Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2009
  • Chapter
  • Exploring Positive Identities and Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation

Collaboration Across Knowledge Boundaries within Diverse Teams: Reciprocal Expertise Affirmation as an Enabling Condition

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Kate Roloff and Lucy H. MacPhail
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

We review research on expertise diversity, psychological safety, team collaboration, and role identity to propose a model in which reciprocal affirmations of expertise identity among team members—a feature of the team environment that we conceptualize as a dimension of team psychological safety—moderates the relationship between expertise diversity and collaboration across disciplinary or knowledge-based boundaries. We argue that mixed expertise teams in which members must work together across knowledge boundaries to accomplish challenging goals will be more likely to collaborate effectively if each individual member perceives that his or her expert identity, defined broadly to encompass disciplinary and other primary sources of role identification within the work context, is validated and valued by other team members. Reciprocal expertise affirmation is further hypothesized to be necessary but not sufficient for collaboration across expertise divides within diverse teams. We propose that conceptualizing reciprocal expertise affirmation as a dimension of psychological safety is a promising avenue through which to integrate positive identity with existing theory on interpersonal collaboration. Psychological safety is expected to reduce identity threats that may otherwise arise in diverse expertise contexts, encouraging open discussion of uncertainty, confusion, and mistakes and supporting learning across disciplinary boundaries. This lens on positive identity and collaboration exposes new opportunities for research on the role of positive identity as a moderator of multidisciplinary work processes within defined task groups.

Keywords

Interpersonal Communication; Experience and Expertise; Learning; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Groups and Teams; Familiarity; Identity; Cooperation

Citation

Edmondson, Amy C., Kate Roloff, and Lucy H. MacPhail. "Collaboration Across Knowledge Boundaries within Diverse Teams: Reciprocal Expertise Affirmation as an Enabling Condition." In Exploring Positive Identities and Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, edited by Laura M. Roberts and Jane E. Dutton, 311–332. Psychology Press, 2009.

About The Author

Amy C. Edmondson

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • January–February 2023
    • Harvard Business Review

    Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition: Offer Your People More Than Just Flexibility

    By: Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmondson
    • November 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Executive Decision-Making at Zola

    By: Amy C. Edmondson and Michael Roberto
    • July 2022 (Revised November 2022)
    • Faculty Research

    Building a Mishap-Free U.S. Navy

    By: Amy C. Edmondson, Herman B. Leonard, Michael W. Toffel and Michael Norris
More from the Authors
  • Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition: Offer Your People More Than Just Flexibility By: Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmondson
  • Executive Decision-Making at Zola By: Amy C. Edmondson and Michael Roberto
  • Building a Mishap-Free U.S. Navy By: Amy C. Edmondson, Herman B. Leonard, Michael W. Toffel and Michael Norris
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College