Personnel Turnover and Team Performance

Abstract

Abstract : This project was designed to provide information about personnel turnover in work teams. Two tasks (production, decision making) and two methodologies (laboratory experimentation, computer simulation) were employed. Experimental studies using the production task investigated how newcomers affect a team's transactive memory system--a shared mental model about how task competencies are distributed across members. Experimental studies using the decision-making task investigated conditions under which newcomers can produce innovation by altering the teams's task strategy. Simulation studies extended the laboratory work in various ways (e.g., by investigating turnover effects in larger social units and over longer time periods). Results indicated that providing team members with information about a newcomer's skills prior to turnover eliminated the negative impact of turnover on both transactive memory and team performance. Newcomers who sought to change the team's task strategy were more effective when the team was assigned (rather than chose) its initial strategy and failed (rather than succeeded) prior to newcomers' arrival. Simulation studies showed, among other things, that the value of transactive memory varies as a function of group size and task difficulty. This project demonstrates the utility of multi-method research on personnel turnover and suggests a number of questions for future research.