Performance implications of leader briefings and team-interaction training for team adaptation to novel environments

The authors examined how leader briefings and team-interaction training influence team members' knowledge structures concerning processes related to effective performance in both routine and novel environments. Two-hundred thirty-seven undergraduates from a large mid-Atlantic university formed 79 three-member tank platoon teams and participated in a low-fidelity tank simulation. Team-interaction training, leader briefings, and novelty of performance environment were manipulated. Findings indicated that both leader briefings and team-interaction training affected the development of mental models, which in turn positively influenced team communication processes and team performance. Mental models and communication processes predicted performance more strongly in novel than in routine environments. Implications for the role of team-interaction training, leader briefings, and mental models as mechanisms for team adaptation are discussed.     

THE EFFECT OF VERBAL SELF-GUIDANCE TRAINING ON COLLECTIVE EFFICACY AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

Although organizations frequently use teams, few studies have systematically examined training methods designed to improve collective efficacy and team performance. As such, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of verbal self-guidance (VSG) training, adapted from Meichenbaum (1975,1977), on collective efficacy and team performance. Using a quasi-experimental design, undergraduate students ( n = 184) were assigned to 42 teams. These 42 teams were assigned to 2 training conditions (verbal self-guidance/comparison). Results revealed that verbal self-guidance had a main effect on collective efficacy and performance. Collective efficacy was found to mediate the VSG training-performance relationship; it also correlated significantly with both team performance and the use of verbal guidance skills.     

Collective efficacy beliefs in student work teams: Relation to self-efficacy, cohesion, and performance

A measure of collective efficacy was developed and administered to undergraduates working in project teams in engineering courses. Findings in each of two samples revealed that the measure contained a single factor and was related to ratings of team cohesion and personal efficacy. Collective efficacy was also found to relate to indicators of team performance at both individual and group levels of analysis. Consistent with social cognitive theory, collective efficacy was a stronger predictor of team performance than team members’ perceptions of their self-efficacy. We consider the implications of these findings for further research, theory, and practice on team functioning within occupational and educational settings.     

Collective Efficacy as a Mediator of the Trustworthiness – Performance Relationship in Computer-Mediated Team-based Contexts

The current study investigated the role of trustworthiness perceptions at the individual level and collective efficacy at the team level on team performance in computer-mediated teams using multi-level structural equation modeling (MSEM). It was hypothesized that trustworthiness perceptions and collective efficacy would predict team performance, and collective efficacy would partially mediate the trustworthiness – performance relationship in computer-mediated teams. Sixty-four teams (five participants each) engaged in a computer-mediated task across two experimental sessions. Trustworthiness measured after session 1, collective efficacy measured after sessions 1 and 2, and team performance measured of sessions 1 and 2 were used to build the MSEM. The half longitudinal model for assessing mediation was used to examine the influence of trustworthiness perceptions on performance through collective efficacy over time. Results demonstrated support for the hypothesized model, such that trustworthiness perceptions demonstrated indirect effects on performance through collective efficacy. These findings extend past research by identifying an emergent mechanism by which trustworthiness is important for team performance in computer-mediated teams.     

Substitutes for leadership in anaesthesia teams and their impact on leadership effectiveness

In this study we aim to increase our understanding of leadership in anaesthesia teams by investigating the relationship between substitutes for leadership, leadership behaviour, and team performance in situations with varying levels of routine and standardization. The present study relied on video recordings of 12 anaesthesia teams in a simulated setting with the occurrence of a nonroutine event. Clinical team performance was measured by the speed of adequate team reaction to this event. The leadership behaviours observed were coded either as content oriented (e.g., information transmission) or structuring (e.g., assigning tasks). Results showed that leadership behaviour changed depending upon the level of routine of a situation, the degree of standardization, and, to some extent, on the experience of team members. Leadership tends to be positively related to team performance during nonroutine and low standardized situations but negatively related to team performance in routine and highly standardized situations. Furthermore, leadership is only slightly related to team member experience. This study improves our understanding of influences of substitutes for leadership on successful leadership behaviour in anaesthesia teams. The findings also lead to suggestions for both further research and the enhancement of team leadership in critical care.     

A multilevel examination of the relationships among training outcomes, mediating regulatory processes, and adaptive performance

This study examined whether cognitive, affective-motivational, and behavioral training outcomes relate to posttraining regulatory processes and adaptive performance similarly at the individual and team levels of analysis. Longitudinal data were collected from 156 individuals composing 78 teams who were trained on and then performed a simulated flight task. Results showed that posttraining regulation processes related similarly to adaptive performance across levels. Also, regulation processes fully mediated the influences of self- and collective efficacy beliefs on individual and team adaptive performance. Finally, knowledge and skill more strongly and directly related to adaptive performance at the individual than the team level of analysis. Implications to theory and practice, limitations, and future directions are discussed.     

