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Explorative and Exploitative Learning in Teams: Unpacking the Antecedents and Consequences
Kai Zhao1, Boqiang Zong1, Lihua Zhang1
1Department of Human Resource Management, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Frontiers in Psychology
|September 14, 2020
Summary
Team leaders
Area of Science:
- Organizational Behavior
- Team Dynamics
- Learning Science
Background:
- Organizations increasingly use team structures for competitive advantage.
- Teams face paradoxical demands: innovation (explorative learning) and efficiency (exploitative learning).
- Limited understanding exists on fostering team ambidextrous learning and its impact on effectiveness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how ambidextrous leader behaviors facilitate team explorative and exploitative learning.
- To examine the distinct contributions of explorative and exploitative learning to team effectiveness.
- To understand the mediating mechanisms linking these learning types to performance.
Main Methods:
- Utilized multi-time and multi-source data from 140 teams across 6 Chinese companies.
- Employed quantitative analysis to assess relationships between leadership behaviors, learning, and team outcomes.
- Focused on leader power sharing and management control as key ambidextrous behaviors.
Main Results:
- Ambidextrous leader behaviors (power sharing and management control) positively influence team explorative and exploitative learning.
- Team explorative learning enhances team effectiveness through improved creativity.
- Team exploitative learning boosts team effectiveness via efficient task completion.
Conclusions:
- Ambidextrous leadership is crucial for balancing exploration and exploitation within teams.
- Distinct learning orientations contribute uniquely to different facets of team performance.
- Findings offer insights for developing effective team leadership and learning strategies.
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