Abstract
While organizational psychology attests to the multidimensional nature of team effectiveness, insight regarding the most important factors contributing to the effectiveness of sports teams, especially elite teams, is lacking. An abductive method of qualitative enquiry was adopted to capture participants' construal of team effectiveness, drawing on the extant literature in both sport and organizational psychology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 players, coaches, and psychologists involved in elite cricket, with resultant data analyzed inductively initially, before being reanalyzed deductively. Although, the narratives endorsed the value of many of the deductively derived factors, other constructs more prominent in organizational psychology (e.g., trust and intra-group conflict) appeared to be more important than traditional sport psychology group factors. The results revealed six broad themes; culture and environment, values, communication, understanding, leadership, and unique individuals, with some gender differences apparent throughout. Based on our elite sample's construal of team effectiveness, we propose a new model representing a practical, parsimonious, and novel conceptualization of the most important attributes of team effectiveness in cricket, with conceivable transferability to other team sports.
Highlights
Sport is littered with examples of team performances that exceed the sum of their parts and such events pique the interest of practitioners and researchers alike
Despite the extant research literature having a predominant focus on teamwork, we adopt the term team functioning in the present research to more accurately account for all variables
The present research sought to gain a greater understanding of the multidimensional nature of team functioning and insight into the most important factors for team effectiveness in professional cricket
Summary
Sport is littered with examples of team performances that exceed the sum of their parts (e.g., the Welsh and Icelandic soccer teams’ performances in the 2016 European Championships) and such events pique the interest of practitioners and researchers alike. A number of related group dynamic terms have been used synonymously within the sport and organizational literature, there is merit in distinguishing between team functioning, team performance, and team effectiveness. Team functioning refers to the relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required for a group to achieve its outcomes (Rico et al, 2011). Despite the extant research literature having a predominant focus on teamwork, we adopt the term team functioning in the present research to more accurately account for all variables (as opposed to an exclusive focus on processes; cf Rousseau et al, 2006) that enable a team to work together effectively. Within professional sport the most valued consequence is the outcome of the team’s performance (i.e., a win or a loss; Kozlowski et al, 2015); team performance metrics (e.g., win/loss ratio) fail to account for the way in which
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