Group Processes/Teams

Question 1

What is an organizational systems perspective of teams?

Answer 1

The view that people and teams are embedded in open yet bounded system composed of multiple, nested levels. The broader system sets top-down constraints on team functioning, but the team responses are complex, bottom-up phenomena that emerge over time from individual cognition, affect, behavior, and interactions among members within the team context. So the team context is a joint product of both top down and bottom up influences. (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013).

Question 2

What are 5 types of teams, and 2 specialized types?

Answer 2

Kozlowski and Bell note that there are 5 types of teams identified by other scholars:

1) Production – creating a product, cyclical, supervisor led or autonomous
2) Service – repeated transactions with customers
3) Management – directing lower level units
4) Project – temporary, disband after a project complete
5) Action and performing teams – interdependent experts engaging in complex big events – surgical teams, military units, musicians

Then specialized:
1 ) crews - have capability and necessity to form and be immediately ready to perform, no developmental process unlike other types. But highly standardized and trained/expertise (i.e. surgical teams, aircrews)
2) top mgmt teams - not much access so less research
3) virtual teams: spatial distance and technology as medium of communication; this allows orgs to bring in diverse expertise not bounded by geography

(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013) -

Question 3

According to Koslowski and Bell, what typology is most useful for understanding teams?

Answer 3

Kozlowski and Bell (2013) assert that it is most useful to focus on characteristics that distinguish team forms including:

1) external environment/org context
2) workflow interdependence
3) member composition, diversity, stability
4) temporal characteristics that determine its performance cycles, developmental progression and lifestyle

Question 4

What role does team composition play?

Answer 4

Team composition can be viewed as a consequence of various social or psychological
processes (e.g., socialization), as a context that moderates or shapes other behavioral or social
phenomena, or as a cause that influences team structure, dynamics, or performance. (Kozlowski & Bell, 2013)

Question 5

What is the definition of a team?

Answer 5

Team - Work teams and groups:

1. …are composed of two or more individuals…
2. …who exist to perform organizationally relevant tasks,…
3. …share one or more common goals,…
4. …exhibit task interdependencies (e.g., workflow, goals, knowledge, outcomes),…
5. …interact socially (face-to-face or virtually),…
6. …maintain and manage boundaries, and…
7. …are embedded in an organizational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influences exchanges with other units in the broader entity.

Kozlowski and Bell, 2003
Kozlowski and Iglen, 2006

Question 6

What is the effect of diversity on team effectiveness?

Answer 6

Some research indicates that diversity has positive, negative, or even no effects on team performance, so very mixed. Surface-level diversity on teams (race and gender) have negative impacts on team effectiveness (maybe bc of lack of shared mental models), but deep level diversity (i.e., functional background or personality) can have positive impacts on team performance, when the PROCESS is very controlled. This research is complicated however, bc there are more factors to consider (faultlines, org context). Kozlowski and Bell, 2013

Question 7

What are applications of team composition research, such as personality factors, etc?

Answer 7

Recent research suggests it may be more important to select for complementarity and balance on a team than to select the people who are all the highest on certain characteristics (i.e., cog ability). For example, if a team has a lot of extraverts, it may be better to hire a more introverted person; narcissistic people can be good for creativity, but need to have balance. Also, consider the task of the team. Kozlowski and Bell, 2013

Question 8

Describe a classic model of team formation and development.

Answer 8

Tuckman’s (1965) model of group development has 4 sequential stages of forming, storming, norming and performing. It assumes no prior history, no broader context and no common goal besides to form/develop as a group. It is useful in understanding the development of simple teams, but does not help us understand skill development for work groups in orgs. Yet we rely on this most in research.

Question 9

What is socialization?

Answer 9

Organizational socialization is defined as a learning and adjustment process that enables an individual to assume an organizational role that fits both organizational and individual needs. (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 10

Describe a model of work group socialization.

Answer 10

Anderson and Thomas (1996) model emphasizes a mutual influence of newcomer and the group on outcomes of the process. The model spans socialization phases of:
-Anticipation
-Encounter
-Adjustment
Kozlowski and Bell 2013

Question 11

What is reality shock and what are its implications?

Answer 11

A major challenge for newcomers as they confront the unpleasant fact that their work expectations are largely unmet. If they go unresolved, it can lead to low commitment and satisfaction as well as withdrawal. High quality interactions with leaders and coworkers help buffer these effects. (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013).

Question 12

Describe a model of team development that is more modern.

Answer 12

Team compilation model (Kozlowski et al 1999) integrates team development with performance and is multi-level. It also brings in temporal issues.

Team capabilities develop which prompt transition into a new phase, which also brings new content.

