Power, safety, and uninhibited cognition

Last week, Adrian discussed Edmondson’s (1999) ideas that a shared sense of team psychological safety leads to improved performance through enhanced learning and communication. When team members realize that they can share potentially ill-conceived ideas freely without the fear of sanctions, ideas of all qualities can flow more freely. This cognitive freedom to share contributes to increasing the overall flow of ideas. A high flow of ideas improves inter-team learning and consequently, overall team performance.

Power, as we learned from Keltner (2003), can also lower individuals’ cognitive inhibitions. Individuals with power have the ability to promote their ideas and those that emerge from their environment, and to influence the behavior of others. Accordingly, the empowered have the ability to vet and endorse ideas, and direct action accordingly.

These two different modes of achieving freer cognition are not mutually exclusive. The powerful individuals in a team may set the tone for accepting ideas in their team and accept ideas from all team members. Depending on the leadership’s persuasion towards wide-ranging ideas, they have the ability to set the stage for psychological safety in the group.

Interdepartmental collaboration will affect power and psychological safety dynamics, and consequently the level of uninhibited idea exchange. Each pre-existing team will have an established mode of sharing ideas and implementing ideas. The shift to collaboration will require new rules of engagement.

For the following hypotheses we suggest that Team A and Team B collaborate in the form of Collaboration C:

H1: When Team A has a higher established level of psychological safety and higher relative power (in the organization) compared to Team B, Team A members will provide more ideas in Collaboration C.

H2: When Team A has higher power (in the organization) than Team B, and Team B has more psychological safety than Team A, Team B will contribute few ideas in Collaboration C than Team A.

In the case of the UVa health system where collaboration is falling short of hoped for efficacy, discerning what inhibits idea sharing in terms of safety and power will offer insights towards improving performance. We could conduct structured interviews with individuals in context of their primary team functions and their collaborative functions. Coding for inhibited idea-sharing and the quality of ideas actioned would reveal the differences in both situations. We would also survey the participants to rate team power relative to the organization.

Psychological Safety in Work Teams: Is it Group Trust?

 

In her 1999 article, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, Amy Edmonson introduces the construct of team psychological safety, which she defines as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”  She defines interpersonal risk-taking as, “a sense of confidence that others will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up.”  What differs psychological safety from trust, as it is defined in the literature, is that the former is an inter-group phenomenon, and the latter is (in the literature) interpersonal.   But the definitions and mechanisms described are quite similar. 

 

Rousseau et al. (1998) argue most scholars can agree on a fundamental definition of trust. They noted that "confident expectations" and a "willingness to be vulnerable" are critical components of most definitions of trust (Morrow, Hansen, Pearson, 2004). Consistent with this view, Morrow, Hansen, Pearson (2004) defined trust as the extent to which one believes that others will not act to exploit one's vulnerabilities (Barney and Hansen, 1994; Mayer et al., 1995; McAllister, 1995). 

 

McAllister (1995), for example, explores the nature and functioning of relationships of interpersonal trust among managers and professionals in organizations, the factors influencing trust's development, and shows a positive effect on performance when trust was present in these relationships in an empirical study.  Building on that and other research, Morrow, Hansen, Pearson (2004) argue that trust evolves from a pattern of careful, rational thinking (cognitive-based), coupled with an examination of one's feelings, instincts and intuition (affect-based). 

 

Similarly, Edmonson (1999) writes that a group “will conclude that making a mistake does not lead to rejection when they have had a team experience in which appreciation and interest are expressed in response to discussion of their own and others’ mistakes.” Such shared experiences, occurring over time, create the tacit belief that that the team is a psychologically safe place. The phenomenon Edmonson (1999) describes as psychological safety could arguably be called “group trust,” which would be a development in the trust literature, but it may also be more than that. 

 

Edmonson (1999) observes that psychological safety leads to improved performance through enhanced learning, not necessarily through the combination of individual trust and/or affect.  In her research, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance.

 

Her results support an integrative perspective in which context support/team leader coaching and shared beliefs together shape team performance outcomes.  As the group feels more confident to share information, more information is exchanged and therefore all collective information is more likely to be shared.

 

Edmonson (1999) Psychological Safety Model:

Cognitive reminders to encourage sharing context/coaching ->  Multiple experiences of sharing without consequence -> Psychological safety -> Willingness to share -> Inter-group learning -> Improved performance

 

Trust literatures generally describe the benefits of cognitive trust as increased voluntary collaboration and affective trust as increased information sharing (McAllister,1995). (Note also that trust in economics literatures has also been found through empirical studies to reduce transaction costs by avoiding costly negotiations and contracting (Dyer, 1997; Sako, 1992)).

