Professional women in organizations: New paradigms for research and action

Writings about professional women in organizations often adopt an advocacy approach and look at problems of women in isolation from the rest of the organization. This article suggests a systems perspective for viewing these problems as concerns of an organizational subsystem that can have important ramifications for the other subsystems and for the organization as a whole. Reviewing research on some major issues encountered by professional women at the workplace, this article demonstrates the usefulness of complementary research to integrate these issues into an organizational framework.     

PLATT: A flexible platform for experimental research on team performance in complex environments

The present article introduces PLATT, a recently developed task environment for controlled experimental research on team performance in complex environments. PLATT was developed to meet the research demands posed by the complexity that present-day teams face. It consists of a flexible, modular software architecture and research-specific scenarios. The scenarios can target various types of tasks (e.g., planning, problem solving, and decision making) in different operational contexts. Different software configurations can be used to investigate questions pertaining to team structure, team virtuality, and multiteam systems. We describe the software architecture, one of the scenarios, and the broad range of automated and embedded measurement possibilities that PLATT offers. To illustrate PLATT’s possibilities, in the present article, we describe a number of experiments that have used PLATT for a variety of research questions. We conclude that PLATT meets the formulated research demands and provides researchers with a flexible platform to investigate the complex issues that present-day teams face.     

New paradigms for assessing emotional intelligence: theory and data

This article describes the development and validation of 2 measures of emotional intelligence (EI): the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU) and the Situational Test of Emotion Management (STEM). Study 1 (N=207 psychology students) examines multiple sources of validity evidence: relationships with EI, vocabulary, personality, and emotion-related criteria. Study 2 (N=149 white-collar volunteers) relates STEU and STEM scores to clinical symptoms, finding relationships to anxiety and stress for both tests, and to depression for the STEM. It is concluded that new performance-based approaches to test development, such as the present ones, might be useful in distinguishing between test and construct effects. Implications for expanding theory and for developing EI interventions are discussed.     

团队断裂带对团队绩效的影响：团队交互记忆系统的作用

对团队构成与团队绩效关系的认识有助于充分利用团队结构优势、提高团队效能、建立竞争优势。理论界对团队断裂带与团队绩效的关系给予了极大关注, 然而遗憾的是, 研究结果还存在较大分歧。通过明确团队断裂带的属性类别, 探索团队断裂带与团队绩效之间的中介机制, 试图系统解释分歧产生的原因。基于115个实际工作团队配对样本数据的结构方程模型分析表明, 信息相关断裂带通过提高团队交互记忆系统水平促进团队绩效; 社会属性断裂带与团队交互记忆系统或团队绩效都无显著关系。本研究结果有助于深化对团队断裂带内涵及效能机制的认识, 推动团队断裂带理论的发展。     

Cultural unconscious in research: integrating multicultural and depth paradigms in qualitative research

Culturally focused research has gained momentum in many disciplines, including psychology. However, much of this research fails to pay attention to the unconscious dynamics that underlie the study of culture and culturally influenced human beings. Such dynamics may be especially significant when issues of marginalization and oppression are present. Therefore, this paper seeks to contribute a framework for understanding cultural dynamics, especially unconscious cultural dynamics, within depth psychological qualitative research influenced by Jungian and post‐Jungian scholarship. Inquiry that is approached with a commitment to making the unconscious conscious seeks to empower and liberate not only the subject/object studied but also the researchers themselves. Following a brief review of multiculturalism in the context of analytically informed psychology, this paper offers several case examples that focus on researchers' integration of awareness of the cultural unconscious in their study of cultural beings and topics.     

The differential effect of team members' trust on team performance: The mediation role of team cohesion

This study examines team performance as affected by various trusting relationships: trust between team members and the team's trust in their direct manager and in top management. Data for the study were collected from a survey of 690 professional elite athletes (belonging to 59 different sports clubs) playing in the regular, top professional Spanish leagues. The model was tested at the team level. Findings reveal that team member trust with respect to the different foci has both a direct and indirect effect on team performance, and that team player trust and cohesion play a mediating role. This study illustrates the dynamic relationship within teams, and, as such, trust among teammates mediates the relationship between trust in the coach as well as team cohesion in determining team performance. The implications for managing teams in other contexts are also evaluated.     

Reflecting team processes in family therapy: a search for research

Tom Andersen's Reflecting Team approach is widely (and creatively) employed in family therapy. Despite continuing enthusiasm for the practice, however, there are few journal articles reporting empirical research and only one (now dated) review of the literature. After defining reflecting team processes through practices that are embedded in particular approaches to knowledge construction and theoretical interpretation, we offer an overview of the empirical research found in our search of the literature. In the second half of this article we ask why there is so little existing research in this area. Various possible explanations are explored and future directions proposed. We conclude that a dialogue around the complex interweaving of practice, theory and research (that is, praxis) would be a helpful overall stance to adopt in relation to future work in this area.     

Relationships among team ability composition, team mental models, and team performance

This study examined the relationship between the similarity and accuracy of team mental models and compared the extent to which each predicted team performance. The relationship between team ability composition and team mental models was also investigated. Eighty-three dyadic teams worked on a complex skill task in a 2-week training protocol. Results indicated that although similarity and accuracy of team mental models were significantly related, accuracy was a stronger predictor of team performance. In addition, team ability was more strongly related to the accuracy than to the similarity of team mental models and accuracy partially mediated the relationship between team ability and team performance, but similarity did not.     

