The effect of team-member knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) and a common learning experience on sourcing teamwork effectiveness

Purpose: A lack of sourcing-specific team research prevents a full understanding of sourcing teamwork effectiveness (STE). Moreover, the limited purchasing and supply management (PSM) team literature often tends to focus on an aggregate group level. The paper makes a step towards adopting an individual actor perspective on teamwork effectiveness with an emphasis on the context of sourcing, explicating the effects of team-member knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), and examining how these relationships are moderated by a common learning experience of strategic sourcing masterclass.

Design/methodology/approach: Based on a cross-sectional survey, this study analyses a sample of 90 sourcing team members from a global aerospace manufacturing company using hierarchical regression analysis.

Findings: The results suggest that four of the five KSAs positively and significantly affect STE; the exception was collaborative problem solving. Masterclass learning outcomes were found to positively moderate the effects of these KSAs on STE, again exclusive of the collaborative problem-solving KSA.

Research limitations/implications: Cross-sectional design focused only on the aerospace sector may affect generalizability. Further, longitudinal research designs would capture the effects of the common learning experience over an extended period.

Practical implications: Sourcing team members could be selected based on having KSAs which significantly affect teamwork effectiveness. Training and development for sourcing teams should combine guided reflexivity and cross-training to deliver learning outcomes that create similar team mental models.

Originality/value: The study provides an individual team-member perspective on the functioning of sourcing teams which is absent in the extant research. It contributes to the very limited research base on skills in PSM.