 

McAllister (1995), Morrow, Hansen, Pearson (2004) Trust Model:

Interactions and cues with other agent provide data, which are processed and the output is:

 

1) Careful, rational thought about the competence of the other and structures in place to protect the self-> Cognitive-based trust -> Trust the evaluated person and actively engage in collaborative work and seek knowledge from him/her

 

2) An examination of one's feelings, instincts and intuitions about the interactions -> Affect-based trust -> Open sharing of sensitive personal information, knowledge sharing, idea sharing

 

Edmonson’s psychological safety model, it could be argued, describes a method for the creation of affective trust, which therefore encourages information sharing, which then leads to increased group performance.  Through that analogy, one may argue that missing from her model is the cognitive-based trust mechanisms.  However, this may be a feature of interpersonal trust which is not able to be generalized when moving from micro to meso trust.  It would be interesting to observe groups that employ psychological safety pre and post employment.  Will there be increases in levels of cognitive trust, which would manifest itself in increased collaboration, in addition to the increased information sharing?

 

Based on Edmonson’s work, the UVAHS could benefit from employing psychological safety into its groups.  We would like to propose a grounded study in which we and observe and report on current group interaction, introduce Edmonson’s psychological safety methods, and observe to see if improvements occur and (if they do) whether the improvements come from increased learning through affect, and if we are able to observe any improvements in cognitive trust as well.  If we observe measures of both cognitive and affective in a collective “group trust” we may bring the field one step closer to solving the mystery of local versus generalized trust as posed by Kramer and Cook (2004) – why do people generally trust their doctor, but not doctors in general?  Or, in the context of one of the health system’s problems, “Why do doctors trust their department, but not the health system in general?”

Adversity and Collaboration

Teams that organize to realize certain objective are often faced with unforeseen obstacles, constraints and roadblocks. These obstacles can be viewed as a form of adversity, and may create a watershed moment where a team decides to forge ahead or abandon existing efforts. When teams experience adverse conditions, what makes some teams galvanize together to overcome and persevere and others, to diminish and fall short of its objectives? Said differently, what role can adversity play in promoting or diminishing collaboration?

Latene, Eckman and Joy (1996) found that participants who experienced adverse conditions together (in the form of electric shock) tended to demonstrate greater interpersonal affect one with another than the control group that did not experience the treatments. Elder and Clipp (1988) studied military combat units and found that extreme adversity, losing friends during combat, prolonged personal ties some 40 years later. Casciaro and Lobo (2008) demonstrated a relationship between interpersonal affect and work partner exchange. From these findings, one may conclude that under certain conditions, adversity may lead to greater interpersonal affect and thus greater team member exchange.

In past literature, we have discussed how collective identity can promote collaboration. In fact some researchers (Parsons) have defined collaboration as “identification” and “coordination.” We believe that is the strength of collective identity that creates the conditions by which adversity can have a magnifying effect on collaboration. We assert that adversity will moderate the influence of identity. In others words, depending on the strength of the group identity, adversity will either decrease or increase collaboration.

H:1a
When collective identity is strong, adversity will enhance collaboration.

H:2
When collective identity is weak, adversity will diminish collaboration.


Methods:

Experiment I
In this study, we would evaluate collaboration, as measured by co-authored publications, among cohorts from various PhD programs. More specifically, we would compare paper output from programs with varying degrees of adversity. For example, the Wharton Economics PhD program has a higher than usual wash-out rate where two out of three students are expelled from the program before completion. We would employ a mechanism to measure collective identity among cohorts, moderate for wash out rate and compare co-authored publications among the same cohort.

Experiment II
We would employ the same mechanism to measure collective identity of surgery units within the Health System. Next, we collect patient casualty rates and evaluate this data as a moderating affect to see if collaboration improves over time. If a team has a strong collective identity, and higher than usual casualty rates, because of the predicted effect of adversity on collaboration, we would expect rates to improve. If a surgery unit has a relatively weak collective identity and higher causality rates, we expect casualty rates to remain the same or deteriorate. In this experiment would need to control for groups that do not experience high levels of adversity.

The Effects of Beneficiary Exposure on Interdepartmental Collaboration

Grant, Campbell, Chen, Cottone, Lapedis, and Lee (2007) showed that employees are willing to maintain their motivation when their work is relationally designed to provide opportunities for respectful contact with the beneficiaries of their efforts.

Our hypothesis is: Interdepartmental groups will more effectively collaborate when they are exposed to common beneficiaries.

