Teams need to pass through a series of development stages before they can operate effectively, and, in a changing context, it has also been demonstrated that teams need to continue learning in order to remain effective. This article aims to explore the relationship between team development and team learning. In particular, it focuses on when and why basic team learning processes such as sharing information, co-construction, and constructive conflict occur during different phases of development. It can be hypothesized that although each stage of team development is characterized by specific learning tasks, team learning processes occur more in certain stages than in others. The results from a model-based cluster analysis and ANOVA analyses on a sample of 44 professional teams show that team learning occurs more in the later phases of group development due to higher levels of team psychological safety and group potency.

Teams need to go through a series of development stages before they can operate effectively as a team. It has also been demonstrated that in a changing context, teams need to keep on learning in order to remain effective. This article aims to study the relationship between team development and team learning. Which development phases are characterised by basic team learning processes such as sharing information, co-construction and constructive conflict, and why? It is hypothesised that, although each stage of team development is characterised by specific learning tasks, team-learning processes occur more in some stages than in others. Results from a model-based cluster analysis and ANOVA analyses on a sample of 44 professional teams show that teams learning occurs more in the trust and structure phase, and in the work phase, than in the two earlier phases of group development due to higher levels of team psychological safety and group potency.

This article investigates when and how teams engage in team learning behaviours (TLB). More specifically, it looks into how different leadership styles facilitate TLB by influencing the social conditions that proceed them. 498 healthcare workers from 28 nursery teams filled out a questionnaire measuring the concepts leadership style, TLB, social cohesion and team psychological safety. Analysis was performed using structural equation modelling. The results of this cross-sectional study show that transformational leadership predicts TLB better then laissez-faire leadership, because transformational leadership is primarily related to team psychological safety and only secondarily to social cohesion while for laissez-faire leadership it works the other way around. Transformational leadership matters because it facilitates psychological safety in the team.

Decision making in child welfare is increasingly being reconceptualized as a collaborative practice. While teams have the potential to make better decisions, this is not easy to achieve. Based on an extensive multi-disciplinary review and an in-depth case study of two child welfare teams in Flanders, we propose a framework to guide and evaluate team decision making in child welfare. The results indicate that the quality of the decision making process relates to team learning processes like team reflexivity and the construction of shared mental models. Team learning in turn seems to be affected by team leadership and a solid social and structural team architecture (committed professionals, trust and alignment). We also discuss the difficulty of evaluating decision quality in the context of child welfare, theoretical and practical implications, and lines for future research.

In this article we present an integrative model of team learning. Literature shows that effective team learning requires the establishment of a dialogical space amongst team members, in which communicative behaviours such as ‘sharing’, ‘co-construction’ and ‘constructive conflict’ are balanced. However, finding this balance is not enough. Important questions such as ‘communicating about what?’, ‘communicating with whom?’ and ‘communicating for what?’ remain crucial. Five other process variables ‘team reflexivity’, ‘team activity’, ‘boundary crossing’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’ are identified. Besides the core process variables, our model organises the most important inputs, catalyst emergent states and outputs of team learning.