How to … grow a team in clinical education research

The Incubator for Clinical Education Research (ClinEdR) is a UK-wide network, established with support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), to lead initiatives to build capacity in the field. Our lived experiences as members of the NIHR ClinEdR Incubator and wider literature are woven into this 'How to …' paper, which outlines what to consider as you seek to grow and develop a ClinEdR team. This paper sets out pragmatic steps to grow an effective ClinEdR team that has a wider impact and mutual benefits for its members and their institution(s). Growing a ClinEdR team requires more than a dynamic character to bring people together. In our view, you can grow a ClinEdR team with other people through a structured, well-thought-out approach, in which its members develop through collaborative work to achieve a shared objective.

When people start getting real: The Group Living Skills Survey for extreme work environments

Introduction

Group living skills (GLS), that is, being tidy and considerate of others, are an important skillset for teams who live and work together. However, this construct does not have a validated measure to enable an understanding of how group living skills influence team dynamics over time. We developed and validated a short measure of group living skills for teams living in extreme work environments.

Methods

We collected data from 83 individuals in 24 teams living and working in space and spaceflight analog environments on missions of 45-240 days.

Results

We provide evidence of reliability and validity for the GLS Survey over time and identify a two-factor structure. We also demonstrate its use as a measure of team-level dynamics and its utility as a sociometric measure to identify a person's degree of group living skills.

Discussion

We outline recommendations for using this new measure in future research and applied settings to understand this unique aspect of teams living and working together.

Rags and Riches: The Effects of Social Class Diversity on Team Viability

Social class inequality is growing at a record pace. What happens when individuals from different social classes work on the same team? We examined the direct and moderating influences of social class as an underexplored form of diversity on team viability in 132 student project teams. Guided by an overarching framework from the team diversity literature, we explored perspective taking and conflict resolution norms as moderators that may safeguard against the negative effects of social class diversity on team viability. As predicted, teams with a mix of higher and lower social class members who were less able to see their teammates’ points of view or develop open conflict resolution norms reported less desire to work together in the future. Given these promising results and the ongoing importance of social class inequality in organizations, future research should continue to examine social class in a team context.

Self-report and facial expression indicators of team cohesion development

Ad hoc teams are formed to complete tasks across formal and informal environments. More effective teams tend to report higher cohesion, more strongly identifying as a group. Dynamic theories of team processes suggest that cohesion changes as teams form and perform to achieve a goal. The present research examined approaches for rapidly measuring team dynamics to investigate how cohesion developed in newly formed teams as they completed a series of video game matches. Self-report ratings of cohesion were collected via manikin-based measures designed to be rapidly completed. In addition, the emotion valence and arousal of facial expressions of teammates were estimated via video recordings. Results suggested that perceptions of cohesion rapidly changed as teams completed video game matches. The present study indicates that manikin-based self-report measures and emotion valence of facial expressions are dynamic and could be used as behavioral indicators of team cohesion development.

Development and validation of a scale to measure team communication behaviors

Introduction

With the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work was increased all over the globe. As a consequence, workers had to adapt their communication behaviors to smoothly coordinate work in their flexible teams (i.e., when team members divide work between the office and their homes). Drawing on relational coordination theory, we constructed and validated a scale to capture the most relevant team communication behaviors.

Methods

We employed interviews and focus groups to construct the scale, refined the scale based on three samples with employees working flexibly and finally validated the scale with 130 teams from diverse organizations.

Results

Our scale comprises three dimensions: focused communication, knowledge sharing and spontaneous communication. All three dimensions showed convergent validity with team planning and discriminant validity with time-spatial flexibility. Also, predictive validity with collective efficacy and team viability was achieved for focused communication and knowledge sharing. Spontaneous communication only predicted collective efficacy, but not team viability.

Discussion

We conclude that the TCS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing team communication and contribute by focusing on behaviors.

How and When Can Robots Be Team Members? Three Decades of Research on Human–Robot Teams

Artificial intelligence and robotic technologies have grown in sophistication and reach. Accordingly, research into mixed human–robot teams that comprise both robots and humans has expanded as well, attracting the attention of researchers from different disciplines, such as organizational behavior, human–robot interaction, cognitive science, and robotics. With this systematic literature review, the authors seek to establish deeper insights into existing research and sharpen the definitions of relevant terms. With a close consideration of 150 studies published between 1990 and 2020 that investigate mixed human–robot teams, conceptually or empirically, this article provides both a systematic evaluation of extant research and propositions for further research.

