriate amount of communication
Team-appropriate attitudes
Learning at both the individual and group levels
Transactive memory: e.g., Individual manager learns that person A is good with complex problems but, doesn’t finish projects on deadline
Group learning:
E.g., Routines such as aviation checklists
Technology: e.g., Group decides to physically organize so people who coordinate most are close by