Shared mental models (SMM) and Transactive memory systems (TMS) have been advocated as the main team learning mechanisms. Despite multiple appeals for collaboration, research in both these fields has progressed in parallel and little effort has been made to integrate these theories. The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between SMM and TMS in a field setting and examine their influence on various team effectiveness outcomes such as team performance, team learning, team creativity, team members' satisfaction and team viability. Contextual factors relevant to an organizational setting were tested and these included team size, tenure, country of origin, team reward and organizational support. Based on responses from 41 teams from 7 industries across two countries (US and India), results indicate that team size, country of origin and team tenure impact team performance and team learning. In addition, team reward and organizational support predicted team viability and satisfaction. Results indicated that TMS components (specialization, coordination and credibility) were better predictors of team outcomes than the omnibus TMS construct. In particular, TMS credibility predicted team performance and creativity while TMS coordination predicted team viability and satisfaction. SMM was measured in two different ways: an average deviation index and a 6-item scale. Both methods resulted in a conceptually similar interpretation although average deviation indices provided slightly better results in predicting effectiveness outcomes. TMS components moderated the relationship between SMM and team outcomes. Team performance was lowest when both SMM and TMS were low. However, contrary to expectations, high levels of SMM did not always result in effective team outcomes (performance, learning and creativity) especially when teams exhibited high TMS specialization and credibility. An interaction pattern was observed under conditions of low levels of SMM such that high TMS resulted in higher levels of team outcomes. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

As far as wage disparity and its social, political and economic consequences are concerned, one can easily see that it is a popular topic on which many studies and research have been conducted. The recent financial turmoil drew the people`s attention on the issue of wage disparity, and the people started to discuss this issue on the equity and fairness grounds, but the only thing that economists can do is to examine the economic consequences of the wide wage disparities. It is much easier to conduct a study on the issue of wage disparity by using the data on the professional sport teams due to their several advantages and in this paper I chose to study the relationship between intra-team wage dispersion and teams` performance by using data on randomly chosen 16 teams from the National Football League over the sample period of 2000-2008. First of all, a general introduction to the issue takes place. Then a detailed theoretical background is provided. After mentioning some previous evidence and methodology, empirical results are revealed. Those results show us that Ramaswamy`s and Rowthorn`s Damage Potential Hypothesis is supported over Levine`s Cohesiveness Hypothesis by the data.

<p>As far as wage disparity and its social, political and economic consequences are concerned, one can easily see that it is a popular topic on which many studies and research have been conducted. The recent financial turmoil drew the people`s attention on the issue of wage disparity, and the people started to discuss this issue on the equity and fairness grounds, but the only thing that economists can do is to examine the economic consequences of the wide wage disparities. It is much easier to conduct a study on the issue of wage disparity by using the data on the professional sport teams due to their several advantages and in this paper I chose to study the relationship between intra-team wage dispersion and teams` performance by using data on randomly chosen 16 teams from the National Football League over the sample period of 2000-2008. First of all, a general introduction to the issue takes place. Then a detailed theoretical background is provided. After mentioning some previous evidence and methodology, empirical results are revealed. Those results show us that Ramaswamy`s and Rowthorn`s Damage Potential Hypothesis is supported over Levine`s Cohesiveness Hypothesis by the data.</p>