Replanting the Bodhi tree: New paradigms for Buddhist philosophy from quantum physics

This study explores and assesses the nature and practice of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) from the perspective of Theravāda Buddhism. It is particularly concerned with how both models of training understand and apply ‘mindfulness’. The approach here is, firstly, to examine how the Theravāda understands and employs mindfulness and, secondly, to explore, and more accurately contextualize, the work of MBCT. The evaluation of MBCT in terms of the Theravāda suggests the former has both a strong affinity with, as well as some significant distinctions from, its dominant Theravādin influences.     

Games teams play: A method for investigating team coordination and performance

Teams are playing an increasingly important role in the workplace. However, reviews of the team performance literature have suggested that there are serious deficiencies in our understanding of team processes and performance (e.g., Dyer, 1984). These difficulties may be attributable, in part, to the lack of laboratory methodologies to investigate team performance. This paper describes the use of low-fidelity simulations as a potentially useful paradigm for researching team coordination and performance. This paradigm is advantageous in that it offers relatively high levels of experimental control and task representation at a low cost.     

Dominant paradigms in motor behavior research: the motor-action controversy revisited

In 1992, Abernethy and Sparrow published an evaluation of the historical development of the field of motor behavior research as published from 1977 up to 1988 in the Journal of Motor Behavior. The present study extends their evaluation from 1988 through 2005 using content analyses of articles on motor control and learning in this journal. Papers were categorized into the two dominant and contrasting paradigms, the motor systems approach and the action systems approach. Analysis suggests that the field of motor behavior research has changed considerably over the last three decades. The action systems approach is now the leading approach, but the motor systems approach has, however, not perished. In a Kuhnian perspective, the results might be consistent with a more long-lasting crisis, and from the available data it is not possible to predict a future outcome of the dispute between the two approaches.     

Age and management team performance

One hundred eighty male managers participated as age-homogeneous 4-person teams in a validated all-day decision-making simulation. Fifteen teams consisted of 28- to 35-year-old participants (young), 15 teams were in the 45-55 age range (middle-aged), and 15 teams consisted of 65- to 75-year-old (older) persons. More than 40 objective performance measures (loading on 12-15 factors) were calculated on the basis of team decision making, planning, and other indicators. Performance by young and middle-aged teams was generally similar. Older teams made fewer decisions and were less strategic and less responsive to incoming information. Their overview of the task was less broad; action diversity and information search was reduced. However, older teams used opportunities and handled a simulated emergency as effectively as their younger and middle-aged counterparts. Alternative explanations for the obtained differences are presented.     

Transformational leadership, initiating structure, and substitutes for leadership: a longitudinal study of research and development project team performance

Transformational leadership, initiating structure, and selected substitutes for leadership were studied as longitudinal predictors of performance in 118 research and development (R&D) project teams from 5 firms. As hypothesized, transformational leadership predicted 1-year-later technical quality, schedule performance, and cost performance and 5-year-later profitability and speed to market. Initiating structure predicted all the performance measures. The substitutes of subordinate ability and an intrinsically satisfying task each predicted technical quality and profitability, and ability predicted speed to market. Moderator effects for type of R&D work were hypothesized and found whereby transformational leadership was a stronger predictor of technical quality in research projects, whereas initiating structure was a stronger predictor of technical quality in development projects. Implications for leadership theory and research are discussed.     

Structuring for team success: The interactive effects of network structure and cultural diversity on team potency and performance

This longitudinal study used data from 91 self-managed teams (456 individuals, 60 nationalities) to examine the interactive effects of a team’s task (“workflow”) network structure and its cultural diversity (as indexed by nationality) on the team’s “potency” (i.e., the team’s confidence in its ability to perform) and its performance (as rated by expert judges). We found that whereas the emergence of dense task networks enhanced team potency it was the emergence of (moderately) centralized task networks that facilitated team performance. These varied structural effects, moreover, were themselves contingent on team composition: the more culturally diverse a team, the more pronounced were the positive effects of network density on team potency and the higher the level of network centralization required for optimal team performance. The success of a team appears to hinge on the interplay between network structure and team composition.     

Task versus relationship conflict,team performance,and team member satisfaction: a meta-analysis

This study provides a meta-analysis of research on the associations between relationship conflict, task conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction. Consistent with past theorizing, results revealed strong and negative correlations between relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction. In contrast to what has been suggested in both academic research and introductory textbooks, however, results also revealed strong and negative (instead of the predicted positive) correlations between task conflict team performance, and team member satisfaction. As predicted, conflict had stronger negative relations with team performance in highly complex (decision making, project, mixed) than in less complex (production) tasks. Finally, task conflict was less negatively related to team performance when task conflict and relationship conflict were weakly, rather than strongly, correlated.     

Embracing transformational leadership: team values and the impact of leader behavior on team performance

The authors investigated the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and group performance in 218 financial services teams that were branches of a bank in Hong Kong and the United States. Transformational leadership influenced team performance through the mediating effect of team potency. The effect of transformational leadership on team potency was moderated by team power distance and team collectivism, such that higher power distance teams and more collectivistic teams exhibited stronger positive effects of transformational leadership on team potency. The model was supported by data in both Hong Kong and the United States, which suggests a convergence in how teams function in the East and West and highlights the importance of team values.     

Flow experience and team performance: The role of team goal commitment and information exchange

While a number of studies show that the flow experience is related to different outcomes at the individual level, the role of flow in work teams remains unclear. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge on flow by testing the relationships between this psychological state, team goal commitment and team performance. Data were gathered from 85 teams comprised of graduate and undergraduate students who participated in a project management simulation. The results show that the flow experience is positively related to team performance. This relationship is mediated by team goal commitment and moderated by the level of information exchange between team members. In practical terms, the results of this study show that managers should implement interventions fostering the flow experience in their teams, while at the same time encouraging information exchange between members.