Phases:

1) Team formation - socialization of team
2) Task compilation - focus on acquiring task knowledge, roles, and routines
3) role compilation: dyads that must negotiate role relationships, role sets, and routines;
4) team compilation - create network of role interdependences to enable adaptability

Question 13

Describe the classic model of team effectiveness, its components, and its limitations and its evolution/expansions.

Answer 13

The Input-Process-Outcome (IPO) framework was originally put forth by McGrath 1964. Inputs lead to Processes that lead to Output/Outcomes.

Its components are:
Inputs are various resources available to the team. Process- mechanisms that enable or inhibit the team from combining their efforts toward the goal. Outcomes - criteria to assess effectiveness (which is a multi-faceted concept: performance, meeting team member needs, and team viability). (Kozlowski and Bell 2013)

It sought to identify universal group properties that would lead to performance, but really focused on critical role that the task played on underlying relationships - “task contingency approach.”

Many scholars consider the model deficient in capturing the consensus that teams are complex, multi-level, dynamic systems, and have modified and extended the framework. One example of these modifications/expansions is Ilgen et al 2005.

For example, Iglen et al (2005) presented an alternative model of IMOI (input, mediator, output-input model to address two limitations: Time (cyclical nature of teams/non-linear). and the fact that “processes” are not the only mediational factors that transmit influences of inputs on outcomes. Additionally, they point out that teams are embedded in orgs, so accounted for nestedness.

Question 14

What is psychological safety, what is its role in team learning, and how can it be developed ?

Answer 14

(Edmondson et al 1999)

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.

Causal sequence:
It (along with team efficacy) can be cultivated through a supportive org context and effective coaching by team leaders.

It (along with team efficacy) contributes to team learning behavior such as seeking feedback, sharing info, experimenting, asking for help, and talking about errors.

Question 15

What are team shared mental models and how can they be cultivated?

Answer 15

Team shared mental models refer to “organized understanding of relevant knowledge that is shared by team members” (Mohammed and Dumville, 2001; cited in (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

or: Team mental models are knowledge structures or information held in common.

Domains include equipment (knowledge of tools), task model (understanding of the work), member model (awareness of team characteristics) and teamwork model (beliefs of team members about how things should work).

They are associated with team effectiveness.
(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

They can be cultivated by leadership, training, and common experience (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006).

Question 16

What is team climate, how does it relate to performance, and how can it be cultivated?

Answer 16

Team climate is group-level shared perceptions of important contextual factors that affect group functioning, and via mediating climate perceptions that affect group outcomes.
(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013).

Research demonstrates that collective climate relates to performance, member satisfaction, and viability facets of team effectiveness, and individual effectiveness (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006)

For example, safety climate predicted safety related behaviors and actual accident rates (Hoffman and Stetzer, 1996) and innovation climate predicted team innovativeness and innovative products (Anderson and West, 1998).

Collective climate can be cultivated through strategic imperatives, leadership, and social interaction. (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006)

Question 17

What is transactive memory?

Answer 17

Transactive memory is “a combination of the knowledge possessed by each individual and a collective understanding of who knows what” (Austin, 2003; cited in Iglen et al, 2005).

Similar idea to “institutional knowledge”…

Transactive memory predicts team performance. (Lewis, 2003 cited in Kozlowski and Bell, 2013; Iglen et al 2005)

Question 18

what is collective efficacy?

Answer 18

Collective efficacy - a Collective efficacy is a group’s shared belief in its own collective ability to organize and execute courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment. Collective efficacy leads to improved performance and effectiveness (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 19

What is the impact of conflict and divisiveness in teams?

Answer 19

-Common in teams
-Types: relationship and task conflict
-Generally not beneficial but research is mixed. Some low level of conflict may prevent group think and be stimulating. Relationship conflict is always bad for teams. For non-routine tasks, task conflict not as bad.
-All conflict is negatively associated with team member satisfaction and performance
-Managing conflict is important, and training managers on how to manage it.
(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 20

What is coordination vs cooperation?

Answer 20

Coordination - activities required for managing the interdependencies of the team workflow; An important correlate of team performance

Cooperation - willful contribution of personal efforts to the completion of interdependent jobs; Generally associated with team effectiveness

(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 21

What are 6 training techniques for enhancing team processes and KSAs?

Answer 21

Salas and Cannon-Bowers (1997) outline 6 general training techniques for enhancing team processes and KSAs:
■	Task simulations
■	Role plays and behavior modeling
■	Team self-correction
■	Team leader training
■	Cross-training
■	Teamwork skill training
(Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 22

What is team viability and how can it be enhanced?

Answer 22

Team viability refers to team members’ satisfaction, participation, and willingness to continue working together in the future. It can be enhanced through goals and rewards, ongoing assistance, and selection (Kozlowski and Bell, 2013)

Question 23

What is team cohesiveness, what are its dimensions, when is it highest, and what outcomes is it associated with?

Answer 23

Team cohesiveness is the mutual attraction of members to the collective.

Its dimensions are task cohesiveness and interpersonal cohesiveness. (Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006)

Team cohesiveness is highest when teams are high on agreeableness, extraversion, and high emotional stability (but variance in each of these has different effects - i.e, variance in extraversion is good, but variance in agreeableness is bad). Iglen et al., 2005

Research indicates team cohesiveness is positively related to performance.
(Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006)

Question 24

How are affective states developed in teams?

Answer 24

Attraction-selection-attrition: bottom up and top down (Schneider et al 1983)

Contagion (bottom-up)

Contextual influences (top down)

Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006

Question 25

What is emotional contagion?

Answer 25

Emotional contagion occurs when the emotions and moods of one person are transferred to other proximal individuals (Kelly & Barsade, 2001; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006).

Question 26

What is team trust, what are two factors that have to be present for teams members to trust in the team, and what are outcomes of team trust?

Answer 26

Team trust is the shared willingness of team members to be vulnerable to the actions of the other team members based on the shared expectation that the other team members will perform particular actions that are important to the team. (Breuer et al., 2016)

For team members to trust in the team, they must feel that the team is (a) competent enough to accomplish their task - potency, group efficacy - and (b) that the team will not harm the individual or his/her interests, aka safety. (Iglen et al 2005)

Team trust is associated with team satisfaction and commitment, team cohesion, and effort toward the team as well as both task and contextual performance in the team. (Breuer et al., 2016).

Question 27

What is potency?

Answer 27

Potency is the team member’s collective belief that they can be effective (Guzzo et al, 2013, in Iglen 2005)

Question 28

What are two components of effective planning?

Answer 28

1) the team needs to gather info that is available to group members
2) group must evaluate and use the info to arrive at a strategy for accomplishing its mission

Research has found that open communication predicts team performance. Info sharing was also more effective in teams that contained within-person diversity (range of experiences each person has had) relative to between person diversity, which in turn related to higher performance. (Ilgen et al, 2005)

Question 29

What is group voice and who utilizes it more or less than others?

Answer 29

Group voice is the extent to which people speak up within their group (LePine, cited in Iglen, 2005). Participation rates were higher for those who are white, male, high status, educated, satisfied with their group, high in self esteem, and in smaller, self managed teams. (Iglen et al, 2005)

Question 30

What is bonding and how is it distinct from trust? How does it influence performance?

Answer 30

Bonding is the creation of affective feelings individuals hold for other team members and the team itself. (Iglen et al 2005)

Whereas trust is about being willing to work together on a task, bonding goes beyond that and is more about a strong sense of rapport and a desire to stay together, perhaps even beyond the current task context.

Meta-analytic evidence has shown that bonding is particularly important for high levels of team performance when work-flow interdependence is high (cited in Iglen et al., 2005)

Virtual teams are less bonded and as a result they are slower and less accurate than face to face team (Iglen et al, 2005)

Question 31

What are two levels of diversity on teams, and how do they impact performance?

Answer 31

Harrison et al (1998) distinguished between surface-level diversity, which deals wih demographic differences (i.e., gender and race) and deep-level diversity, which deals with differences in attitudes and values. They found that the importance of each varied over time (how long the group has worked together). Specifically, surface level diversity negatively impacted performance for groups in early stages, but deeper level diversity impacted group performance more later on.

Question 32

What interventions are best for minimizing team social conflict?

Answer 32

by Leader:
-Leaders who promote procedural justice and apply rules consistently were able to minimize relationship conflict (Iglen et al, 2005).

by Peers:
Face to face developmental feedback from peers has been shown to drastically reduce conflict, especially if feedback is delivered at an appropriate time which is mid-project (Iglen et al. 2005)

Question 33

What are faultlines and how do they impact team outcomes?

Answer 33

Faultlines have to do with team composition. It’s where multiple forms of diversity align to solidify subgroups in teams (e.g., if demographic minorities are also less tenured and clustered in a particular functional area).

Northwestern Mutual had faultlines b/c white women were mostly in certain roles (lower level, admin) vs White men, for example.

Teams often fail at benefiting from minority dissent even though there’s a belief it would help. Faultlines are a reason for this.

Team learning is best when there a moderate number of WEAK subgroups. That’s because the weak subgroups afford each member some psychological safety when sharing their experiences of expressing doubts, and that seems to be essential to promoting the level and nature of group participation that creates team level learning. (Iglen et al 2005)

Question 34

What are high-reliability organizations (HROs)?

Answer 34

High reliability organizations are those that operate in an unforgiving competitive, social, and political environment that is rich for potential for error, and where the scale of consequences associated with error precludes learning through experimentation (i.e., nuclear power plants, air traffic control, space shuttles). Can’t have a trial and error process of learning. To be successful they must balance the need to learn with the need for flawless execution by inducing in members a HIGH STATE OF MINDFULNESS. (Iglen et al 2005)

Question 35

What is team effectiveness and how is it operationalized?

Answer 35

Team effectiveness refers to the performance of a team or work group, but as a construct it has been treated inconsistently by scholars in terms of operationalization and measurement. Effectiveness criteria has typically been either performance outcomes or members reactions/feelings about the team. (Mathieu et al., 2008)

Mathieu et al (2017) point out that team effectiveness is context specific, so there should not be a standard set of criteria.

They called for a multi-level, multiple constituencies framework. At the individual-level: contributions to team, absence, helping behaviors (performance) and turnover intentions and work attitudes (reactions to team).

(Mathieu et al., 2008; Mathieu et al., 2017).

Question 36

What’s the best way to compose a team?

Answer 36

Mathieu et al (2017) point out there are no simple answers to this question. It depends on other dynamics. In an ideal situation orgs could recruit, select, and compose teams with an optimal mix of KSAOs. This is rarely possible and creates a need for compensatory interventions such as team training.

Question 37

What are team charters and what are their role in performance?

Answer 37

Team charters are documents in which teams lay out team roles, responsibilities, and how they plan to function as a team. They have been shown to have a powerful effect on team performance trajectories over time - especially when paired with high quality task planning. (Mathieu et al., 2009)

Question 38

What are emergent states and what is their relationship to outputs and processes?

Answer 38

Marks et al (2001) described emergent states as cognitive, motivational, and affective states of teams that are dynamic in nature and vary as function of team context, inputs, processes, and outcomes.” They may lie at individual (commitment, motivation, etc) or group (morale, conflict) level.

Shared mental models, transactive memory are cognitive examples; Psychological safety and justice climate are examples of affective ones.

Team building is an intervention aimed at enhancing team interpersonal processes and states.

Processes are actual acts by members that convert inputs to outcomes.

Question 39

What role does trust play in virtual teams and why?

Answer 39

Breuer et al (2016) found that team trust was more important to team effectiveness outcomes when the team was more virtual.

Trust was less critical to effectiveness outcomes when documentation of team interactions was high.

Question 40

What is a leader characteristic that enhances team creativity and why?

Answer 40

Hu et al (2017) found that leader humility can enhance creativity in some teams. This is due to enhanced information sharing.
This only happened on teams where people perceive a power difference between leaders and followers as less important/legit. On teams where there was a perceived legitimacy of power differences, this effect was not present.

Question 41

What is group affect?

Answer 41

Group affect is the affective state arising from a combination of the group’s top down components (affective context) and bottom up components (affective composition of the group). Barsade and Gibson, 2012

Question 42

What is affective homogeneity and what effect does it have on outcomes?

Answer 42

Affective homogeneity is mean-level group affect.

Research indicates that positive emotional contagion results in greater cooperation and less conflict, more positive individual moods. (Barsade and Gibson, 2012).

Question 43

What is affective diversity and what effect does it have on outcomes?

Answer 43

Affective diversity is VARIANCE in individual affective tendencies in groups (rather than the average of those tendencies). (Barsade and Gibson, 2012).

Question 44

What is affective culture and what role does affective culture have on outcomes?

Answer 44

Affective culture is the collection of assumptions, beliefs, norms, practices, rituals, symbols, stories, and physical arrangements which deepen group members’ understanding of the emotional patterns of meaning and subsequent appropriate behavioral enactment of those emotions within their groups (Barsade and Gibson, 2012).

Affective display norms have a constraining and negative influence on individual members’ attitudes, even if the group performs well.

Question 45

What is group leader affect and what is its effect on outcomes?

Answer 45

It is the affect of the group’s leader. The leader can set the tone for the whole group in terms of how to react to situations.

Leader positive affect can foster group cohesion and enthusiasm.

Leader negative affect can increase motivation and signal a change in direction.

Leaders can transmit through emotional contagion, which can then influence performance. When leaders transmit PA, members tended to experience more positive mood and the group pas a whole had a more positive tone, exert less effort and have more coordination. (Barsade and Gibson, 2012).