Interactive Effects of Team and Task Shared Mental Models as Related to Air Traffic Controllers' Collective Efficacy and Effectiveness

We assessed the influence of task and team shared mental models (SMMs) on team effectiveness, as mediated by collective efficacy. Using a sample of 422 air traffic controllers representing 43 Navy teams from land-based towers, task SMMs exhibited a significant linear relationship with team effectiveness, whereas team SMMs did not. Moreover, the interaction of team and task SMMs was positively related to team effectiveness. Collective efficacy was found to mediate the relationship between task SMMs (but not team SMMs or their interaction) and team effectiveness. Results are discussed in terms of the complex nature of SMMs and team outcomes.     

Solidarity in STEM: How Gender Composition Affects Women’s Experience in Work Teams

The relationships among the percentage of women in a team and women’s sense of team identification and collective efficacy as well as team performance was examined. We explored these relationships in a sample of student teams conducting a semester-long social science research project within the context of science and technology-focused university. Findings with 95 U.S. college students (43 women) show that women experience higher team identification and collective efficacy as the percent of women teammates increases. Additionally, women’s team identification and collective efficacy mediate the relationship between the percentage of women on the team and overall team performance. Interestingly, the number of men on the team did not influence men’s sense of team identification, collective efficacy, or team performance. This research has implications for team composition. Specifically, when navigating diversity in teams, managers and leaders should aim to build teams that are composed of multiple women versus an approach that divides women up among various teams. In doing so, managers can better secure conditions for the development of positive teamwork experiences and, ultimately, performance.

     

The Performance of Pre‐Founding Entrepreneurial Teams: The Importance of Learning and Leadership

Entrepreneurial teams often struggle with simultaneous task and team challenges at an early stage of new venture creation. The way in which teams shape their teamwork is key in leveraging performance in the pre‐founding phase. Learning should help the team in establishing good teamwork and in expanding its members’ entrepreneurial capabilities. Leadership is needed to facilitate and guide this learning. Accordingly, we investigated learning and leadership as facilitators of performance in the pre‐founding phase. Specifically, we examined team reflexivity as a collective internal learning process and boundary spanning behaviour as an externally directed individual activity, operating at different levels in fostering team and individual performance. Charismatic team leadership was examined as a catalyst of learning, shaping team and individual performance ultimately. The multilevel mediation model was tested based on data from 196 members of 58 teams of a venture creation programme. Team reflexivity predicted team and individual performance. Boundary spanning behaviour was not related to performance. As hypothesised, charismatic team leadership predicted team and individual performance, both mediated by team reflexivity. This research highlights the relevance of team learning in pre‐founding teams and emphasises leadership in shaping learning and moving new ventures forward.     

Peer-based control in self-managing teams: linking rational and normative influence with individual and group performance

The authors use a multilevel framework to introduce peer-based control as a motivational state that emerges in self-managing teams. The authors specifically describe how peer-based rational control, which is defined as team members perceiving the distribution of economic rewards as dependent on input from teammates, extends and interacts with the more commonly studied normative control force of group cohesion to explain both individual and collective performance in teams. On the basis of data from 587 factory workers in 45 self-managing teams at 3 organizations, peer-based rational control corresponded with higher performance for both individuals and collective teams. Results further demonstrated that the rational and normative mechanism of peer-based control interacted to explain performance at both the individual and team levels. Increased peer-based rational control corresponded with higher individual and collective performance in teams with low cohesion, but the positive effects on performance were attenuated in cohesive teams.     

Understanding The Curvilinear Relationships between LMX Differentiation and Team Coordination and Performance

The leader–member exchange (LMX) literature argues that leaders develop different quality dyadic relationships with members in the same team (i.e., LMX differentiation). Research has generally not found support for a linear (i.e., main effect) relationship between LMX differentiation and team performance; rather, moderators typically determine whether the relationship is significantly positive or negative. Examining linear effect moderators alone, however, does not account for (a) potential curvilinear (i.e., inverted U‐shaped) effects, (b) explanatory mechanisms of how LMX differentiation influences team performance, or (c) moderators of curvilinear effects. Integrating social identity theory with LMX differentiation research, we propose inverted U‐shaped relationships between LMX differentiation and both team coordination (as a mediator) and team performance (as an outcome), and we examine both team size and team power distance orientation as moderators. Using data from 928 employees in 145 teams in 3 organizations, we found an inverted U‐shaped relationship between LMX differentiation and team coordination, which, in turn, partially mediated LMX differentiation's inverted U‐shaped relationship with team performance. Larger teams, or those with higher team power distance orientation, benefit more from LMX differentiation. By integrating social identity theory with LMX differentiation research, we enhance the understanding of the processes by, and conditions under, which LMX differentiation affects team performance both positively and negatively.     

