Cross-training policies and team performance

A high-performance construction workplace invests in its human resources and facilitates their technical and innovation skills through team development. Though team development has been explored in many studies, to date, little research has disentangled how team development and compensation methods enhance team performance in construction companies. Accordingly, team development as a hierarchical, reflective construct, incorporating six associated components was extended and the variables of the model in a nomological network analysed using partial least squares (PLS). As a result, with the help of PLS path modelling, a hierarchical team development construct with the mediating effects of compensation on the relationship between team development and team performance was developed. The research analysis was completed on a sample population of 128 construction design teams and the results lead to the development of a model that shows team development has a significant direct and indirect impact on team performance. The results also confirm the mediating role of group compensation on the relationship between team development and team performance. In general, it is suggested that the design teams achieved better performance when the leaders adapted team compensation methods consistent with the team development practices.

Creativity in innovative projects: How teamwork matters

With the prevalence of team-based organizational structures, researchers have devoted considerable effort to figure out what makes teams effective. In this vein, boundary spanning activity – a set of team processes through which teams establish linkages and manage interactions with external parties – has been demonstrated to be a key determinant of team effectiveness. As a complement to previous research that has revealed the beneficial impact of boundary-spanning activity on team performance, this research addresses contingencies that drive the effects of boundary-spanning activity on performance. Specifically, following previous research showing the relevance of social network perspective in understanding team processes and effectiveness, this study addresses the role of social network structures, namely, spanners’ network centrality and network connectivity, in the relationship between boundary-spanning activity and team performance. We empirically tested our hypothesis with data collected from 70 nursing teams. The results indicated that the level of connectivity augmented while spanners’ centrality mitigated the beneficial impact of boundary-spanning activity on performance. The current findings point to the need to explore network concepts into boundary-spanning research.

Much has been said and written about the importance of teams to the success of organisations and emphasis has been given to the benefits of team‐building activities to achieving both team and organisational effectiveness. Describes attempts to move beyond team building and to link organisational development to team effectiveness in a coherent way. In order to achieve this goal, a team effectiveness audit tool has been devised which is based on individual self‐assessment. The audit tool focuses on six domains considered to be important in effective teams. The self‐report audit tool has now been used by over 140 teams across a range of public‐sector organisations and this has enabled a significant database to be built up. This provides a large normative data set against which individual team performance can be gauged. Focuses on data derived from 37 teams within an integrated acute and community health and social services (HSS) trust. Overall the team effectiveness audit tool has been well received and has proven to be an effective mechanism of linking individual and team performance with organisational‐management objectives.

In the past, team coordination dynamics have been explored using nonlinear dynamical systems (NDS) methods, but the relationship between team coordination dynamics and team performance for all-human teams was assumed to be linear. The current study examines team coordination dynamics with an extended version of the NDS methods and assumes that its relationship with team performance for human-autonomy teams (HAT) is nonlinear. In this study, three team conditions are compared with the goals of better understanding how team coordination dynamics differ between all-human teams and HAT and how these dynamics relate to team performance and team situation awareness. Each condition was determined based on manipulation of the .pilot role: in the first condition (synthetic) the pilot role was played by a synthetic agent, in the second condition (control) it was a randomly assigned participant, and in the third condition (experimenter) it was an expert who used a role specific coordination script. NDS indices revealed that synthetic teams were rigid, followed by experimenter teams, who were metastable, and control teams, who were unstable. Experimenter teams demonstrated better team effectiveness (i.e., better team performance and team situation awareness) than control and synthetic teams. Team coordination stability is related to team performance and team situation awareness in anonlinear manner with optimal performance and situation awareness associated with metastability coupled with flexibility. This result means that future development of synthetic teams should address these coordination dynamics, specifically, rigidity in coordination.

Globalization and dynamic economic conditions have exponentially increased the use of virtual work in organizations. Effectiveness in software development teams, therefore, is now a relevant issue in business, psychology or other fields. Despite the uniqueness of software development teams and their work conditions, their effectiveness has not been sufficiently researched to clearly determine how it relates to personality traits, work challenges and the virtualization level. To expand the understanding of the mechanisms that influence team effectiveness in software development, an ecological framework is selected. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between personality traits, work factors and team effectiveness within the context of software development teams. Methodology: The exploratory study was conducted in international software development companies operating in Lithuania. Forty-five software development teams (N = 142) filled in the Team task performance scale, Hexaco-PI-R questionnaire and rated perceived work challenges and team virtualization level. The statistical analysis was conducted with SPSS. This survey is an initial stage of a larger project. Findings: Personality traits Conscientiousness and Extraversion relate to team effectiveness. In software development teams the most prevalent work challenges were time zone differences, lack of information when working on a project, and lack of a clear purpose. Lack of information and poor foreign language skills negatively affect team effectiveness. A higher virtualization level is associated with more frequent work challenges (culture and foreign language challenges, time zone differences) and team performance.