If confirmed, our hypothesis could be an important development for Grant etal.’s research and contribute to the literature. Many industries in which there is high specialization in departments and for which client contact is not necessarily the norm may see an increase in collaboration. (Some examples include: investment banks; hospitals/healthcare clinics; and hotels/restaurants).

We think this could be especially relevant in the Health System (both the effect of the beneficiary contact and the import of the research) given human lives are the beneficiaries. Grant etal. (2007) showed this through their confirmation of Hypothesis 3: We predicted that task significance moderates the effect of contact with beneficiaries on persistence. When individuals are working on significant, high-impact tasks, they are aware that their efforts have the potential to benefit or harm other people. Accordingly, they are likely to invest additional time and energy in their efforts in order to benefit these people.

Data collection A, Positive/Reflexive (TBD): Ryan mentioned research showed that groups in which all departments were exposed to clients showed more willingness to collaborate interdepartmentally than when all departments had not been exposed to clients. This data will be looked at more carefully.

Data collection B, Reflexive: Andrew’s research with the Batten Institute contains data from at least one of the entrepreneurs studied that he was able to successfully improve interdepartmental performance by sharing feedback from a disappointed customer. The customer had ordered M&M’s with a personal message for a son’s birthday, and the order had arrived a day late. The mother expressed how upset her son was that his birthday was negatively effected by the tardy delivery. The entrepreneur then realized that his company did not merely manufacture personalized M&M’s, but something more important- happiness. He shared the story of this mother and her son with employees, and performance improved. This indicates there is probably value in looking back at the Batten data to see if other analogous stories are already collected. At the very least it indicates the potential to reexamine this entrepreneur’s organization and perhaps to interview other employees to see if they felt that the beneficiary exposure helped collaboration.

Data collection C, Positive: In order to test the hypothesis using positive methods, we ideally would propose recreating the experiment used to test Hypothesis 3 in Grant etal (2007) with a shift in emphasis from individual performance to group performance. Given the complexity of that experiment, however, perhaps we could use the Health System as research subjects and collect enough data to draw conclusions. We propose arranging meetings for representatives from all the relevant departments (to be determined when we have the full scope of the UVAHS organization) with patients. (Through prior healthcare experience, the allocation of patients to non-physician and nurse employees is through alphabetical assignment). It may be unethical to use a control group which is not exposed to patients. Thus, we hope to be able to get a sense of the control through interviews with managers who will be able to evaluate pre and post performance. (Generally healthcare facilities track data closely, and we may already have the control group benchmarks established, again this will be established when we have more of the data for the project).

If proven correct, one way to improve interdepartmental collaboration in the UVA Health System will be to expose representatives from each department to specific medical cases going forward.

How can the study of cognition – specifically integrative complexity – affect our understanding of effective interdepartmental collaboration?

When Individuals need to collaborate across departmental lines to achieve otherwise unattainable goals, the collaborators have the incentive to be receptive to the needs of all involved. That receptivity is higher in those who are integratively complex. Until recently, the literature generally agreed that a person’s ability to make informed decisions based on assimilating a broad range of (or complex) perspectives led to better outcomes than in situations relying on a narrow (or simple) perspective.

Tetlock, Peterson, & Berry (1993) delved into the dichotomous nature of integratively complex & simple dispositions that people have. They linked weaknesses underlying the positive attributes that being complex often conveys.

For example, integratively complex individuals tend to be excessively receptive to competing points of view which often leads to being unable to make decisions. The corollary is that these individuals exhibit disagreeableness. This singular fact has ramifications on the success of collaborations. Disagreeableness can undermine a collaboration’s success.

The question we would like to explore is whether the disagreeableness that lurks behind integratively complex dispositions impedes collaborations’ performance. With Weick’s advice in mind, academic research provides a microcosm to investigate the complexity and disagreeableness in a collaborative setting. The nature of academic research – particularly in social sciences – with its overarching complexity requires that researchers have the ability to assimilate, evaluate, and integrate broad views on many phenomena. Simultaneously, academics have a long history of collaborating when creating new knowledge, which is exemplified by researchers sharing authorship on published papers. Disagreeableness has the propensity to undermine collaboration and the combinatorial power of integratively complex approach to generating new knowledge.

Therefore we posit that:
H1 – Published social scientists demonstrate integratively complex cognitive abilities.
H2 – Social scientists whose disagreeableness overpowers the benefits of collaboration (i.e. authors papers alone) will publish papers cited less frequently than those who can collaborate across disciplinary boundaries.

Methods:
Mining Google scholar and EBSCOhost:
We would select a set of social science journals to form our core data set.