Effects of guided reflexivity and team feedback on team performance improvement: The role of team regulatory processes and cognitive emergent states

The effectiveness of decision-making teams depends largely on the quality of information processing. Prior research has shown that guided team reflexivity and team feedback are important means of advancing team information processing and outcomes. However, the nature of the relationships, and how these relate to team regulatory processes, cognitive emergent states, and ultimately team performance, is currently poorly understood. Drawing on reflexivity and team information-processing theory, we proposed and found that teams that received guided team reflexivity or a combination of both guided reflexivity and feedback showed higher levels of actual reflection than teams that received neither a reflexivity intervention nor feedback. Conditional process analysis showed that the effects of team reflection on team performance improvement were mediated by a path from shared team mental models to shared task mental models and to adaptation. Finally, we also expected that team reflection would be lower in virtual teams than in face-to-face teams. These hypotheses were tested experimentally among 98 student teams that communicated either face-to-face or virtual (via chat) while completing a collective decision-making task. The information distribution among team members constituted a hidden profile. The results supported all our hypotheses, except for the one relating to virtuality.     

Using Brunswikian theory and a longitudinal design to study how hierarchical teams adapt to increasing levels of time pressure

Brunswikian theory and a longitudinal design were used to study how three-person, hierarchical teams adapted to increasing levels of time pressure and, thereby, try to understand why previous team research has not necessarily found a direct relationship between team processes and performance with increasing time pressure. We obtained four principal findings. First, team members initially adapted to increasing time pressure without showing any performance decrements by accelerating their cognitive processing, increasing the amount of their implicit coordination by sending more information without being asked and, to a lesser extent, filtering (omitting) certain activities. Second, teams began and continued to perform the task differently with increasing time pressure, yet often achieved comparable levels of performance. Third, time pressure did affect performance because there was a level of time pressure beyond which performance could not be maintained, although that level differed for different teams. And, fourth, some adaptation strategies were more effective than others at the highest time pressure level. Taken together, these findings support the Brunswikian perspective that one should not necessarily expect a direct relationship between team processes and performance with increasing time pressure because teams adapt their processes in different, yet often equally effective ways, in an effort to maintain high and stable performance.     

The development of collective efficacy in teams: a multilevel and longitudinal perspective

The authors developed and tested a longitudinal multilevel model of collective efficacy formation. In 50 self-managing student teams, they investigated the effects of individual-level and team-level factors on observed behaviors and the subsequent development of collective efficacy for mastering a complex team task. Self-efficacy for teamwork, task-relevant knowledge, and collective efficacy predicted individual teamwork behaviors (rated by peers). Aggregated measures of teamwork behavior were related to subsequent collective efficacy, which was significantly related to final team performance.     

An extended validation of the Communal Coping Strategies Inventory for Competitive Team Sports: A multilevel approach

A questionnaire that can properly measure communal coping in sport is required to further investigate and understand how individuals in a team collectively cope with stressful sport situations. The Communal Coping Strategies Inventory for Competitive Team Sports (CCSICTS; Leprince et al., 2019) needed to be validated at the collective level and in its situational form to be used in broader sport situations. The aims of the present work were to improve and further validate the factorial structure of the CCSICTS at both individual and team levels. With a sample of 380 French athletes, representing 56 teams, Study 1 showed support for a multilevel, hierarchical and four-dimensional factorial structure of the revised version of the CCSICTS at both individual and team levels. With a sample of 641 French athletes, representing 75 teams, Study 2 confirmed the factorial structure obtained in Study 1 at individual and team levels, and its validity in sport-specific situations. The results of both studies also highlighted a bifactorial structure, allowing interpretation of communal coping as an overall team capacity to adapt to stress. As such, the psychometric qualities of the CCSICTS-R have been established at individual and team levels. The CCSICTS-R enables proper and distinct measurement of the characteristics of communal coping in sport (i.e., hierarchical, multidimensional, multilevel, both situational and dispositional) and can be used from both research and practical perspectives.     

