Cross-disciplinary cooperation, professional identity performance and team-emotional regulation in New Product development work

Abstract

Cross-disciplinary teamwork can both enable and constrain the conduct of professional identities. In this article I explore how team-emotional regulation contributes to aligning professional identity performance with the task and situation, and discuss how this may broaden the cross-disciplinary possibilities. The article is based on a case study of cross-disciplinary design product development in a Norwegian company employing qualitative interviews, participative observations, field conversations and analysis of written documents. The analysis demonstrates how participants, especially designers, had to conduct their professional selves in differing and partly contradicting ways, depending on the situation. This demanded intimate cooperation between the participants. The findings are discussed and implications elaborated through understandings of team-emotional regulation, social plays, impression management and relational understandings of selves as co-constituted through social acts. These findings and discussions contribute to a deeper understanding of cross-disciplinary teamwork through enhancing the ability to take the attitude of others to their own tasks. Furthermore, it adds to the research on team-emotional regulation by showing how social plays are not just taking place in “external” situations, but also internally in the cross-disci - plinary teams. The role of team-emotional regulation and the conducting of identity as part of the work performance are to lesser extent researched within product development processes, and more research is needed.