Transactive memory, the transmission and use of knowledge between two or more people, is an important construct to consider when studying work teams. This thesis reviews the literature on transactive memory systems (TMS) in order to summarize what is currently known about TMS and to identify gaps in the literature in need of further investigation. Past TMS research is reviewed according to the operational definitions, antecedents, team processes, outcomes, team performance, and boundary conditions. TMS is most frequently operationalized using Lewis' (2003) TMS scale. Research has focused on three types of antecedents: Communication, Team Characteristics, and Facilitation of TMS. Two common types of team processes found were coordination and team monitoring & backup behavior. Outcomes frequently focused on were team cognition, and team effectiveness. Team performance was ubiquitous in almost all the literature. Boundary conditions, however, varied considerably

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Despite much attention given to effective teams in the workplace, school counseling teams have been neglected in the research. The primary purpose of this mixed methods study was to learn what characteristics secondary counselors perceive contribute to an effective school counseling team. The first research phase conducted six team interviews; themes emerging from the interviews yielded the development of the Effective School Counseling Team Questionnaire (ESCTQ). The following research questions were investigated: What factors do counselors perceive contribute to their team's effectiveness?, Are the scores on the Effective School Counseling Team Questionnaire related to team effectiveness as described by school counselors? Is there a relationship between team characteristics (amount of time together, individual counseling experience, gender, age) and team effectiveness? Is there a relationship between the perceptions of members of effective and ineffective teams? The literature on effective team factors was reviewed and analyzed in three categories: internal, interpersonal, and external. Qualitative results indicated that the majority of participants viewed internal traits as the number one factor contributing to their team's success. Most frequent were competencies, respect, sharing duties, caring for each other and serving students. The second area participants listed as most important was interpersonal factors, such as communication, interactions, and planning. Overall, communication was cited as the number one factor needed for an effective team. Conclusions drawn suggested that teams need altruistic, personal qualities to feel most effective. These were summarized by participants as a team member who is caring, giving, and putting the needs of students first. The second key area for school counseling teams was support from external sources, primarily school administration and central office. In phase two, the questionnaire was developed and used to confirm the interview findings. During the second phase, the ESCTQ was administered to 199 secondary school counselors, yielding an 82.4% (n = 164) return rate. The survey when analyzed by teams did not show major significant differences between the teams; it did, however, confirm the qualitative findings of the internal and personal characteristics counselors of effective school teams posses. The survey also allowed team members to rate their current team and their ideal team. The difference between the two ratings (ie. gap score) showed there was a significant mean difference (20.50) between the means of those who perceived their team as highly effective (26.55) and those who perceived their team as least effective (6.05). When looking at the questionnaire this could be interpreted to mean that the team members who felt most effective had the smallest gap score between their current team and their ideal team. When teams' gap scores were compared to their overall team rating "global" scores, as the global score increased for a team their gap score decreased. Meaning an effective team had fewer discrepancies (smaller gap) between their current and ideal team. Clearly, teams that perceive their team as "relatively effective" are rating the team closer to their ideal team than those that see their team as "relatively ineffective". In order to enhance performance of a counseling team, this study was important to assess school counseling team's effectiveness. Two research methods were used to analyze effective teams; this research provides valuable information relating to school counselors and effective teams. / Ph. D.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the leadership team at the Mmabana Arts, Culture and Sport Foundation (MACSF). The study focused on leadership and creating an understanding of their own strengths and developmental areas, in order to understand the role they can play within a leadership team, how other members of a team can compliment them with their strengths and for them to get greater awareness of their impact on their subordinates, the rest of the management team and the organisation as a whole. The aim was also to inform personal development. in so far as the leaders now understand what their development areas are. The overall approach used in the stud) was quantitative in nature and involved survey research using the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (SHL). The target population consisted of identified employees who ere fulfilling leadership role in MACSF. The study was also conducted organisation wide at ever) Mmabana Cultural Center (Mmabatho, Head Office, Lehurutse, Taung and Tlhabane). Non-probability sampling was used; more specifically, availability sampling was utilised in which the researcher made use of all the available subjects due to MACSF's small size. The effective sample size was a small 39. The findings of this study revealed that a comprehensive investigation into the effective leadership and management competencies within the MACSF confirmed the descriptive hypothesis that certain elements within MACSF's leadership structure is underdeveloped and that specific remedial actions would be required to rectify the situation. This descriptive research found that many employees in managerial positions indicated no real concern or preference for leading other employees as they are indeed artists who would like to continue specialising in their specific art form. It was also found that personality preferences needed to be amazing artists, are in stark contrast to what is needed to be an effective administrator/manager. This, coupled with no formal training in financial management or management, leads to ineffective administration/management. It was also found that the past hardships which the Mmabana Foundation has been through, has taken its toll on the employees. Low levels of caring, trusting and optimism, coupled with high levels of stress and an inability to switch off after work, were found. The researcher recommends personal and professional development interventions, focused on business relation skills, which includes amongst others Strategic Planning, General Business Management, Project Management. Communications techniques, Monitoring & Evaluation, Financial Management for non-financial managers and Human Resource Management with the focus on Performance Management Development Systems and Asset Management at the beginning. It is also further proposed that the leadership team does team building activities where MACSF's strategy is defined, action plans are drawn up and a focus towards external competition (rather than departments/units competing against each) is created. Finally, better communication channels between management and staff, as well as between the Head Office and all the centres, should be used , as this can also assist in creating a unified Foundation. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2010

