While a great deal of theoretical work has been conducted describing group
development, there is an underdeveloped area in the examination of the development of a
group or team that is faced with constant transition. The purpose of this dissertation is
twofold. First, this dissertation seeks to understand how cohesion is developed within a
collegiate athletic team that has players come and go each season and, at times, within a
season. Second, this dissertation explores how the coaching staff sustained and managed
the cohesion within the team.
To explore these issues, an ethnographic study was conducted with a Division 1-
A, collegiate basketball team called Private U. Over 50 practices were attended and 20
formal interviews were completed. Results showed that cohesion occurred through social
and task forms and in varying contexts. The coaching staff, and specifically the head
coach, used self-handicapping to protect his players and thereby potentially keeping
division from happening among team members. The lens of Symbolic Convergence
Theory is utilized to discuss specific cohesion-forming moments during the season.
Communication about cohesion transpired through interactions between the coaching staff and the players, and in fact, even between the coaching staff and
prospective players who were being recruited to play for Private U. The coaching staff
attempted to convey memorable messages and provided legal incentives to recruits
because the importance of building cohesion begins with the players that the staff would
get to come to Private U. Through on and off-court interactions, the coaching staff
managed the cohesion on the team that had been created, but this was not always an easy
task. Through the use of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory and Dialectical
Theory, I examined how in-groups and out-groups were experienced by some of the
players. The desires from Private U team members to compete with their teammates for
playing time, but also to want the best result for the team created a dialectical tension for
team members that is discussed through the Competition-Cooperation dialectic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2597 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Browning, Blair Wilson |
| Contributors | Conrad, Charles R. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
Page generated in 0.0505 seconds