Team Proactivity as a Linking Mechanism between Team Creative Efficacy,Transformational Leadership,and Risk‐Taking Norms and Team Creative Performance

Despite the growing body of research on creativity in team contexts, very few attempts have been made to explore the team‐level antecedents and the mediating processes of team creative performance on the basis of a theoretical framework. To address this gap, drawing on Paulus and Dzindolet's (2008) group creativity model, this study proposed team creative efficacy, transformational leadership, and risk‐taking norms as antecedents of team creative performance and team proactivity as an intervening mechanism between these relationships. The results of team‐level regression analyses conducted on the leaders and members of 103 Korean work teams showed that team creative efficacy and risk‐taking norms were positively associated with team creative performance. Furthermore, the relationships between team creative efficacy and team creative performance and between risk‐taking norms and team creative performance were mediated by team proactivity. These findings offer new insights regarding the antecedents and the mediator of creative performance in team contexts and important implications for theory and practice.     

Establishing team knowledge coordination from a learning perspective

Research has identified the importance of knowledge coordination in high-performing teams. However, little is known on the processes through which these cognitive structures are developed, more specifically on the learning occurring as teams communicate and interact to build new team knowledge. In a multiple-measures experiment, 33 teams with no prior experience in flight simulations were assigned to newly formed dyads to complete 4 successive performance episodes of a flight simulation task, modeling a complex, fast-paced, and high workload task context. The study showed how team learning processes (i.e., team learning behaviors and team reflexivity), driven by task cohesion, and group potency supported coordination development, which in turn predicted team performance.     

The curvilinear effect of benevolent leadership on team performance: The mediating role of team action processes and the moderating role of team commitment

Leaders are encouraged to show benevolence to followers in paternalistic cultures. Yet, there remains debate about whether the influence of increasingly benevolent leadership on follower outcomes is linearly favorable. Grounded in the too‐much‐of‐a‐good‐thing effect and resource allocation theory, we developed and tested a model considering a potential curvilinear relationship between benevolent leadership and team performance while also examining the mediating role of team action processes. We further reasoned that this curvilinear indirect effect would be moderated by team commitment, which could neutralize the diminishing performance returns resulting from excessive benevolent leadership. To test these ideas, we carried out two studies. In the first study, multisource and time‐lagged data collected from 381 employees working in 104 research and development teams showed that benevolent leadership exhibited an inverted U‐shaped relationship with team performance, but this curvilinear relationship disappeared in teams with high team commitment. In the second study, we replicated and extended our results using a sample of 417 employees from 101 hotel management teams of a large hotel chain. Specifically, we found an inverted U‐shaped relationship between benevolent leadership and team action processes, which mediated the inverted U‐shaped relationship between benevolent leadership and team performance. Moreover, this indirect curvilinear effect only held in teams with low team commitment. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theory and practice.     

The roles of perceived task interdependence and group members' interdependence in the development of collective efficacy in university student group contexts

Background . Although the relationship between collective efficacy and group performance has been frequently investigated, a few studies have investigated the development of collective efficacy. Aim . This paper proposes some determinants of collective efficacy in small university groups. Group level hypotheses and research questions relating collective efficacy to collective cognition activities, task interdependence, self‐efficacy for group work, and collective orientation were posited. Sample . The sample comprised 145 university students in 40 work‐groups. Method . A two‐phase longitudinal design was employed in the context of university student groups. All groups were required to perform interdependent academic tasks. Aggregated variables were used after testing for within‐group agreement. Results . The results of multiple regression analysis provided some evidence that the more group members perceived themselves to be interdependent in the early stages of group work and assigned their tasks interdependently during group processes, the more likely they were to develop high collective efficacy in the final stages of group work. Collective efficacy was also related to the group average of self‐efficacy for group work especially when task interdependence was perceived to be high. Conclusions . The results suggest that forming groups with capable university students in group work, strengthening university students' perceptions of themselves as interdependent in the early stages of academic group work and assigning interdependent group tasks during group work may contribute to the development of high collective efficacy.     

The dynamics of team coordination: A social network analysis as a window to shared awareness

Shared awareness was studied in one novice and one expert basketball team during real games. Teams were considered dynamic social networks with team members as nodes and members’ awareness of other members during ongoing performance as relations. Networks, and changes to them across games, were analysed at different levels of organization using social network analysis to identify patterns of awareness within the teams. The results showed that one team member in each team often heeded, or was heeded by, his teammates, indicating his leadership role in coordinating the team. Also, expert team members had a low level of awareness of their teammates, which may be explained by implicit coordination processes. Finally, there was less variability in intra-team relations in the expert (vs. novice) team, which may be explained by the enhanced ability of the expert team to achieve and maintain an optimal level of awareness during the game. At a practical level, teams might be alerted during performance when their network of connections approaches connectedness thresholds that predict coordination breakdowns, affording online regulation of team processes. Future studies should explore the generalizability of these early findings using larger samples.