While the concept of situation awareness have received a lot of attention over the past 15 years and many different measures have been developed and tested, the concepts of team situation awareness and shared situation awareness have not gotten as much attention and less progress has been made in developing a meaningful and validated measure. Thus, the purpose of this study is to operationalize the concept of shared situation awareness and test its consequences and relation to other concepts. In this study a new measure for shared situation awareness was developed and its potential evaluated. The measure was a shared priorities measure where the participants of the study each wrote down and rank ordered five factors they thought were important for good team performance in the situation. The factors were then scrambled and handed over to the other participant who once again ordered them according to priority. The correspondence between the two participants’ ratings was hypothesized to correlate with shared situation awareness. The results show that the shared priorities measure in this study did not relate to shared situation awareness. Several methodological concerns was identified which could have affected the results. The measure did relate to subjective ratings of cooperation which is very interesting and it is suggested that the measure captured aspects of teamwork. The shared priorities measure was easy to employ, required little preparation, has a high face-validity and is a promising addition to team research. / Under de senaste 15 åren har konceptet situationsmedvetande uppmärksammats en hel del, och många mått har utvecklats och blivit testade. Däremot har inte konceptet delat situationsmedvetande kommit lika långt i form av metodutveckling och validering. Syftet med denna rapport är att operationalisera begreppet delat situationsmedvetande och pröva det mot andra koncept. Inom ramen för detta arbete utvecklades ett nytt mått för delat situationsmedvetande som också testades empiriskt. Måttet mäter hur väl ett team har delade prioriteringar. Varje deltagare genererar fem faktorer för vad som är viktigt för god teamprestation i situationen och rangordnar dem i prioritetsordning. Dessa faktorer blandades sen om och delas ut till den andre teammedlemmen som i sin tur rangordnar faktorerna i prioritetsordning. Hur väl faktorernas rangordning korresponderar med varandra antogs vara ett mått på teamets delade situationsmedvetande. Resultatet visar att rangordningsmåttet inte har något samband med subjektivt bedömt delat situationsmedvetande. Flera metodologiska problem identifierades som kan ha påverkat resultatet. Däremot korrelerade rangordningsmåttet med hur väl samarbetet i teamet ansågs fungera, vilket tyder på att måttet fångar aspekter av hur teamet fungerar som team. Rangordningsmåttet var enkelt att använda, krävde lite förberedelse, har hög face-validity och verkar vara en möjlig väg att fortsätta studera team.

Submitted by Josmary Karoline Demko Alves (josmarykaroline@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-10-29T19:29:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Josmary vfinal.pdf: 958731 bytes, checksum: 99f22613883eb6a31dcd046c8ee98a08 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-01-25T12:38:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Josmary vfinal.pdf: 958731 bytes, checksum: 99f22613883eb6a31dcd046c8ee98a08 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-02T18:20:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Josmary vfinal.pdf: 958731 bytes, checksum: 99f22613883eb6a31dcd046c8ee98a08 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-29 / Estruturas sociais influenciam a efetividade dos grupos. O propósito deste estudo é explorar os efeitos contingenciais dessa relação por meio da investigação da densidade em diferentes redes na performance das equipes. Hipotetizou-se, primeiramente, o efeito oposto para densidade instrumental e afetiva em performance das equipes; posteriormente, argumenta-se que interdependência das tarefas e a orientação de distância de poder agem como moderadores. Para testar as hipóteses, foram utilizadas informações de questionários coletados de 27 Unidades de Pronto Atendimento (UPA) e 106 grupos. O resultado encontrado suporta o efeito positivo de densidade instrumental e o impacto negativo da densidade afetiva. Além disso, provou-se que a interdependência de tarefas atenua ambas as relações diretas. Ao final, são discutidas as implicações destes resultados para pesquisa em densidade das redes e performance das equipes. / Social structures influence team effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to explore the contingencies effects of this relationship by investigating density in distinct network contents on team performance. We first hypothesized opposite direct effects for instrumental and affective density on team performance; then we further argue that task interdependence and power distance orientation act as moderators. To test our hypotheses we use survey data from 27 Emergency and Care Units and 106 teams. The results support the positive effect of instrumental density and the negative impact of affective density. Moreover, task interdependence was found to attenuate both main relationships. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on network density and team performance.

Teams play a key role in organisational success and it is imperative to proactively manage team performance needs in order to influence team effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of a group of employees in a sales-driven organisation on how the application of Neethling’s thinking style preferences influenced team performance following their participation in Neethling’s thinking style preferences training. The qualitative exploratory study was conducted with 19 employees in the Finance and Insurance department of a sales-driven organisation. The data were collected by means of in-depth individual interviews and focus group interviews. A nonprobability purposive sample technique was used to identify participants for the two focus group interviews and six individual interviews. Evidence provided in the findings concluded that Neethling's thinking style preferences can be used as a viable tool to enhance team performance in an organisation as the participants’ perceptions and experiences of the advantages of these preferences and the findings in the literature on effective teams, concurred. There were also strong indications that the team performed better in terms of their internal team processes, leading to team outputs such as better communication, cooperation, understanding and relationships between team members. Participants also recognised that the team’s performance led to the achievement of organisational results or outcome goals such as improved productivity, profitability, organisational image and customer satisfaction. The study represents original research, extending the current body of knowledge on the perceptions of employees’ team performance related to Neethling’s thinking style preferences. Neethling’s thinking style preferences could have a high influence on identified elements of team performance and could be viewed by employees as a viable tool for enhancing team performance. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

