Abstract
Knowledge workers are asked to work concurrently on several teams, but very few studies have tried to operationalize Multiple Team Memberships (MTM) using a variety of metrics, above and beyond the number of teams. However, broader conceptualizations of MTM (for instance, different forms of context variety) could help appreciate some unique benefits and challenges for multi-teamers. Relatedly, we still need to more broadly understand how people interpret and give meaning to their different experiences in MTM contexts. This symposium addresses these pressing issues by presenting four papers looking at the interplay between various conceptualizations of MTM (e.g., number of teams, variety of perceived team inclusion, variety of perceived team prestige) and several underexplored individual outcomes such as creativity, emotions, thriving at work, and the likelihood to enter multiple boards. Importantly, the papers use multiple methods and multiple sources of data such as qualitative data based on interviews, quantitative data based on surveys, and longitudinal panel data. They also focus on the experiences of people when engaged in scenarios of MTM within the boundaries of single firms as well as when they work across multiple firms.