Integrating Social Network Theory into Learning and Ambidexterity Research: A Micro-Level Analysis for Self-Managing Teams

Drifting away from the conception that management can directly influence individual behaviour and cognition within teams, we argue that, in post-bureaucratic organizations relying on self-managing teams, team context is created and renewed through the effect of formal and emerging organizational practices relying on people interactions between the inside and outside the team’s boundaries. Team context, in turn, influences learning orientation of individuals within the teams helping to achieve a condition of behavioural ambidexterity. In this article, we elaborate more the topic of an interactive development of relationships between and within teams, and argue that the concepts of discipline, stretch, trust and support are the primary dimensions of a team context. Integrating insights from social network theory into the individual learning literature, we demonstrated the importance of brokerage position for individuals’ self-efficacy and, in turn, for their learning goal orientation. Hence, we extent previous studies showing that different position in both expressive and instrumental network would affect individual’s self-efficac