The aim: theoretical substantiation and development of approaches to assessing the effectiveness of the results of the sports team's performance in international athletics competitions (on the example of endurance).
 Material and methods: theoretical analysis and generalization of scientific and methodological literature and information of the Internet, data of information databases of athletics (Tilastopaja), (All-Athletics), printed and electronic sources of the Association of Track & Field Statisticians- ATFS ), the official website of the European Athletics Association (EAA), the Federation of Athletics of Ukraine, systematization, content analysis. An analysis of the results of competitive activities of athletes (n = 297) of the best thirteen European teams that participated in the XXIV European Athletics Championships (Berlin, 2018) in endurance and have gold awards. The criteria that allow to expand the approaches to assessing the effectiveness of the performance of the full team were considered.
 Results. The performance of thirteen best teams in athletics in endurance at the XXIV European Athletics Championships (Berlin, 2018) was analyzed. The obtained data allowed us to conclude that in order to create an objective assessment of the team's performance in athletics, it is not enough to take into account only the number of medals won and the places occupied by the team's athletes in the top eight. When determining the effectiveness of team performance in endurance classes, according to the existing evaluation system, medals were awarded to 2% to 33% of athletes from the total team, and places in the top eight were occupied by 18 to 75% of athletes.
 Conclusions. When evaluating the effectiveness of a sports team, you need to take into account a number of criteria that will create a diverse assessment of the performance of the sports team, which includes evaluation as a criterion - the performance of athletes at the level of personal achievement.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an individual's motivational needs on team performance, centering on the needs for affiliation, power and achievement, following the McClelland's Achievement Motivation Theory. Most previous studies related to McClelland's Achievement Motivation Theory have focused on achievement motivation as a predictor of team performance. In contrast, affiliation and power motivations were relatively little known in connection with team performance. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study using data from 181 junior nursing students in Korea. Data were collected from a questionnaire when the subjects' teamwork task was completed in November 2013. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the influence of motivational needs on team performance. Each group having high levels of the need for affiliation, or the need for power and/or the need for achievement showed a significantly high level of teamwork skills and team effectiveness. The factors influencing teamwork skills were the need for affiliation and the need for achievement. Additionally, the factors influencing team effectiveness were also the need for affiliation and the need for achievement. The study reconfirmed the positive influence of the need for achievement, which was the focus of most previous research, in regard to personal and organizational growth. Furthermore, it identified that the need for affiliation, another type of internal motive, positively affected team performance as well. Nursing schools and nursing organizations should pay attention to their members' affiliation and achievement needs to enhance organizational efficiencies. Through efforts such as developing diverse continuing education programmes for need training, they could enhance their members' needs for affiliation or achievement and consequently increase nursing team performance.

This thesis hypothesizes that providing task specific information to individual team members will improve coordination and decision-making, and therefore team performance, at time critical tasks. Major themes addressed in this research include teams and team processes, mental models, team mental models, work domain analysis, and hierarchical task analysis. Furthermore, the theory behind the development of complementary models is introduced. A unique method to identify the information sources and requirements in a complex team environment is first discussed in general and then specifically applied in two domains. The findings are presented of two experiments examining the effects of imposing different information distribution strategies that range from no complementariness to full complementariness of information. Team communication, team and individual task performance, workload, and timeliness and effectiveness of team decision making were assessed in nominal and off-nominal conditions. The first experiment used an automobile simulator and examined team navigation while driving. A second experiment was designed to incorporate additional measures to more specifically investigate individual performance, team workload, and clarity of information requirements using a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter simulator. The procedures used for both experiments provided for dynamic yet controlled environments through which critical factors that influence team process and performance could be evaluated accurately. Results of these experiments provide empirical evidence that providing task relevant information to individual team members in a time critical environment, while limiting their access to non-relevant information, improves individual and team performance. Furthermore, there is evidence of increased individual performance that indicates this method of distributing information among team members may provide individual crewmembers with a more accurate “task relevant” mental model of their own environment. This research provides new insight into how the distribution of information among team members effects the development of mental models, information requirements, team and individual performance, and communications, and highlights several directions for future research. The information distribution design principles presented in this thesis address the heterogeneity of teams; teams cannot be thought of as groups of identical individuals. The results concerning the communication, workload, performance and team of mental models were consistent across the domains in this research.