Understanding customer's meaningful engagement with AI-powered service robots

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate what aspects of service robot interactions with customers can lead to meaningful outcomes in the view of customers. The study examines functional and emotional elements of AI service robots in terms of meaningful outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

This study highlights AI service robots' meaningful outcomes as a viable research problem and proposes a research model utilizing the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework. As an empirical approach, 260 datasets were collected from customers who have experience with AI service restaurants in China.

Findings

The study examines the functional and emotional elements of AI-powered service robots on the attitude of and meaningful outcomes for customers. The results showed that the emotional (perceived friendliness and perceived coolness) and functional (perceived safety and robot competence) attributes of human–robot interactions (HRI) significantly affect the attitude toward using service robots. Second, the attitude toward using service robots significantly influences the experiential outcome and instrumental outcome of meaningful engagement.

Research limitations/implications

This study highlights two elements (i.e. functional and emotional) of HRI effectiveness using two metrics: experiential and performance outcomes. Future studies should generalize the research findings of service robots in the current study using a larger quantity of data from various service fields.

Originality/value

As the first empirical study highlighting the customer experience with service robots, this study opens up a feasible research direction for the service industry to pursue in terms of conducting HRI studies from the view of customers. It identifies a research model pursuant to customers' experience with HRI in creating meaningful outcomes and it theoretically extends the SOR model to the hospitality study, focusing on the HRI issue.

We Hold Ourselves Accountable: A Relational View of Team Accountability

Accountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation.

Struggling to Fix Teams in Real Work Settings: A Challenge Assessment and an Intervention Toolbox

After more than 80 years in predicting organizational performance, empirical evidence reveals a science of teams that seems unable to consistently implement solutions for teams performing in real work settings -outside and away from the isolated teams breeding in research laboratories in the academic context. To bridge this growing practitioners-researchers divide, we first identify five main challenges involved in working with teams today (purposeful team staffing; proper task design and allocation; task and interaction process functionality; appropriate affective tone; and suitable team assessment). And second, we offer a toolbox of interventions (empowering and restorative) to help practitioners to transform the potential threats inherent in these challenges into opportunities for team effectiveness. Our five-challenge diagnosis and proposed intervention toolbox contribute to better address research questions and theoretical falsifiability using teams performing in real work settings, and to assess and intervene in teams by adjusting their internal functioning to contextual conditions and constraints.

The Effects of Extra-Team Goal Disclosure on Team Performance, Viability, and Satisfaction

In addition to the team's shared goals, team members also often hold goals unrelated to the team. Research about such goals, which we call "extra-team goals" (ETGs), has been limited. In the current research, we examine how awareness of a team member's ETGs affects team outcomes. A laboratory experiment examines the effects of disclosure of different types of ETGs by one team member (target) on team performance, team viability, and team satisfaction while engaging in a brainstorming task. Our findings suggest that there are significant positive effects of ETG disclosure on team performance, team viability, and team satisfaction, and that these effects are mediated by perceptions of the target's commitment to the team's goal.

Mines in the End Zone: Are there Downsides to Team Performance?

Research on teams in organizations tends to focus on understanding the causes of team performance with a focus on how to enjoy the benefits of team success and avoid the negative consequences of team failure. This paper instead asks the question, 'what are some of the negative consequences of team success?' A review of the literature on teams is augmented with research from cognitive science, sociology, occupational psychology, and psychology to explore the potential negative long-term consequences of teamwork success. The general topics of groupthink, overconfidence bias, regression to the mean, role overload, and strategy calcification are reviewed while discussing the implications for future research streams and practical team management.

Relationship between Perceived Teamwork Effectiveness and Team Performance in Banking Sector of Serbia

Teamwork is one of the most important factors for business success in the modern economy. In almost every area of business, teams receive more and more attention, since it has been found that teamwork leads to greater individual, group, and even organizational performance. The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of teamwork and its relationship with team performances. Specifically, the authors tried to investigate which factors of teamwork effectiveness have a positive relationship with teamwork performance and the sustainability of teams in the future. The subject of the research is the effectiveness of teamwork as a construct that is widely presented in the scientific field of organizational behavior and human resource management, but is still underexplored in empirical research, especially in the banking sector. An investigation with a self-audit questionnaire on teamwork effectiveness was conducted on a sample of 401 employees in the banking sector in Serbia, in 16 out of the 26 existing banks in the country. The authors used SmartPLS software in order to test the questionnaire (indicator loadings, internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity) and proposed research question (PLS-SEM). The results showed that factors such as innovative behavior of the team members, the quality of teamwork, and teamwork synergy have positive relations to teamwork performance. This paper contributes to the better understanding of the factors of teamwork effectiveness that contribute to team performances, with respect to the banking industry in Serbia. The limitation of the paper is the size of the sample, with respect to the total population.

Concrescent conversation environment, psychological safety, and team effectiveness

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relationship between concrescent conversation environment (CCE), psychological safety and team effectiveness. Although CCE has been known to influence team outcomes, little is known about how it influences them. Integrating the social constructionist and social psychology perspectives, this study argues that CCE ignites a climate of psychological safety resulting in “joint-action” necessary for positive team outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 301 team members from US firms operating in different industries. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS.

Findings

The study establishes CCE as an antecedent to psychological safety and demonstrates that psychological safety mediates the relationship between CCE and team effectiveness.

Research limitations/implications

This is one of the initial studies to show how verbal behaviors socially construct team dynamics in the shape of psychological safety to influence team outcomes. In doing so, the authors advance the theory pertaining to the role of social exchanges in team processes and outcomes.

Practical implications

The results provide insights on how managers can improve team outcomes by influencing the conversational environment of the team to elicit feelings of psychological safety. The results also suggest that managers must focus on relational outcomes as well, along with performance outcomes.

Originality/value

From a social constructionist perspective, team development is built upon the verbal behaviors of the members as they pursue tasks. However, the extant group dynamics literature undervalues conversations’ role in team processes and outcomes. This is the first study that examines the link between a team's conversational environment, psychological safety and team outcomes.

The role of psychological safety and learning behavior in the development of effective quality improvement teams in Ghana: an observational study

BACKGROUND

As lower-income countries look to develop a mature healthcare workforce and to improve quality and reduce costs, they are increasingly turning to quality improvement (QI), a widely-used strategy in higher-income countries. Although QI is an effective strategy for promoting evidence-based practices, QI interventions often fail to deliver desired results. This failure may reflect a problem with implementation. As the key implementing unit of QI, teams are critical for the success or failure of QI efforts. Thus, we used the model of work-team learning to identify factors related to the effectiveness of newly-formed hospital-based QI teams in Ghana.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional, observational study. We used structural equation modeling to estimate relationships between coaching-oriented team leadership, perceived support for teamwork, team psychological safety, team learning behavior, and QI implementation. We used an observer-rated measure of QI implementation, our outcome of interest. Team-level factors were measured using aggregated survey data from 490 QI team members, resulting in a sample size of 122 teams. We assessed model fit and tested significance of standardized parameters, including direct and indirect effects.

RESULTS

Learning behavior mediated a positive relationship between psychological safety and QI implementation (β = 0.171, p = 0.001). Psychological safety mediated a positive relationship between team leadership and learning behavior (β = 0.384, p = 0.068). Perceived support for teamwork did not have a significant effect on psychological safety or learning behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychological safety and learning behavior are key for the success of newly formed QI teams working in lower-income countries. Organizational leaders and implementation facilitators should consider these leverage points as they work to establish an environment where QI and other team-based activities are supported and encouraged.

Advancing Teams Research: What, When, and How to Measure Team Dynamics Over Time

Teams are complex and dynamic entities that face constant changes to their team structures and must simultaneously work to meet and adapt to the varying situational demands of their environment (Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006). Agencies, industries, and government institutions are currently placing greater attention to the influence on team dynamics and teamwork as they are important to key organizational outcomes. Due to increased emphasis being placed upon the understanding the maturation of team dynamics, the incorporation of efficient methodological tools to understand how teams are being measured over time becomes critical. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a review of relevant academic articles detailing the science behind methodological tools and general approaches to study team dynamics over time. We provide an overview of the methodological tools used to understand team dynamics with accordance to specific temporal elements. Drawing from Kozlowski et al. (1999) process model of team development, we highlight relevant emergent team constructs within each stage. As well, for each stage, we discuss the what and how to measure team dynamics. Our analyses bring to light relevant, novel and complex approaches being used by researchers to examine specific constructs within different team developmental phases (e.g., agent-based simulations, computational modeling) and the importance of transitioning from a single source methodology approach. Implications and future research are also discussed.

The double-edged effects of perceived knowledge hiding: empirical evidence from the sales context

Purpose

Despite managers’ investments in facilitating knowledge sharing, knowledge hiding remains prevalent in organizations. Existing studies shed light on the antecedents and consequences of knowledge hiding from the hider’s perspective. This study, the first, aims to examine the consequences of perceived knowledge hiding on the performance of knowledge seekers individually and organizations more broadly.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors develop a theoretical framework, drawing on self-determination theory (SDT) and social exchange theory (SET). The framework is tested empirically via hierarchical regression analyses, using survey data collected from salespersons (n= 296) and supervisors (n= 83) employed by one of the largest distribution and market expansion companies in Myanmar.

Findings

Consistent with SDT, the results show that perceived knowledge hiding exerts a positive effect on knowledge seekers’ individual sales performance, although this relationship is moderated by social interaction. Conversely, the results show a negative relationship between perceived knowledge hiding and team viability, which is moderated by reward structure, consistent with SET.

Research limitations/implications

The results have several strategic implications, including on the type of reward structures (i.e. individual vs team-based) that most effectively mitigate the negative consequences of perceived knowledge hiding.

Originality/value

This is the first empirical study of the consequences of perceived knowledge hiding. This model integrates two theoretical perspectives which highlight positive and negative consequences of perceived knowledge hiding.

L, K.P.V. RK, Pai YP. Role of team transformational leadership and workplace spirituality in facilitating team viability: an optimal distinctiveness of identities’ theory-based perspective

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of workplace spirituality (WS) in the relationship between team transformational leadership (TTL) and team viability (TV) under the theoretical lens of the theory of optimal distinctiveness of identities.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted quantitative, cross-sectional research design at the team level of analysis among 141 software development project teams that belonged to 22 information technology (IT) organizations in the Indian IT sector to evaluate the effect of TTL behavior on TV under the conditional presence of WS.

Findings

This research has found empirical evidence to show that TTL is positively associated with TV or the team members’ desire to be a part of future performance episodes of their team. However, this research has shown that the relative effect of WS on the relationship between TTL and TV is weaker in those teams that experience higher levels of WS than those teams that experience lower levels of WS.

Originality/value

This research’s originality exists in its team-level conceptualization of WS, a gap in prior research addressed by this paper, in order to evaluate the interactive effects of team-level conceptualizations of transformational leadership and WS on TV. Further, this paper’s originality stems from the explanation of TV as the result of desirable balance between team members’ needs for within-team inclusion and within-team differentiation.

Elaborating on Team-Member Disagreement: Examining Patterned Dispersion in Team-Level Constructs

Emergent states are team-level attributes that reflect team members’ collective attitudes, values, cognitions, and motivations and influence team effectiveness. When measuring emergent states (e.g., cohesion, conflict, satisfaction), researchers frequently collect ratings from individual group members and aggregate them to the team level. After aggregating to the team level, researchers typically focus on mean differences across teams and ignore variability within teams. Rather than focusing on the mean level of emergent states, this study draws on recent advances in multilevel theory and describes an approach for examining the specific patterns of dispersion (i.e., disagreement) across five emergent states. Our findings suggest that teams reliably demonstrate different patterns of rating dispersion that are consistent with existing theoretical frameworks and typologies of dispersion, yet have not previously been empirically demonstrated. We also present evidence that the different patterns of dispersion in emergent states are significantly related to key team outcomes, even after controlling for the mean levels of those emergent states. These findings underscore the importance of exploring additional forms of team-level constructs and highlight ways of extending our understanding of group-level phenomena.

Multilevel influences of team viability perceptions

Purpose

– The purpose of this article was to examine how individual positive emotions and team work engagement (TWE) relate to the perceptions of team viability.

Design/methodology/approach

– A total of 254 teams (N = 1,154 individuals) participated in this study, and a multilevel analysis was conducted of the effects of individual and team-level factors.

Findings

– The multilevel analysis results suggest a partial compensatory effect. High levels of individual positive emotions and high TWE are associated with a positive effect on the perceptions of team viability. Simultaneously, being part of a highly engaged team has a protective effect on perceptions of team viability, when individuals experience low levels of positive emotions.

Research limitations/implications

– As the study was conducted with teams involved in a management simulation, generalizing the results to “real world” teams must be done with caution.

Practical implications

– Nonetheless, these findings have important implications for managers of work groups. They highlight the need to consider collective states of work groups as relevant for their effectiveness, and suggest that promoting positive interactions between team members may result in gains in team viability perceptions, mostly when individual emotions are less positive.

Originality/value

– We consider both individual and collective affective experiences at work, and focus on a less studied outcome, team viability. Additionally, we empirically demonstrate the relevance of collective states of teams for team members’ individual perceptions, as a top-down influence mechanism.

The Difficult but Necessary Task of Developing a Specific Project Team Research Agenda

Project teams are central to organizations everywhere; however, there is a knowledge gap between project management scholars on the one hand and organizational behavior and industrial–organizational (OB/IO) scholars on the other. This gap seriously impedes the advancement of knowledge, because scholars from both fields have not leveraged each other's considerable knowledge and might be relying on outdated models and evidence to study project team phenomena, manage project teams, or develop university curricula. A call is made for interdisciplinary research projects devoted specifically to developing a research agenda on project teams.

Perceived shared understanding in teams: The motivational effect of being 'on the same page'

This study examines the role of perceived shared understanding with regard to team performance, taking into account the motivational mechanisms (i.e., group potency and team effort) involved in this relationship and the moderating role of task routineness. Using a multisource approach and a team-level design, we collected data from 101 teams (i.e., 381 members and their 101 immediate superiors) working in a Canadian public safety organization. The results support the mediating role of group potency and team effort in the relationship between perceived shared understanding and team performance. Moreover, the results show that the relationship between team effort and team performance is moderated by task routineness, such that this relationship is stronger when task routineness is high. On the whole, the findings of this study help to better understand why and under what circumstances perceived shared understanding may enhance team performance.

Thought self-leadership and effectiveness in self-management teams

This study empirically examines the multilevel nature of thought self-leadership at work. Furthermore, this study tests the relationship between team level thought self-leadership and team effectiveness (i.e. performance and viability) through collective efficacy. A total of 103 self-management teams (453 individuals), enrolled in a five-week management competition participated in the study. The results from multilevel confirmatory factor analysis suggest that thought self-leadership is functionally equivalent across levels of analysis (i.e. individuals and teams). In addition, we found an indirect effect of team level thought self-leadership on team effectiveness criteria, through collective efficacy. These findings extend previous work on thought self-leadership and team effectiveness, and open new roads for research in self-managing work teams. Finally, this study also provides guidelines for organizations in case they wish to foster team performance and viability in their work force.

Empirical Validation of the Team Work Engagement Construct

This article presents an empirical validation of the construct of team work engagement. Two different samples were used to test the hypotheses. Results from convergent and discriminant validity are presented as well as confirmatory factor analysis that explores the construct’s factor structure. Results support the idea that team- and individual-level work engagement are two different, yet related, constructs. However, data do not support the factorial invariance across levels: At the team level, the 1-factor structure, and not the 3-factor one, seems to be the one that best fits the data. This is a necessary first step for future research providing a justification for further analyzing the importance of team work engagement and its relationship with other variables, namely with team effectiveness.

Virtual worlds as digital workplaces

The primary aim of the current paper is to explore ways in which organizations can benefit from virtual environments to expand their social and professional spheres. Applying the theory of third places to virtual worlds, our conceptual model incorporates practical organizational affordances within three composite dimensions. First, we propose that through their unique, supportive and neutral environments, virtual worlds may reduce the prevalence of social hierarchies, via decreasing the emphasis on predetermined ranks, stereotypes, and cultural or geographic variation. Second, we posit that via encouraging open communication within the form of synchronous and real-time interactions, virtual worlds enable efficient teamwork and collaborative learning. Finally, we emphasize that these friendly, secure, and supportive environments may contribute to the reduction of certain work-related stressors, and in turn promote professional development activities. We conclude by discussing practical implications and future research directions.

Time in organizational research: Catching up on a long neglected topic in order to improve theory

Time should be an important aspect of organizational theory, but it has been neglected for decades. In this essay, I describe four different ways in which time can be conceptualized in organizational research. I give examples from recent theoretical work that include a temporal perspective. I also specify some directions about how future theory development and refinement should incorporate time.