Lessons Learned and Lessons Lost: A Multi-Method Field Study of Vicarious Team Learning Behavior and Performance  

As a means to understanding learning and performance differences across teams, this multi-method study examines vicarious team learning - the activities by which a team learns key aspects of its task from the similar experiences of others outside the team. Vicarious learning is well understood at the organizational and individual levels, but there is surprisingly little on the subject in the teams literature. A qualitative field study of six teams in the pharmaceutical industry is used to describe vicarious team learning behavior. A separate survey study of 43 teams in the same setting is used to further develop and test the construct. The paper argues that vicarious team learning behavior is an under-explored dimension of what makes teams and organizations effective.