Training teams and leaders to reduce resuscitation errors and improve patient outcome

Factors that affect work team performance are the subject of numerous studies that contribute to the understanding of how teams can operate effectively in a constantly changing environment. The focus of this paper is on the relationship between work team diversity and team performance. The aim is to evaluate the impact of various work team diversity categories and characteristics on team performance. The research is executed on the sample of more than 940 sales work teams within international corporation with the global presence. Performance of sales work teams is measured by achieved revenue on country level and consequently consolidated in a form of global performance ranking. Linear regression is used to analyse the impact of work team diversity characteristics on team performance. The results confirm that team performance is influenced by gender, nationality, and mother language diversity of team members, but also by seniority and stability of work team. Team size and job specialization seem to be without any significant impact on team performance.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how diversity in need for achievement (nfA) a well-established entrepreneurial personality trait impacts team performance (effectiveness and efficiency) in Austria. In addition, it investigates the interaction effects of Team Mean nfA and relationship conflicts on the nfA diversity-performance relationship.Design/methodology/approach– Data originated from 44 entrepreneurial teams based in nine business incubators in Austria. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to estimate the model.Findings– Results indicate that, in general, nfA diversity has a negative impact on entrepreneurial team effectiveness and efficiency. However, acknowledging the importance of nfA for being entrepreneurial, diversity in nfA could improve team effectiveness when the prevailing team nfA (mean) is low. The dysfunctional role of relationship conflicts for entrepreneurial team performance is confirmed; nonetheless, similarity in nfA could help teams to cope more successfully with these potentially negative consequences.Originality/value– The paper puts forth one of the first empirical investigations of nfA and performance at a team level in an entrepreneurial field setting. Moreover, a contextually specific contribution of examining nfA diversity, team nfA (mean), relationship conflicts and team performance also augments team deep-level diversity and conflict literature. Finally, this study highlights that entrepreneurial teams could effectively leverage their human capital by realizing that some types of deep-level homogeneity (nfA) might prove helpful in neutralizing the damaging effects of relationship conflicts.

This study deals with workforce flexibility defined in terms of 'multifunctionality' and 'redundancy'. These concepts refer, respectively, to the number of different tasks a worker has mastered and the number of workers that are qualified to do a specific task. A third factor to be considered is worker efficiency. These elements of workforce flexibility support a team of workers in dealing with absenteeism and a fluctuating mix in the demand of human resources. The main focus of this study is on the impact of the distribution of workforce flexibility among workers on team performance. In this study, team performance is measured as the shortage of labour capacity, the minimum time needed to perform all tasks (e.g. the timespan) and the total cumulative production time. Two extreme assignment methods, which include a linear goal-programming formulation that minimizes the shortage, makespan and production time, are used in a full orthogonal factorial experimental design (2.2.5.5). The MANOVA results show that a uniform distribution of multifunctionality results in a shorter makespan and lower total production time. The more absenteeism, the stronger these effects. Absenteeism has a very negative impact on all performance measures, independent of the distribution of flexibility. This study shows that, in cases of absenteeism, the workload of the bottleneck worker will increase relatively more than the workload of the remaining operators. Since the bottleneck worker determines the makespan, there will be greater waiting time for the other team members. This may be contra to intuition which tells us that absenteeism will increase the relative workload (or utilization level) of the remaining workers. With respect to the distribution of redundancy, our study shows that each task should be mastered by at least two workers in order to reduce the negative impact of low to moderate levels of absenteeism. Above this minimal level of task redundancy, labour flexibility needs to covary with the demands on capacity for each task.

Team composition literature has established associations of team personality composition and performance in previous research. This study adds to this literature by examining the positive relationship of mean core self-evaluations (CSE) and team performance as well as the moderating effect of team-member exchange (TMX) on this relationship. Using 63 senior business student teams engaged in a management-simulation exercise, there was no support for the main effect of CSE above any variance explained in team performance by mean levels of the Big 5 factors. However, there was strong support for TMX as a moderator where mean CSE was only found to positively relate with team performance when TMX was high. The discussion will detail the results and future directions for research.

It has been suggested that the performance of a team is determined by the team members’ roles. An analysis of the performance of 342 individuals organised into 33 teams indicates that team roles characterised by creativity, co-ordination and co-operation are positively correlated with team performance. Members of developed teams exhibit certain performance enhancing characteristics and behaviours. Amongst the more developed teams there is a positive relationship between Specialist Role characteristics and team performance. While the characteristics associated with the Co-ordinator Role are also positively correlated with performance, these can impede the performance of less developed teams.