Abstract
Team communication plays a vital role in engineering management, however, there is a paucity of work that examines how team roles emerge as a response to the communicative processes between participants. This research explored role adoption using qualitative methods comprising observations, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Five student teams doing final year projects at a university in New Zealand were observed during the academic year and then interviewed at the final stage of project completion. A number of team roles in the engineering context were identified for students and their supervisors: Explorer; Initiator; Facilitator; Active and Passive Information Provider; Outsider; Active and Passive Connector; Passive Collector; Arbitrator; Gatekeeper and Representative. Personal factors, such as social sensitivity, were correlated with the choice of team behaviour pattern. In addition, the team roles could be arranged in circular order to create a circumplex, the two axes of which were identified as Personal Agency/Communion and Social engagement/Social disengagement.
Highlights
The behaviour of team members in organisations is crucial to its performance
This work developed a model that describes the process of team role assignment in project teams, analysed from the perspectives of personality and team needs
Sensitivity to team needs should be considered by people who are trying to build an effective project team of engineers: at least one person with high sensitivity in each team could be beneficial for project development
Summary
The behaviour of team members in organisations is crucial to its performance. What does it mean to operate effectively as a team member? It means individuals should do their job and perform team roles in a way that moves the whole group towards the accomplishment of its objectives. Team communication has the potential to result in misunderstandings, technical disagreements, and conflict. The roles that members take can affect the team outcomes. The main purpose of communication is to coordinate the collective activities of multiple people. Inventories exist for team roles, but the question of how and why people adopt one role rather than another is poorly understood. This paper explores the process of team role assignment and distribution among members of engineering project meetings
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
