Mitigating the Impact of Functional Dominance in Cross-Functional Process Improvement Teams

Manufacturing process improvement teams often draw upon cross‐functional expertise. However, teams dominated by a single or few functions often do not achieve the desired interdisciplinary learning and cooperation, which in turn could negatively affect the performance of that cross‐functional team. Through an empirical analysis of 149 manufacturing process improvement teams in six SIC industrial categories, we show that even after controlling for several factors such as team size, number of functions, gender diversity, ethnicity, number of management levels, and geographic dispersion of team members, psychological safety of work environment fully mediates the relationship between functional dominance and team performance. We also confirm that a team leader possessing high interpersonal justice mitigates the deficiency of dominated teams and improves team performance by fostering a psychologically safe work environment. Our recommendation therefore is that when a dominated team is unavoidable due to the needed skill sets or other organizational considerations, to ensure success it is imperative that the firm chooses a team leader who can promote psychological safety by being just, and who can effectively encourage input from all functional team members and give them objective feedback.