This dissertation investigates the management of teams at work. A thorough examination of the literature on small groups, coupled with field research on the implementation of teamwork in the New Zealand operations of a large multinational provides insights about how members of a team think. It is shown that the perception of membership by team members influences their ability to make effective use of resources and make informed decisions, not only within the team, but also with regard to its impact on the organisation. Social identity theory provides a theoretical model for the psychological processes of team membership. The processes of categorisation, self-categorisation and social identification are mapped against the introduction of teamwork over a period of two years to assess whether or not they are relevant. The results from surveys of and interviews with senior staff members support the processes described by social identity theory, where groups can operate as separate cognitive and emotional units as relevant for the management of teams at work. Because of the unique psychological processes, team members at work have to be interacted with (and be given information) differently than individuals in order to behave as a high-performing team. This study develops the implications of social identity theory for the introduction and management of teams at work, leading to high performance for the organisation. Key words: Teamwork, social identity, social cognition

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This dissertation investigates the management of teams at work. A thorough examination of the literature on small groups, coupled with field research on the implementation of teamwork in the New Zealand operations of a large multinational provides insights about how members of a team think. It is shown that the perception of membership by team members influences their ability to make effective use of resources and make informed decisions, not only within the team, but also with regard to its impact on the organisation. Social identity theory provides a theoretical model for the psychological processes of team membership. The processes of categorisation, self-categorisation and social identification are mapped against the introduction of teamwork over a period of two years to assess whether or not they are relevant. The results from surveys of and interviews with senior staff members support the processes described by social identity theory, where groups can operate as separate cognitive and emotional units as relevant for the management of teams at work. Because of the unique psychological processes, team members at work have to be interacted with (and be given information) differently than individuals in order to behave as a high-performing team. This study develops the implications of social identity theory for the introduction and management of teams at work, leading to high performance for the organisation. Key words: Teamwork, social identity, social cognition

This dissertation investigates the management of teams at work. A thorough examination of the literature on small groups, coupled with field research on the implementation of teamwork in the New Zealand operations of a large multinational provides insights about how members of a team think. It is shown that the perception of membership by team members influences their ability to make effective use of resources and make informed decisions, not only within the team, but also with regard to its impact on the organisation. Social identity theory provides a theoretical model for the psychological processes of team membership. The processes of categorisation, self-categorisation and social identification are mapped against the introduction of teamwork over a period of two years to assess whether or not they are relevant. The results from surveys of and interviews with senior staff members support the processes described by social identity theory, where groups can operate as separate cognitive and emotional units as relevant for the management of teams at work. Because of the unique psychological processes, team members at work have to be interacted with (and be given information) differently than individuals in order to behave as a high-performing team. This study develops the implications of social identity theory for the introduction and management of teams at work, leading to high performance for the organisation. Key words: Teamwork, social identity, social cognition

This dissertation investigates the management of teams at work. A thorough examination of the literature on small groups, coupled with field research on the implementation of teamwork in the New Zealand operations of a large multinational provides insights about how members of a team think. It is shown that the perception of membership by team members influences their ability to make effective use of resources and make informed decisions, not only within the team, but also with regard to its impact on the organisation. Social identity theory provides a theoretical model for the psychological processes of team membership. The processes of categorisation, self-categorisation and social identification are mapped against the introduction of teamwork over a period of two years to assess whether or not they are relevant. The results from surveys of and interviews with senior staff members support the processes described by social identity theory, where groups can operate as separate cognitive and emotional units as relevant for the management of teams at work. Because of the unique psychological processes, team members at work have to be interacted with (and be given information) differently than individuals in order to behave as a high-performing team. This study develops the implications of social identity theory for the introduction and management of teams at work, leading to high performance for the organisation. Key words: Teamwork, social identity, social cognition

Automated video interviews (AVIs) use machine learning algorithms to predict interviewee personality traits and social skills, and they are increasingly being used in industry. The present study examines the possibility of expanding the scope and utility of these approaches by developing and testing AVIs that score ability from interviewee verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal behavior in video interviews. To advance our understanding of whether AVI ability assessments are useful, I develop AVIs that predict ability (GMA, verbal ability, and interviewer-rated intellect) and investigate their reliability (i.e., inter-algorithm reliability, internal consistency across interview questions, and test retest reliability). Then, I investigate the convergent and discriminant-related validity evidence as well as potential ethnic and gender bias of such predictions. Finally, based on the Brunswik lens model, I compare how ability test scores, AVI ability assessments, and interviewer ratings of ability relate to interviewee behavior. By exploring how ability relates to behavior and how ability ratings from both AVIs and interviewers relate to behavior, the study advances our understanding of how ability affects interview performance and the cues that interviewers use to judge ability.

