The team-training literature provides favorable support for the after-action review (AAR)?s ability to improve cognitive, skill, and attitudinal outcomes in co-located and distributed environments. However, the comparative effectiveness of co-located and distributed AARs is unknown. Thus, the objective of the present study was to investigate the comparative effectiveness of co-located and distributed AARs. The present study examined the AAR?s effect on performance, declarative knowledge, team-efficacy, team voice, team cohesion, and team-level reactions. Data were obtained from 492 undergraduate students (47.66% female) assigned to 123 4-person teams who participated in a team training protocol using a 3 (type of AAR review: non-AAR versus subjective AAR versus objective AAR) x 2 (geographic dispersion: co-located and distributed training environments) x 3 (sessions) repeated measures design. The results indicate that AAR teams had significantly higher performance scores than the non-AAR teams. In addition, the AAR teams had higher perceptions of team-efficacy and higher levels of team cohesion than the non-AAR teams. With the exception of team-level reactions, there were no other significant differences between the distributed AAR and co-located AAR conditions. Similarly, there were no significant differences across any of the outcome variables between the objective and subjective AAR conditions, indicating that the type of AAR did not impact the results of the training. The findings of the present study highlight several practical and scientific implications that should be considered regarding AAR training. Primarily, regardless of the training environment or type of AAR, AAR training remains an effective intervention at increasing performance and attitudinal-based outcomes. In addition, the results suggest that the use of distributed AARs does not engender the proposed process losses that were hypothesized. Thus, the use of this training to reduce administrative costs may be a viable option for geographically dispersed organizations. Finally, practitioners should evaluate the extent to which increasing the amount of technology to allow for a more objective performance review, is providing the intended benefit to the trainees. The empirical research has consistently demonstrated that the use of objective review systems provides little to no benefit to the trainees. Future research is needed to determine the generalizability of these findings to other tasks, domains, team types, and levels of expertise.

Syftet med vår uppsats är att studera hur olika arbetsroller förändras i en agil organisation och vilka utmaningar HR-avdelningen ställs inför i den agila miljön. I organisationer där chefsroller omskapas och medarbetarnas ansvar ökar behövs det skapas en kunskap om hur de tillskrivna rollerna förändras och vilka utmaningar som tillkommer med det. I genomförandet av studien har vi valt att tillämpa en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi och en multipel fallstudie för att få en så pass djup förståelse som möjligt. Den teoretiska referensramen innefattar teorier om ledarskap, följarskap och HRavdelningens roller för att sedan utmynna i teorier rörande agilt ledarskap, självstyrande team samt agilt HR vilka har hjälpt oss att svara på vår huvudsakliga problemformulering. Vidare redovisas vår empiriska datainsamling som samlats in genom intervjuer med informanter som alla arbetar med agilt HR för att försöka skapa en så rättvis bild av ämnet som möjligt. Den teoretiska referensramen och den empiriska datainsamlingen integreras i analyskapitlet och vävs samman med våra egna reflektioner och tankar för att urskilja mönster och bakomliggande faktorer till de svar vi fått. Slutligen presenteras uppsatsens slutsats som syftar att svara på vårt huvudproblem och våra delproblem. Vi kan konstatera att rollerna i en agil miljö förändras och den makt som tidigare varit associerad med ledarskapet till viss del försvinner och överlåts på medarbetarna. Det i sin tur leder till att HR-avdelningen utmanas av att möta de förändringar som uppstår och anpassa processer för att förändras i takt med den snabbt föränderliga och komplexa omvärlden.

Communication is one team process factor that has received considerable research attention in the team literature. This literature provides equivocal evidence regarding the role of communication in team performance and yet, does not provide any evidence for when communication becomes important for team performance. This research program sought to address this evidence gap by a) testing task complexity and team member diversity (race diversity, gender diversity and work value diversity) as moderators of the team communication — performance relationship; and b) testing a team communication — performance model using established teams across two different task types. The functional perspective was used as the theoretical framework for operationalizing team communication activity. The research program utilised a quasi-experimental research design with participants from a large multi-national information technology company whose Head Office was based in Sydney, Australia. Participants voluntarily completed two team building exercises (a decision making and production task), and completed two online questionnaires. In total, data were collected from 1039 individuals who constituted 203 work teams. Analysis of the data revealed a small number of significant moderation effects, not all in the expected direction. However, an interesting and unexpected finding also emerged from Study One. Large and significant correlations between communication activity ratings were found across tasks, but not within tasks. This finding suggested that teams were displaying very similar profiles of communication on each task, despite the tasks having different communication requirements. Given this finding, Study Two sought to a) determine the relative importance of task versus team effects in explaining variance in team communication measures for established teams; b) determine if established teams had reliable and discernable team communication profiles and if so, c) investigate whether team communication profiles related to task performance. Multi-level modeling and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that task type did not have an effect on team communication ratings. However, teams accounted for 24% of the total variance in communication measures. Through cluster analysis, five reliable and distinct team communication profiles were identified. Consistent with the findings of the multi-level analysis and repeated measures ANOVA, teams’ profiles were virtually identical across the decision making and production tasks. A relationship between communication profile and performance was identified for the production task, although not for the decision making task. This research responds to calls in the literature for a better understanding of when communication becomes important for team performance. The moderators tested in this research were not found to have a substantive or reliable effect on the relationship between communication and performance. However, the consistency in team communication activity suggests that established teams can be characterized by their communication profiles and further, that these communication profiles may have implications for team performance. The findings of this research provide theoretical support for the functional perspective in terms of the communication – performance relationship and further support the team development literature as an explanation for the stability in team communication profiles. This research can also assist organizations to better understand the specific types of communication activity and profiles of communication that could offer teams a performance advantage.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, page: 2513. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-111).

Thesis (Ph.D. Economic Education)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 244-267)

Diss. Linköping : Univ., 2002. / S. [1]-36: sammanfattning, s. 37-243: 9 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 344-366.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Description based on contents viewed Aug. 19, 2008; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-125).