Is Your Team Willing to Take Risks? -Forming Team Psychological Safety from External Perspective

Abstract

Abstract: Team psychological safety refers to a shared belief among team members that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. We summarize the relevant literature through the four-phase flow recommended by PRISMA statement and find that previous studies have dominantly focused on the formation mechanism of team psychological safety concerning leadership characteristics and team characteristics. However, as an important unit embedded in the external environment, team is vulnerable to changes in the political, economic, social and technological environment, and the vulnerability is ignored by existing research. Therefore, to make up for the lack of external perspective in the previous research, we discuss the formation mechanism of team psychological safety via selecting representative political, economic, social and technological environments which have an important impact on team development. Finally, we propose that future research should explore the mechanism of policies and institutions based on management communication strategies; clarify the connotation of the gig economy and explore how to cultivate psychological safety within teams; examine the impact of sudden public health incidents using event system theory; investigate the empowerment by digital technology to cultivate team psychological safety.

Key words: team psychological safety, external perspective, forming mechanism, PRISMA statement

Yang Fu, Zhou Linfeng, Bai Changjing. Is Your Team Willing to Take Risks? -Forming Team Psychological Safety from External Perspective[J]. Management Review, 2026, 38(9): 169-182.

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