Direct and indirect effects of team reflections on knowledge sharing and acquisition in project teams

Purpose - Continuous sharing and increasing of knowledge are fundamental challenges to project teams as their environments are highly knowledge-intensive and dynamic. The present study investigates the role of team reflection for promoting knowledge acquisition in project teams. Despite the general assumption that team reflection is essential for learning and improving of teams, the link between reflective learning and increasing team knowledge has not been studied yet. To close this gap, this study examines the direct effects of team reflection on team knowledge acquisition as well as indirect effects due to the development of team interaction mental models in order to explain this relationship. Design/methodology - The authors conducted an experimental study with 22 student project teams, composed of members with diverse expertise, using a pre-test-post-test-control-group research design. The teams were working on a complex problem-solving task over a period of two days. The teams within experimental condition passed four guided team reflection interventions during teamwork whereas the teams in the control group did not. Findings - Results show that team reflection has a direct positive impact on team knowledge acquisition, while this effect being completely mediated by similarity and quality of team interaction mental models. The analyses of the specific indirect effects show differentiated results. While quality of team interaction mental models alone was a significant mediator, the similarity was not. Originality/value - The findings accentuate the role of team reflections for supporting knowledge acquisition in project teams. By reflecting teams improve awareness and insights into effective strategies of knowledge management (i.e. shared and accurate team interaction mental models), which lead to an increase of the collective knowledge. Practical implications - The results are interesting for both research fields, team reflection and team knowledge management, since the findings indicate the merits of recurrent reflection for improving knowledge acquisition in teams. For organizational practice the question of how reflection processes can be deliberately triggered in teams and effectively integrated into the daily routine should be considered.