FROM OBSTACLES TO OPPORTUNITIES: HOW PERCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY AFFECT FOUNDERS’ ABILITIES TO IDENTIFY RESOURCES

Resources are a dynamic aspect of team problem solving and the ability to properly manage them is a critical factor for success. Engineering design teams often face challenging resource deficits, and effective resource management is paramount in resource constrained environments. While prior work has linked effective resource management at the firm level with the climate of the firm, little work has explored these linkages at the team level. Here, we study the interactions between team climate and the ability to identify meaningful resources that mitigate current obstacles. We quantify team climate as individual perceptions of psychological safety, or one’s perception of the team’s willingness to engage in interpersonal risk taking. In this work, we leveraged data from thirty-two startup company founders, a population of authentic problem solvers that often operate in resource constrained environments, to study this relationship. The results from our mixed-methods study indicate that individual perceptions of psychological safety predict founders’ ability to identify meaningful resources to mitigate obstacles they are currently facing. Thus, problem solvers that perceive their team climate to be more positive, or more psychologically safe, exhibit a greater ability to identify meaningful resources.