For over 30 years, organizations have engaged in programs to address the growing presence of diverse populations in their ranks, and researchers have attempted to identify and quantify a link between diversity and enterprise performance. The problem was a lack of understanding of how organizations benefit from increased diversity and the role of frontline managers in that process. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to address the research question aimed at the perceptions and lived experiences of frontline managers and to gain insights about how they are navigating the challenges of increased diversity to enhance their ability to produce high-performance outcomes. The three conceptual frames used were (a) diversity management, (b) managing people, and (c) team performance. The data collection process involved interviewing 12 frontline managers from a variety of industry sectors using a semistructured, conversational interviewing protocol. The open hand-coded analysis revealed patterns of thought and behaviors relating to managing individuals, managing the complexity of diversity, and managing diverse teams for high performance. The original concept of diversity management was in response to the growing diversity in the workplace and was intended to develop the capacity among managers to manage the resulting diversity mix. The study findings indicated that a common definition of diversity management is possible, that managing diversity requires a competence with all dimensions of diversity, and that there are a set of management skills that can yield better performance with teams of diverse composition. The results of my study can have positive impact on theory, practice, and general social acceptance of diversity.

RESEARCH AIM The aim of this study is to provide a deeper understanding in how leadership competencies are perceived to be important for hybrid team members team performance in both, a virtual and face-to-face setting. This, to investigate how different leadership competencies could be used by a hybrid team leader to manage the hybrid teams performance. RESEARCH METHOD This study uses qualitative research method and is conducted by using exploratory research. The data for this study was collected through 10 semi-structured interviews with hybrid team members. The collected data was analysed by using a thematic analysis approach. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE Previous literature has been examined, where three concepts have been chosen for this study: Hybrid teams, hybrid team leadership and leadership competencies. Based on the examined literature, a conceptual framework was constructed by the authors. RESULTS Interpersonal sensitivity as a leadership competence was fundamentally important for all hybrid team members, as a strong socio-emotional relationship was required to create a desire for other competencies. The complexity of hybrid teams was evident in how virtual team members perceived leadership actions, as they felt misunderstood by the hybrid team leader and alienated from the hybrid team. CONCLUSION The hybrid team leader needs to carefully consider the virtual team members needs to mitigate their negative perception of team performance. It could be done by allowing more autonomy by practising a supportive leadership role, use one-to-one meetings for relationship building, and by giving clear guidelines. KEYWORDS Hybrid team, Virtual team, Face-to-face team, Hybrid leadership, Leadership competencies, Team performance.