To address H1:
From that set we would look at the reference sections and gauge the level of interdisciplinary works drawn upon to establish the author(s) level of integrative complexity. We could build a index from the number of citations in the paper and their distance from the journal topic. That would establish whether researchers are complex or not.

To address H2:
We would collect the number of authors per paper and interdiscplinary range over a given period in a select set of social science journals. We would then compare the number of authors of each paper to the number of subsequent citations for each paper to gauge its comparative success.

Emotion
This week’s readings elucidate how affect contributes to the organizing process. From Sigal, we learn that individual affect can influence collective affect and promote improved collaboration and perceived task performance. This research was performed at the individual level and measures were taken to ensure that the confederate was not perceived as a leader. Due to power, distance and formal authority, leaders are uniquely positioned to have more influence on a team than any one member.

Hypothesis 1
Leadership affect will moderate interdepartmental collaboration, measured by identification and coordination, more so than a non-leader’s affect.

Worline et al. and Martin introduce the concept of affect as a dominant organizing principle. While affect was integral to both organizations, the degree of authentic affect seemed to differentiate the two. This led us to consider the relationship between affect authenticity and impact on collaboration. If as some studies have show, disingenuous affect can be discerned, it may be less likely to promote collaboration than authentic affect.

Hypothesis 2
Authentic leadership affect will moderate interdepartmental collaboration, measured by identification and coordination, more so than perceived disingenuous leadership affect.

Methods
For the first hypothesis, we would employ a similar methodology as Sigal and utilize actors to measure individual affect. We would modify the study by introducing the leadership variable. In one of the studies, we would designate a formal leader and compare her affect influence to that of the individual confederate’s.
In the second study, we would deploy a survey immediately following a leader’s presentation around a critical change initiative (We would need to select situations that are emotionally charged). After the meeting we would ask questions around two dimensions. (1)How authentic was the leader’s affect and (2) how likely are you to collaborate to achieve the advocated change. We would then measure the correlation.

The Effects of High Cognitive Uncertainty on Effective Collaboration in a Post Merger Setting

In, “A distributed cognition perspective on newcomers' change processes: The management of cognitive uncertainty in two investment banks,” A. Alexandra Michel shows that in an investment banking setting, a bank which amplified cognitive uncertainty created a collective-centric organization. As she writes, “because demands exceeded individuals’ cognitive capacity, bankers used organizational resources to solve problems inductively.” Based on her conclusions, the implicit assumption is that when cognitive uncertainty is intermittent, or absent, organizations will tend to be less group-oriented in their approach to problem solving, more individualistic, and, logically, less effective at collaboration. Groups with high cognitive uncertainty problem solve inductively and will harness resources across the group more effectively.

Another implicit claim is that if cognitive uncertainty is high enough, and participants feel that solving problems is outside the realm of their own skill set, they are less likely to satisfice, and more likely to collaborate to solve problems, and therefore more likely to have better decision outcomes. Similarly, high levels of cognitive uncertainty imply low levels of taxonomic classification and, presumably, diverse member skillsets are more highly leveraged – the point of view of another member is more valued than it would be otherwise.

In other words, groups with low levels of cognitive uncertainty close off potential outcomes. As Frank Knight writes, “Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of Risk, from which it has never been properly separated…It will appear that a measurable uncertainty, or 'risk' proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an unmeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all." If the future is completely unpredictable, as Knight would argue, cognitive certainty is an artifice that ignorantly presume omniscient knowledge on the part of the manager (or organization). Any attempt to reduce cognitive uncertainty, in Knightean terms, implies the ability to predict the future. The optimal solution may be unintentionally closed off, or muted by the restriction of options.

Our question in this installment of the post merger integration blog is what about the case in which two organizations have merged together? This case adds some complexities that Michel’s does not possess. Knight would argue that it doesn’t matter. Any attempt by a leader to control the group norms would result in the reduction of potential value of the group. In effect, through directing, a manager would reduce organizing, and potentially limit or interfere with sensemaking.

One hypothetical situation is that when two cultures come together, the groups may come into a new situation with bounded senses of cognitive uncertainty to a certain degree. While they may not know what the new group norms are, they know what the norms from their legacy institutions were. Ironically, in this case, high levels of cognitive uncertainty from a legacy organization could become a norm. If I expect high levels of uncertainty in the newly formed organization, I am clinging to a norm, and thereby my cognitive uncertainty which was high in the old organization is lowered in the new one. Another practical complication is that without some cognitive certainties, a group formed by two organizations may never integrate. That is to say, if it isn’t forced on the members, they may not ever feel the need to do it.