There is currently little research focusing specifically on the emotional labour and regulation of academic staff in higher education institutions. This study provides insight into the emotional labour regulation strategies that academic staff use within the higher education context. This research both explores and describes the emotional regulatory strategies that lecturers (including senior lecturers, associate professors and professors) use in a research-intensive academic institution in the South African context. Although previous research has shown that emotional labour is relevant in the higher education context for academic staff, little research has been conducted to uncover which regulation strategies academic staff use and why these strategies are employed. This study was conducted using a qualitative method, in which a combination of snowball, convenience and purposive sampling strategies was used to gain access to the intended sample of fifteen participants. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were the source of data collection and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected. Emotional labour has been shown to affect the well-being of professionals in their workplace. Therefore, monitoring and controlling emotional labour is of paramount importance for a healthy workforce. In a higher education environment, the well-being of students is directly influenced by the well-being of the staff and the overall effectiveness of service delivery by the organisation (in terms of research outputs as well as teaching and learning). Evidently, the emotional labour and regulation thereof of the individual academic staff member may have far-reaching effects. This study confirmed that emotional labour is experienced by academic staff within the university context. Moreover, the academic work context of academic staff involves a high degree of interaction with people that includes a range of diverse job tasks. The perceived display rules of the university were defined and described in this study. The emotional labour regulation strategies that academic lecturing staff utilise are those of deep, genuine and surface acting. However, the use of these strategies is not straightforward, as academic lecturing staff apply a range of these regulation strategies based on several reasons or rationales. These rationales further determine when an individual will select one or a combination of regulation strategies. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

<p>With increasing demands in people’s work and life, successful self-regulation of multiple goals/tasks becomes important to one’s well-being and performance. One individual difference in this process is one’s preference for multitasking (i.e., polychronicity), which was found to be important in individuals’ psychological experience and performance. However, in terms of our understanding of the nature of this construct, there are at least two issues: 1) most research has assumed that preference for multitasking and preference for sequential pursuit are opposite ends of one continuum, which has not been directly tested; 2) different scales of polychronicity differ on their definitions of multitasking. To address these gaps, the present research seeks to clarify the relationships among individuals’ multitasking preferences and to develop a new and improved scale of these individual differences for future research in multitasking. To do so, three studies (<em>N</em> = 1367) were conducted to create and validate a scale that measures three potentially distinct preferences: concurrent preference, switching preference, and sequential preference. These studies empirically tested the relationships among the three preferences. The results were replicated in both goal and task contexts and with different response anchors. Findings suggest that it is questionable to assume multitasking preference and sequential preference are antithetical, while concurrent and switching preferences were highly correlated. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications and future directions for multitasking research.</p>

<p>Recent theoretical works and methodological advancements in organizational psychology have highlighted the necessity of a within-person perspective on organizational constructs. Past research suggests that focusing on within-person variation as an outcome can inform us of organizational processes that would not be possible with a static or mean-level approach. As such, the study of performance, on both intra- and inter-individual levels, is incomplete without addressing the nature of intraindividual variations and predictors of their short-term changes (i.e., dynamics). To address this, I first compiled a list of dynamic features from affective, personality, and cognitive dynamics and used it to develop a taxonomy of short-term performance variations (e.g., variability, inertia, stability, diurnal variation) and then conducted a systematic review of empirical works on performance variability to understand its associated theoretical constructs and their predictors. In the second part of my dissertation, I empirically examined the different forms of short-term performance dynamics (mean, maximum, minimum, variability, stability, inertia, week trends, day trends) using two weeks-long experience sampling data from working adults and a) investigated the extent to which they are distinct constructs and whether they have test-retest reliability, and b) tested what situational, time-specific, individual variables are most predictive of each form. I collected ESM data from 237 full-time working participants four times a day for two weeks with a week break in the middle (total observations = 10,315, average response rate = 48.3). I found that there was a high test-retest reliability for specific dynamic features, particularly those of OCB. In addition, I found that there were unique predictors for the same performance domain depending on how their variations were operationalized. </p>