Does Team Autonomy Increase or Decrease Team Implementation? The Role of Team Learning

As the necessity for teams to implement different innovations is prominent, the study addresses the question of the effect of team autonomy on teams' innovation implementation. Team autonomy is usually considered as a beneficial job characteristic but it is still unclear whether it aligns with the necessity to make teams implement new technologies, work methods or other innovations. We argue for a positive effect of team autonomy on teams' innovation implementation through the process of team learning. The results from a sample of 61 work teams (414 employees61 team leaders and 353 team members) from different organizations support our hypotheses. The results indicate that team autonomy facilitates team learning, that team learning facilitates team implementation, and that team autonomy positively affects team innovation via team learning.