This could imply that in a post merger setting some of what researchers argued that organizations should reduce cognitive uncertainty to compensate for bounded rationality (March and Simon, 1958) may apply. In other words, unless I tell the groups they have to integrate they may never do it (at the worst) and potentially will waste time while integrating (at the best). The research we have seen in ingroup/outgroup psychology could support this hypothesis through the fact that a merger creates groups that may have not been present pre merger through the creation of “legacy x” and “legaxy y” identities. For example, when two companies that operated with high degrees of uncertainty pre-merger (and presumably have low levels of “within group similarity of attitudes, understanding, and language” (Weick and Roberts, 1993: 358) the legacy orientation creates group identities that may need to be broken down externally by managers to re-establish high levels of cognitive uncertainty.

We are interested in testing Michel’s thesis in a post merger environment. Our experiment will be to take two highly functioning teams prescreened as operating with high levels of cognitive uncertainty. (In some ways this could be simply a newly formed group). The premise of the experiment would be to have the groups complete a game separately and then split the groups in half and create merged groups of equal representation in terms of numbers and ability from each legacy group to repeat the same game. We would tell one group that they have to collaborate with members from both legacy groups as well as tell them who from the previous round performed best on the task and which team scored higher than the other. We would tell the other merged group nothing and observe both groups as they complete the same game for the second time. (A repeated game would simulate Michel’s pitch process in that it is a highly repeated activity in which performance can be improved upon with collaboration. Disclosing scores would simulate the “star culture” she outlines in the case of Red Bank).

Our hypothesis is that the unprimed (i.e. group with the highest degree of cognitive uncertainty) will perform better on the repeated game than that which was given some reductions in cognitive uncertainty. Our theory is that best practices and individual performances which were present pre-merger will still be present post-merger, but that highlighting them in one group will stifle lessons learned from the previous iteration and the emergence of new talents which were not present in the first iteration. This structure could be repeated with numerous groups to generate statistically relevant data, using scores on the game as a proxy for performance. Or we could approach ethnographically, and observe a smaller number of groups, thereby yielding comparative data to that of Michel’s. Both methods have merit in their ability to test this theory.

Leadership

Waldman et al. found indications that charismatic leadership has a positive influence on organization performance in times of uncertainty. The process leading to this positive macro effect has remained defiant of fitting into a concise model. Perhaps focusing on charismatic leadership effects at a micro level, specifically on team collaboration performance in a post-merger integration setting, may reveal insights to charismatic leadership’s overall ability to improve organizational performance.

In an effort to posit a model of how charismatic leadership influences on collaborative performance in an uncertain environment, we have drawn on Weick’s research of sensemaking’s role in overcoming ambiguity and generating action. Given that sensemaking activities tend to lead to action and specifically improvement of action over time (Weick et al 2005), and that charismatic leadership is coupled with meaning and sensemaking (Podolny et al 2005), we propose the following hypothesis:

In the uncertain environment of PMI, charismatic leadership will moderate a collaborative group’s sensemaking activities. This moderation of sensemaking will drive improvement in the collaboration’s performance.


Conversely, the investigation of team collaboration during post-merger integration has the possibility of addressing charismatic leadership’s impact. Given that collaborative groups have the ability to make sense of their ambiguous situations. It would be interesting to see if an autonomous collaboration’s sensemaking process actualizes an emergent leader – as opposed to having one mandated from corporate management – and how that emergent leadership further influences future sensemaking.

Proposition: A performance enhancing leader will emerge in a newly formed collaborative team that has not been assigned a designated charismatic leader. .

Research model:
A qualitative study to research charismatic leaders’ effect on sensemaking to improve collaborative performance would fill a gap in the literature.

The ideal set-up to would be to take regular qualitative snapshots of two teams’ narrative starting with announcement of the merger and ending with the dissolution of the teams afterPMI has concluded.

First we must control for company culture because each group variation will have a certain bias in making sense of the post-merger integration outcome. There are several different variations of collaborative groups formed during post-merger integration. For example, Company A takes over Company CE and the merged company, ACE, is formed. Teams may be 1) all A members; 2) all B members; 3) mixed members with A culture dominating; 4) mixed members with CE culture dominating; 5) mixed members with no clear domination.

We could choose two similar teams for example number 3: mixed members with A culture dominating. One team would be subject to charismatic leadership input and the second would have no leadership inputs and be left to develop their own story. We would capture the team members’ narrative at the merger announcement and at one month intervals. We would compare the teams’ sensemaking of the ambiguity and then measure overall performance using metrics similar to the following:
• Delivery performance on the basis of requested vs. actual outputs
• Reduced costs stemming from collaboration outputs
• Collaboration’s perception of its increase in value add during PMI

Sense Making and Collaboration

Karl Weick’s seminal work on sense making has had significant impact on the field of micro organizational behavior. In his research with Sutcliffe and Obstfeld (2005), he extends this framework to include the macro OB activity of organizing and details the role that sense making plays in the process. In a PMI context, sense making may contribute to the activity of collaboration and the successful integration of an acquired entity.

