Informal roles and the stages of interdisciplinary team development

Abstract

After presenting a theory of team development, we propose that the informal role structure of a team is dependent upon the degree of anomie in the team culture, and we provide measures of anomie and informal roles that can be used in field settings. Then we test hypotheses on a national sample of 111 interdisciplinary health care teams in geriatrics in US Veterans Affairs medical centers. We find evidence that as teams develop from early to later stages, the interpersonal behavior of members becomes less differentiated on three dimensions: prominence, sociability, and task-orientation. In addition, we find that images of each member come into clearer focus, as evidenced by reduced variation in how each member is seen by other team members. Finally, we find that regardless of stage of team development, the more education the team members have, the more prominent and task-oriented they are. In general, physicians score highest in prominence and task-orientation, but relatively low in sociability.