Multiple Team Membership and Team Performance: The Effects of Social Networks and Technology

In this paper we examine the relationships between team performance, multiple team membership (MTM), i.e., the participation of team members in multiple teams simultaneously, the use of collaborative technologies (instant messaging) and work-place social networks (receiving advice). In a sample of R&D teams belonging to an Italian company, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between MTM and team performance such that teams whose members are engaged simultaneously in few or many teams experience lower performance. We found that receiving advice moderated this relationship such that when MTM is low, it has a positive effect and when MTM is high, it has a negative effect. Finally the use of instant messaging also moderated the relationship such that at low levels of MTM, teams whose members used instant messaging intensively attain higher performance while at high levels of MTM an intense use of instant messaging is associated with lower team performance.