Weick et al. asserts that “communication is a central component of sense making.” Articulation culminates the antecedent activities of” noticing, bracketing, labeling” with a propensity for action. According to the process laid out by Weick et al., a merged team, left to their own devices, will methodically move through the process of sense making and may eventually collaborate (or not collaborate) to achieve a certain outcome. We posit that the process may be expedited through directive communication. In other words, by facilitating the process of sense making through the communication of a plausible story, team effectiveness, as measured by time to achieve results, will improve.

• Hypothesis I: Directive sense making in a PMI context will moderate the timing of the results of a collaborative effort.
  

Plausibility is an important factor in an organizations’ ability to engage in “sense making.” Is not the about getting the story right but rather, making interpretations that are congruent with the current environmental and social cues that sustains motivation. How does an individual or team respond when plausibility is questioned or when a narrative conflicts with environmental cues? We submit that story incongruence may lead to undesired outcomes such as diminished morale and increased employee resistance.

• Hypothesis II: Incongruent narratives in a PMI context will reduce collaboration as measured by employee morale and resistance.
  

Methods:
For this research, we propose using Darden learning teams to test our hypotheses. In the case of directive communication, we would time the outcome of two teams, one where we provide a narrative and the other that allows the team to develop its own.

In the second case, we would study two learning teams, one where we provide an oral narrative that is congruent with the case study that we have provided and the other where we provide an oral narrative that contradicts some aspects of what members of the team have just read. Upon completion of the exercise, we would measure team satisfaction and the levels of resistance. It would also be interesting to measure and compare team performance.

Entry number 2, week 3 – Identity in a Post Merger Environment and its Effects on Collaboration

Our group has elected to carry over an idea from last week and think more about it within the context of identity literature. We remain intrigued with the prospect of harnessing the strong bonds formed in the Darden MBA learning teams to test hypotheses in a post merger context.

One thing that occurred to us this week is that the data source may be leading our research a bit. Some of the research around identity is based on the presupposition that people behave in certain ways to advance their careers. For example, Ibarra suggested that one adjusts one’s identity to take on the characteristics of successful superiors in order to succeed in a new role. Clearly a post merger environment presents fertile ground for inquiry around this topic. However, with a Darden learning team there is no “promotion” dynamic. There is also a defined end point. The learning team’s primary function is output and collaboration for one year.

If we are focused on exploring what we can learn about personality, identity and collaboration in a post merger context leveraging the learning teams, clearly there is a distinction in our inquiry that we need to make at this point. Our research (assuming it is based on Darden learning teams) is somewhat constrained by the subject base. It should yield insights into collaboration in a post merger environment. It potentially will yield new insights into the impacts of collective or group identity on group performance. To the extent that identity exploration is tied to career advancement psychologically, it may not yield new insights into identity experimentation because learning team members are not operating with a longer-term perspective[1]. However, it may show that that any number of factors (image, reputation, stereotypes) in a post merger context influences team identity and thus individual identity.

There are two valuable outcomes from this dynamic. The first is that there is value in the exercise, for us and for others potentially. The artifact of this blog may be valuable to future students as they think through research structure. The second is that constraints provided by restricting our pool of data have forced us to focus our area of inquiry.

Thus, we will attempt to apply some of the implications from this week’s reading on identity to further hone our expected outcomes from a study involving merging Darden learning teams. But we won’t attempt to apply all of them.

In “Who Is This “We”? Levels of Collective Identity and Self Representations”, Brewster and Gardner highlight a distinction between group identities that are “based on common bonds (attachment to other group members) and those based on common identity (collective identities).” (Prentice, Miller, and Lightdale, 1994) We hypothesize that both versions may already be present in our MBA learning teams. Therefore we could screen for preexisting identity constructs. A questionnaire, which probes for the respondent’s view of how the learning team views itself and how he/she views his/herself within the learning team could be effective. This questionnaire could simply read:

1. Name and learning team number:
2. Do you feel your learning team has a collective identity? (yes or no)
3. Would you say that you identify yourself in relation to the other members of your team as A: a functional participant (i.e. the “accounting person,” the “scheduling person,” “the high energy member,” etc.), B: simply a member of learning team X, or C: none of the above

The research suggests that group/self identity framing could be manipulated by priming research subjects with language and experiment setup (Ibarra 1999, Brewer & Gardner 1996, etc). Thus, an alternative would be to prime our respondents by writing three different introductions to the experiment: one in which the individual is highlighted (heavy use of individual words, your objective is x, you need to show that you can y, etc.); one in which the interpersonal is highlighted (i.e. dividing the group into functional roles); and one in which the collective is highlighted (heavy use of team-oriented phrase structure, and emphasis on framing learning team x versus another learning team). Each member of a learning team would be given the same version and instructed to read it together (or alone depending on our intent for priming) before the experiment began.

