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
  • 2021
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

Multiple Team Membership, Turnover, and On-Time Delivery: Evidence from Construction Services

By: Hise O. Gibson, Bradely R. Staats and Ananth Raman
    ShareBar

    Abstract

    Firms who want to compete in dynamic markets are finding that they must build more agile operations to ensure success. One way for a firm to increase organizational agility is to allocate employees to multiple project teams, simultaneously—a practice known as multiple team membership (MTM). MTM allows for the potential of improved project performance through additional flexibility and learning, however, there is also the possibility of negative performance effects from MTM due to overwork, coordination neglect, and problems with resource blocking and starving. In this paper we theorize about these conflicting predictions prior to building and testing an empirical model that draws on a unique dataset consisting of 1,503 construction projects in the Europe District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Although USACE is a government entity, it operates similar to for-profit construction services companies. We find that MTM shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with on-time project delivery whereby it is first related to improved performance and then later related to worse performance. To extend our exploration we examine whether MTM makes teams more fragile operationally. We do this by investigating whether teams that experience turnover are more susceptible to the negative effects of MTM. Our empirical results support this proposition and deliver additional insight that the effect is driven by unanticipated turnover. Our findings provide understanding into the benefits and the difficulty in building a more agile workforce.

    Keywords

    Multiple Team Membership; Turnover; Fluid Teams; Project Management; Groups and Teams; Projects; Management; Performance

    Citation

    Gibson, Hise O., Bradely R. Staats, and Ananth Raman. "Multiple Team Membership, Turnover, and On-Time Delivery: Evidence from Construction Services." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-004, July 2021.
    • Read Now

    About The Authors

    Hise O. Gibson

    Technology and Operations Management
    →More Publications

    Ananth Raman

    Technology and Operations Management
    →More Publications

    More from the Authors

      • December 2022
      • Faculty Research

      Hamptonshire Gas and Convenience

      By: Ananth Raman, Nathan Craig and Ehsan Valavi
      • 2022
      • Faculty Research

      Human-Computer Interactions in Demand Forecasting and Labor Scheduling Decisions

      By: Caleb Kwon, Ananth Raman and Jorge Tamayo
      • 2022
      • Faculty Research

      The Effect of Employee Lateness and Absenteeism on Store Performance

      By: Caleb Kwon and Ananth Raman
    More from the Authors
    • Hamptonshire Gas and Convenience By: Ananth Raman, Nathan Craig and Ehsan Valavi
    • Human-Computer Interactions in Demand Forecasting and Labor Scheduling Decisions By: Caleb Kwon, Ananth Raman and Jorge Tamayo
    • The Effect of Employee Lateness and Absenteeism on Store Performance By: Caleb Kwon and Ananth Raman
    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