Clarifying the Causes and Consequences of Multiple Team Membership: A Temporal Perspective.

Many knowledge workers are members of multiple teams, and researchers have examined how this affects their job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. We suggest that progress in this research area has been hampered by a lack of clarity about what multiple team membership (MTM) is and how to conceptualize it. Prevailing conceptualizations of MTM have focused on the number of teams an individual is a member of (MTM number). We identify the number of times an individual switches between different team contexts (MTM simultaneity) as an additional MTM dimension that may better capture MTM's potential downsides. Our analysis of 1,265 knowledge workers involved in 5,274 project teams shows that MTM number and MTM simultaneity have opposing effects on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion, especially when multiteamers are unfamiliar with the members of their teams. We also find that individuals' organizational tenure and polychronic personality are differentially related to MTM number and MTM simultaneity. The theoretical implications and results of this study can help clarify the benefits and detriments of MTM and advance the growing literature in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]