Our inclination is to employ priming for this study. One reason is that since MBA students are taught to think critically, they may read into the intent of the screening questionnaire. The literature this week argues that people switch between identity framing based on the environment presented, and we may unintentionally tap into this. A second issue with a screening questionnaire is that if participants fill them out alone, they could tend to skew respondents towards framing the exercise within the individual sense of self. If we ask teams to fill them out in a group setting, the opposite would be true. In essence, the context of the questionnaire is a form of priming, and a weaker form than we should be able to design intentionally.

An interesting dynamic the learning teams also provide is that most of them will have well-defined group roles, which will have been formed and tested over an intense period of months. Ideally we can observe the groups and note roles in a pre test and then observe if roles are maintained in a merged environment. Additionally, we may observe changes in personality in a post merger environment. An outgoing participant may become introverted in a new environment. Similarly, a participant who was overshadowed in an old construct may blossom in a new one.

These musings suggest that we may be most effective using an inductive, grounded theory development process (Glasser and Strauss, 1967, Eisenhart, 1989). While we will have ingoing hypotheses that would lend themselves to quantitative testing, the opportunity to have a group of subjects whom we could observe every night over a period of months would indicate that observation would yield some rich data. (We could also introduce a pre and post questionnaire to get a sense of how participants felt things “changed” in the post merger environment).

This study becomes more complicated when we introduce ideas of company name identity (through naming of the merged entity) and collective/self identity. Clearly both will have effects on group interaction in a post merger environment, and both could yield valuable insights for managers. More of this will become clear in later weeks when we explore issues around culture and power & politics.

Our hypotheses (informed by the literature and objective thought) are based on the notion that the name of the merged entity will have direct effects on post merger collaboration in a team setting. Specifically, we believe that the way a learning team is named will have an effect on how the members view themselves in relation to those outside the group. When collective identities are present, in-group, out-group categorizations become the most significant basis for categorizing others (Shih, etal., 1999). This categorization effect will lead to the designation of control of the merged entity, and thereby potentially hinder the performance of some members in the group – specifically those who are identified as “acquired”.[2] We also expect that categorizations by the acquiring group of the acquired as “other” and vice versa will discourage collaboration.

Specifically, we hypothesize that:

1. Members from the team that gets to “keep” its name (i.e. the acquirer) will tend to contribute more to meetings and potentially dominate them at the expense of the value of ideas from the acquired. We will test this with collective, relative and individual framing to see if they have an effect.
2. Members of the team that takes the combined name will show similar legacy issues as the first scenario. We will also test this with collective, relative and individual framing to see if they have an effect.
3. The teams that are renamed with no legacy frame of reference will establish new structures, roles, identities, and will collaborate more effectively.

Assuming it would be difficult to convince CEOs of companies with significant brand equity, it would be very interesting to try multiple scenarios with hypothesis A to test around how managers could potentially use framing or priming techniques to break down collective identities before initiating post-merger integration. If documents and corporate emails, etc. informing employees emphasize the individual self, perhaps collective identities can be suppressed at the company level (at least temporarily until the new groups have formed and new organizing activities have stabilized).

Unfortunately we would not be able to observe these dynamics over a significant period of time. Our conclusions, therefore will have to be either framed around the forming of new groups in a post merger environment, or (ideally) there will be secondary literature which can offer predictive information about what early group dynamics imply for the longer term.

However, if we can allow the groups to remain together for multiple sessions we may be able to make some conclusions about how they would function going forward. (One option could be to allow members to defect after the initial meeting, which could be used to draw inferences about HSM’s and LSM’s depending on who defects). Regardless, a few sessions of observation and one session of post-merger group task should provide some interesting data with which we can inform future inquiry.

Perhaps next week we can look at identity construction research and combine it with next week’s theme (culture) to think about those two and their effects on collaboration in a post merger environment. It was intriguing to imagine how personality differences (specifically high/low EI and HSM/LSM) would impact collaboration in a post merger environment when cultural assimilation is an important/valued skill.

