Browsing by Author "Kou, Chia-Yu"
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Item Open Access A dialogic perspective on managing knowledge differences: problem-solving while building a nuclear power plant safety system(Sage, 2021-12-30) Kou, Chia-Yu; Harvey, SarahTo manage knowledge differences, existing research has documented two sets of practices: traversing and transcending knowledge boundaries. What research has yet to explore, however, is the dynamics through which traversing or transcending practices emerge in response to a particular problem situation. Using a qualitative, inductive study of the problem episodes encountered by groups of experts working on a large-scale project to build the safety system for a nuclear power plant, we observed that the emergence of traversing or transcending depended on how experts interpreted problems and initiated dialogues around specific problems. Our work provides insight into the condition through which knowledge integration trajectories may emerge.Item Embargo Individual resilience in a volatile work environment(Palgrave Macmillan, 2023-09-01) Ong, Isabel; Kou, Chia-YuThis chapter is set out to understand the way in which individuals build and maintain their resilience when facing a volatile work environment. We studied this question qualitatively in an S&P 500 company where the company faced major business changes during a time when employees faced work-related restrictions. We described practices that individuals do to maintain or inhibit their psychological resilience. Interestingly, we found that individuals were able to adopt positive framing of the situation across tenure, seniority levels, and involvement in the business change. We also found that the inhibitor for individuals to reframe their situation was related to being unable to rest. Increased working hours and a lack of work-life boundaries inhibited individuals’ pathways to resilience. Building on the findings, the chapter will conclude with managerial implications. First, the findings highlight that both direct managers and senior managers play an important role in shaping individuals’ meaning-making processes, and their narratives could encourage subordinates to demonstrate optimism around the challenge. Second, organizations can consider interventions such as instituting long and short breaks, and mindfulness training to mitigate the negative impact from lack of rest.Item Open Access Team boundary spanning in a large engineering project(SAGE, 2020-12-10) Kou, Chia-YuThis paper reports on a qualitative study of how 12 work teams and a project-management team spanned their boundaries in a large engineering project. The study identified two types of boundary-spanning activities. Project-level managers carried out receptive activities in which they spanned boundaries vertically, adapted their management practices, and attuned themselves to the teams. Team-level managers’ activities, on the other hand, were reactive: they spanned boundaries vertically and horizontally when they needed to, and made informal connections to peer teams and project-level management. These findings underscore the important role of team boundary-spanning activities in the shape of subsequent inter-team interactions.Item Open Access We hold ourselves accountable: a relational view of team accountability(Springer, 2021-11-18) Stewart, Virginia R.; Snyder, Deirdre G.; Kou, Chia-YuAccountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation.