High-reliability teams: how do they manage diversity?

High-reliability teams (HRTs) play an important role in society with team members providing critical services such as firefighters (Vidal & Roberts, 2014), trauma teams (Gillman, Brindley, Blaivas, Widder, & Karakitsos, 2016) and Emergency Departments (Wilson, Burke, Priest, & Salas, 2005). HRTs are defined as a team of two or more members that strive to achieve shared goals by working together consistently and reliably while functioning in complex, unpredictable and time pressured environments (Wilson et al., 2005). This thesis aims to address scholarly calls for a richer understanding and empirical investigation into how HRTs manage diversity. Specifically, this thesis explores the following research question: How do high-reliability teams manage diversity? The thesis investigated this research question by using a qualitative inductive case study of high-reliability teams in an Emergency Department of a large public hospital in Australia. Data in the form of observational fieldnotes and interviews were collected for the thesis from a larger corpus of data and the data was analysed through inductively coding. The findings revealed power diversity, functional diversity and educational diversity as important types of diversity that need to be managed within HRTs. The three types of diversity were managed through a combination of cognitive and behavioural team processes. The thesis develops a theoretical model of the strategies that HRTs can use to effectively manage diversity. HRTs manage educational diversity using the strategies of creating teachable moments, constructing active explanations, and assigning tasks appropriate to experience. HRTs manage power diversity using the strategies of deferring to a single leader and balancing delegation with participative leadership. HRTs manage functional diversity using the strategies of sequencing functional input, adopting co-production mindsets, and engaging in targeted communication. The thesis contributes to the literature streams of HRTs, diversity in teams and team processes.