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[1] Ibarra’s provisional self process could be present despite the learning team’s short lifespan and lack of promotion drive. The promotion equivalent in learning comes in the form of improved grades/comprehension that could be spurred on by students interacting differently with their peers, e.g. taking lead in conversations, deferring leadership to others. It’s not inconceivable that individual selves may converge towards a team model.

[2] An arbitrary merger between two groups could possibly be too transparent of a construct for these MBAs because they may see through the game. Therefore there should be some form of pre-conceived power assignments ascribed to the ‘acquiring’ team. For example, the team that performed better on an assigned task could be inconspicuously labeled the “acquiring” company. This would add another element of realism to the construct. Alternatively, we could pre assign logical reasons as to “why” a merger was undertaken. I.e. team X acquired team Y specifically for person Z from team Y, or team Y was acquired due to poor management practices and team X intends to apply its market-proven formulae. In many real cases, employees will be acutely aware of these details due to the roles financial journalism plays in communicating merger logic.

Personal differences and collaboration in a post-merger integration

Current research on individual differences offers the opportunity to inform how employees may achieve effective collaboration during post merger integration.

Individuals play a significant role in determining whether a merger will be successful. Given that many mergers fail to provide lasting shareholder value (Aley and Siegel 1998), studying individual differences could help elucidate aspects of where mergers go wrong. A great deal of work has been done in the area of effective collaboration. Some scholars have focused on process and structure (Thomas 2005, and Hardy, Lawrance, & Grant 2005) while others have examined individual team composition and disposition.

Researchers have debated the ability to measure disposition and its affect on business dynamics. Kilduff and Day (1994) discuss how high self monitors are capable of acting in a manner that supports their ability to earn more promotions than their low self monitoring counterparts. Gaining understanding of how high self monitors use their skills to communicate as they work their way up the corporate ladder has the possibility of informing how to allocate managerial resources during post-merger integration. Analyzing individual dispositions, team makeup and corresponding levels of collaboration may also shed light on the subject.

Conversely, Davis-Blakee and Pfeffer (1989) argued that dispositional research as it relates to organizations was flawed. If dispositional research is unfruitful in studying collaboration, one might consider the structural and process oriented constructs that elicit the greatest collaboration. Are their structures, incentives, and processes that are more effective than others in achieving high levels of collaboration? This ongoing debate offers a number of ideological fields that remain untrodden.




Collaboration in a newly organized merged organization requires employee and manager flexibility. It would be interesting to see if there is a Stockholm Syndrome effect during a merger. Stockholm Syndrome is when an abducted person identifies with their captor and acquiesces to the captor’s wishes (Bejerot, 1974). Is the employee flexibility one sided? Does the power associated with acquiring company affect employee behavior?

By looking at collaborative patterns in a post-merger integrated company, we could see if being acquired (versus acquiring another company) has a discernable effect on personal preferences on either side of the merger. Such findings would shed light on perceived power’s effect on successful integration as well when mergers can modulate employee personality.

In light of our recent readings and subsequent group discussion, the following are two potential areas for further exploration and development:

Research project A
Hypothesis: High self monitors are able to modify their behavior and communicate with diverse groups which will give themselves an advantage to benefit during the post-merger integration process. Cross company teams with high self monitors will have a higher quality of collaboration than those without high self monitors. (Management teams will collaborate better than technical teams because HSM tend to be in management and LSM tend to be in technical areas.)

We suggest collecting survey data at the initial stages of a merger and six months post integration.
We would engage with both companies’ HR to share a online survey tool with a vertical selection of employees. Each company would have the incentive to participate because of the success/failure data that we would generate.

The initial survey would set a base-line for expectations of the merger. Questions regarding development expectations, past career development within the firm, and motivators would allow us to quantify employee’s propensity for high or low self monitoring.

The post integration questionnaire would assess the employees’ realization of their expectations and ask for any expectation revisions for the short to medium term. We would also ask employees about interaction with new company employees (in relation to own company employees) and rate ease of collaborating and successfully progressing towards assigned goals.

Analyzing and comparing the two sets of data would show how high self motivators facilitate merged teams.


Research project B:
Hypothesis: The acquired company employees will tend to adopt the culture of the acquiring company which will lead to more collaborative success.

Again we’d use the survey technique through the HR of both companies; one right at the beginning and one after six months. The questions would elicit characteristics of the company’s culture, collaborative strategies, and the employees’ expectations of the integration process.
The second questionnaire would ask for a new assessment of the culture and collaborative strategies in the new environment and also ask for employees’ assessment of the current reality in reference to initial expectations.

The two sets of data would show whether the acquired company employee’s had adopted the culture of their captors and if the collaborative strategies had changed.