Research on the Effectiveness of Fluid Teams: An Extended IMOI Model

Abstract

A fluid team structure has become an increasingly important organizational form, especially in the context of a highly marketized and highly segmented talent market. The reasons behind this can be summed up into two points.On the one hand, in the era of digital economy, members of enterprises, organizations and teams are highly socialized, forming numerous small groups with different themes.On the other hand, the market is increasingly customized. So that, the demand for flexible teams is on the rise.This paper is based on the worldwide research on the effectiveness of fluid teams. Firstly, we summarize the characteristics of fluid teams, and distinguish the concept from other similar ones. Based on this, we propose the key dimensions to measure a fluid team’s effectiveness, including four dimensions. One is the quality（degree of completion）dimension, that is, whether the team tasks are completed and the quality of completion, such as the emergency response teams. Another is the time dimension referring to team duration or task completion time, such as the surgical teams. The third one is cost dimension, which refers to the cost benefit of teams, such as the online sale teams. The last one is innovation dimension, which refers to whether the team’s products or services have innovative ideas, such as the research teams.Secondly, based on the IMOI team effectiveness model, we analyzed the antecedents of the effectiveness of fluid teams, including input, process and mechanism, and also the moderating variables. In detail, the antecedent variables mean the team inputs, including two dimensions. One of them is team resource which is a kind of content. The other is team composition which is a kind of form.The process mechanism of team effectiveness can be summarized as team cognitive processes, team motivational and affective processes and team behavioral processes.The moderating variables can be classified as task characters and uncertainty.Finally, we put forward an extended IMOI model, which has great implications for fluid team research and practice. Compared with the traditional IMOI model, the improved one is an inter-temporal model of fluid teams’ effectiveness. This model indicates that a fluid team has characteristics of inter-temporal and repeated interactions with its members, which promotes effective transfer of the implicit genes such as emotion, knowledge, skills and experience accumulated by team members at the early stage of cooperation to the focal fluid teams. This transfer has a significant impact on the effectiveness of the focal fluid teams through the following channels. The interval time of repeated interactions, the task characters of previous cooperation, the outputs of previous cooperation, and the motivation of re-cooperation, are summarized from the literature. Therefore, inter-temporal fluid teams are characterized by flexibility and strong adaptability. Meanwhile, the transfer of such genes is a brand new reading of the dynamics, feedback and adjustment of the traditional IMOI model, which serves as a bridge in the research of inter-temporal fluid teams.