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Organizations are downsizing, challenging their employees to "do more with less." Projects teams and work groups being formed to accomplish this goal are being supported with a new type of technology called Group Support Systems (GSS). This research was concerned with determining the major factors that affect the diffusion of GSS in organizations. GroupSystems (GS) is the GSS that was researched. A survey methodology was used to collect data. The model for this research was developed from existing models in diffusion research, from prior MIS research on GroupSystems, and from prior MIS implementation research. The following independent variables were analyzed: the role of the internal champion, the role of the facilitator, average size of the work groups and the percentage of work that was handled by each work group, hourly charge for using GS, total amount of money invested in the technology, and the role of communication channels within the organization. The data were analyzed through four different regressions, with the same results being obtained each time. Significant relationships were found for the size of work groups, the hourly charge rate, and the amount spent on the technology; findings for the role of the facilitator were partially significant. The final regression was significant at the p<.001 level and accounted for over 58% of the model.

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Advantages of applying information and communication technologies to support complex team practices in healthcare domain have often been supported in the extant literature. The primary assumption is that before putting any technologies in place to support team functions, the team-based environment should be completely modeled. To date, many frameworks have been proposed for modeling healthcare teams; however, most of the frameworks only focus on single or a few aspects of teamwork and the outcomes usually present overlaps, limitations and inconsistencies. As a result, there is an increasing demand for offering an overarching framework that integrates the multiple dimensions of healthcare teamwork into a synthetic whole and clearly conceptualizes the potentially important relationships and dependencies that exist over those dimensions. In order to properly address the aforementioned challenge, this thesis applies ontological engineering to develop an overarching framework for integrating the multiple dimensions of teamwork concept in healthcare domain. For this purpose, we first illustrate a set of four stage methodological approach to provide explicit details on how to incorporate a theatrical foundation into the ontology. Then, the proposed approach is used to develop a derived ontological framework. Finally, accuracy and completeness of the proposed ontology based framework is validated to show that it is able to accurately represent the domain is it being employed for. The values and capabilities of ontology have already been studied and approved, and this technology is known as the best sources to represent a knowledge domain by means of concepts and accurately define the relationships among them. Our aim in this thesis is to further research how to develop and evaluate a standard ontology based framework to facilitate the healthcare team modeling.

Companies’ new primary source for sustainable revenue growth comes from creating new innovations, rather than from mergers and acquisitions. Companies are finding it difficult to align internal support for the innovative creativity of teams with standard operating procedures. This research aims to discover how innovative teams contribute to forming development strategies that CPG firms use to create new products. Dimensions of the Theory of Team Climate in Innovation (TTCI) offer insight on the dimensions of development strategy. Specifically, by integrating the theories, a proposed model identifies the innovation team’s impact on the firm’s development strategies. Such understanding has the potential to increase firm profits, lower innovation costs, increase innovation speed, and support innovation training. To empirically test this model, employees responsible for product development in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries were surveyed. Structural modeling techniques were used to analyze the data. Findings indicate support for using TTCI to explain the compressed development strategy. Theoretical contributions include: 1) extending TTCI and its associated measures into tangible products industries, 2) refining and adding to TTCI measures, 3) extending the development strategies theory into tangible products industries, and 4) adding to the measures for development strategy. Future research appears fertile for methods and measures used in this study, and managers in CPG will benefit from an enhanced understanding of how to better structure innovation teams in alignment with a firm’s development strategy.

Working in groups is a ubiquitous feature of daily life. For this reason, finding ways to maximise group outputs is of utmost importance. Efforts to enhance group outputs have typically focused on socially relevant interventions, often designed to increase rapport or motivation. Moreover, such interventions are usually implemented and measured at the level of the individual, thereby designating the group to being nothing more than the simple sum of its parts. Although long acknowledged as a key component of group performance, the role of coordination is relatively under-researched. The present thesis focused on understanding whether interpersonal coordination, as viewed through the theoretical lens of coordination dynamics, is able to shed further insight into the relationship between teamwork and productivity. A novel object movement task well-suited for investigating the effects of both social and physical parameters on group productivity was developed and validated. Different extensions of the task were explored across five studies. Shifting the unit of analysis from the individual to the group yielded novel insight into the issue of group productivity. The nature of the dependencies between participants (i.e., positive vs. negative) were seen to change patterns of coordination both within and between teams. Cooperating pairs were also more coordinated and accurate than competing pairs. When interdependence was high, stable modes of coordination enhanced accuracy, but not overall productivity. More broadly speaking, participants spontaneously adopted modes of coordination that were both functionally consistent with the task demands and conformed to the characteristic patterns inherent to self-organised coordination dynamics. The implications of this work are discussed with respect to extant theories of interpersonal coordination and suggestions are made for future research.