Shared Histories in New Teams: The Effect of Pre-Existing Relationships on Performance

Abstract: With employees becoming more mobile, it is likely that colleagues from the same prior team may transition to a new team together. Drawing upon theories regarding transactive memory systems (TMS) and subgroups, we have developed a multilevel, multi-theory, and multi-period model to assess the impact of these pre-existing relationships on individual and team performance. We tested our model utilizing archival data from the National Basketball Association. The results indicate that, at the individual level, pre-existing relationships support the performance of new members. Conversely, at the team level, the presence of pre-existing relationships among new members hampers performance. Finally, we found that the detrimental effects of pre-existing relationships within teams diminished after a year. In summary, our findings suggest a multilevel performance tradeoff between hiring new employees with and without pre-existing relationships.

Keywords: teams, newcomer, subgroup, performance