This dissertation contributes an enhanced understanding of team cognition, in general, and collaborative problem solving (CPS), specifically, through an integration of methods that measure team interaction dynamics and knowledge building as it occurs during a complex CPS task. The need for better understanding CPS has risen in prominence as many organizations have increasingly worked to address complex problems requiring the combination of diverse sets of individual expertise to achieve solutions for novel problems. Towards this end, the present research drew from theoretical and empirical work on Macrocognition in Teams that describes the knowledge coordination arising from team communications during CPS. It built from this by incorporating the study of team interaction during complex collaborative cognition. Interaction between team members in such contexts has proven to be inherently dynamic and exhibiting nonlinear patterns not accounted for by extant research methods. To redress this gap, the present research drew from work in cognitive science designed to study social and team interaction as a nonlinear dynamical system. CPS was examined by studying knowledge building and interaction processes of 43 dyads working on NASA's Moonbase Alpha simulation, a CPS task. Both non-verbal and verbal interaction dynamics were examined. Specifically, frame-differencing, an automated video analysis technique, was used to capture the bodily movements of participants and content coding was applied to the teams' communications to characterize their CPS processes. A combination of linear (i.e., multiple regression, t-test, and time-lagged cross-correlation analysis), as well as nonlinear analytic techniques (i.e., recurrence quantification analysis; RQA) were applied. In terms of the predicted interaction dynamics, it was hypothesized that teams would exhibit synchronization in their bodily movements and complementarity in their communications and further, that teams more strongly exhibiting these forms of coordination will produce better problem solving outcomes. Results showed that teams did exhibit a pattern of bodily movements that could be characterized as synchronized, but higher synchronization was not systematically related to performance. Further, results showed that teams did exhibit communicative interaction that was complementary, but this was not predictive of better problem solving performance. Several exploratory research questions were proposed as a way of refining the application of these techniques to the investigation of CPS. Results showed that semantic code-based communications time-series and %REC and ENTROPY recurrence-based measures were most sensitive to differences in performance. Overall, this dissertation adds to the scientific body of knowledge by advancing theory and empirical knowledge on the forms of verbal and non-verbal team interaction during CPS, but future work remains to be conducted to identify the relationship between interaction dynamics and CPS performance.

The influence of leadership on team success has been noted extensively in research and practice. However, as organizations move to flatter team based structures with workers communicating virtually across space and time, our conceptualization of team leadership must change to meet these new workplace demands. Given this need, the current study aims to begin untangling the effects of distribution and virtuality on team leadership structure and subsequent team outcomes that may be affected by differences in conceptualizing such structures. Specifically, the goals of this study were threefold. First, this study investigated how the physical distribution of members may impact perceptions of team leadership structure, depending on virtual tool type utilized for communicating. Second, this study explored how different indices of team leadership structure may have different influences on team outcomes, specifically in terms of conceptualizing the degree to which multiple members are perceived as collectively enacting particular leadership behaviors via a network density metric, and conceptualizing team leadership in regards to the specialization of members into particular behavioral roles, as captured via role distance and role variety indices. Finally, this study expanded on current research regarding team leadership structure by examining how the collective enactment of particular leadership (i.e., structuring/planning, problem solving, supporting social climate) behaviors may facilitate specific teamwork processes (i.e., transition, action, interpersonal), leading to enhanced team performance, as well as how leadership role specialization may impact overall teamwork and team performance. Findings from a laboratory study of 188 teams participating in a simulated decision making task reveal a significant interaction for the influences of physical distribution and iv virtuality on perceptions of leadership structure, such that less distributed teams (i.e., those with fewer isolated members) were more likely to perceive their distributed members as participating in the collective enactment of necessary leadership responsibilities when communicating via richer media (i.e., videoconferencing, teleconferencing) than less rich media (i.e., instant messaging). However, virtuality and distribution did not impact the degree to which members were perceived as specializing in a particular leadership role, or the overall variety of leadership roles being performed. In terms of team outcomes, the perceived collective enactment of leadership emanating from distributed team members significantly predicted teamwork, while the perceived collective leadership of collocated members did not have a significant impact. Specifically, greater distributed team member involvement in the collective enactment of structuring/planning leadership positively impacted team transition processes, while the collective enactment of supporting the social climate positively predicted team interpersonal processes. Although the relationship between perceived leadership role specialization, in terms of role distance and role variety, and team performance was mediated by overall teamwork processes as expected, leadership role specialization had a negative impact on overall teamwork. Finally, while team action processes did not serve to mediate the relationship between perceived problem solving network density and team performance, team transition processes mediated the relationships between the collective enactment of structuring/planning for distributed members and team performance. The collective enactment of supporting the social climate by distributed team members and its relationship to team performance was also mediated by interpersonal teamwork processes. Together, these results reveal the importance in considering context, specifically virtuality and physical distribution, when designing, developing v and maintaining effective team leadership, teamwork, and team performance. Furthermore, they provide unique insight regarding how different configurations of leadership may be possible in teams. Study limitations, practical implications, and recommendations for future research and practice are further discussed.