Determining the Individual- and Team-Level Effects of Team Tenure and Team Stability, float teams

This study investigated the individual- and team-level effects of team tenure and stability on performance and employee collaboration, identity, and turnover intentions. Most previous research on the effects of team tenure, defined as the extent to which team members have previously worked with one another (Huckman et al., 2009; Mule et al., 2010), has assumed stable team membership. With an increase in “fluid” team membership both inside and outside of healthcare (Bushe & Chu, 2023), this study addressed a meaningful gap in the literature by analyzing the effect of team tenure in teams with fluid membership. Using secondary data from over 200 urgent care center teams, this study adopted a social network perspective to hypothesize teams with more shared experience, measured by internal density, would have higher performance. In addition, individuals who are a part of these tightly knit teams were hypothesized to have higher perceptions of social identity and team collaboration, as well as lower turnover intentions. While individual-level results were not supported, at the team level centers were found to have higher average customer satisfaction scores and lower average wait time on days where center employees had greater shared experience. In addition, greater fluidity in team membership significantly decreased this shared experience across teams. These findings highlight the importance of stable team tenure and shared experience for enhancing team-level performance in urgent care settings, despite challenges posed by fluid team membership.