  Psychological safety has been postulated as a key factor for the success of
agile software development teams, yet there is a lack of empirical studies
investigating the role of psychological safety in this context. The present
study examines how work design characteristics of software development teams
(autonomy, task interdependence, and role clarity) influence psychological
safety and, further, how psychological safety impacts team performance, either
directly or indirectly through team reflexivity. We test our model using survey
data from 236 team members in 43 software development teams in Norway. Our
results show that autonomy boosts psychological safety in software teams, and
that psychological safety again has a positive effect on team reflexivity and a
direct effect on team performance.
