Abstract
The Big Five theory suggests that five components in teamwork are essential for team effectiveness in stressful environments. Furthermore, three coordinating mechanisms are claimed to be decisive to upholding and informing vital teamwork processes. Although much research has been conducted into the Big Five theory and its components, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet been made of the relative importance of the three mechanisms and their impact on team effectiveness. Also, only a few studies have tried to investigate whether the components and the coordinating mechanisms are trainable. This study aims to make a theoretical contribution to the part of the theory focusing on the coordinating mechanisms. Secondly, it investigates whether training can improve team performance. Working in teams of two, 166 police officers participated in a simulated operational scenario. Correlational analyses indicated that all Big Five teamwork behaviors and coordinating mechanisms relate to external ratings of team performance. Only the mechanisms of Closed Loop Communication (CLC) and Shared Mental Model (SMM) predicted performance indicators, with SMM predicting above and beyond the effect of CLC. No effect of the training program was found. The study provides new evidence in a police situation that the most important coordinating mechanism of the Big Five theory is that of shared mental models, which in turn has consequences for the type of training needed.
Highlights
In the aftermath of July 22, 2011, where a single terrorist killed 77 persons, the Norwegian National Police Directorate concluded that the police force capacity to perform sharp missions had unpredictable situations demand more than basic skills and procedures to be strengthened
In order to explore if all three coordinating mechanisms and five teamwork behaviors relate positively to performance indicators (H1), the correlational analyses revealed significant intercorrelations for all measures included in the analyses
No effect of the training program occurred since the trained group did not show more of the Big Five teamwork behavioral markers or coordinating mechanisms, nor better performance compared to the untrained group
Summary
In the aftermath of July 22, 2011, where a single terrorist killed 77 persons, the Norwegian National Police Directorate concluded that the police force capacity to perform sharp missions had unpredictable situations demand more than basic skills and procedures to be strengthened. The main object confronting a possible evolving life-threatening situation (e.g., a terrorist) was that the first patrol on site should be better at resolving emergency incidents, when there was no time to wait for force build-up (Politidirektoratet, 2013). Put together this require a focus on what and how to train. Unpredictable situations demand more than basic skills and procedures Improvement in this context entails training and AguilarMoya et al (2013) categorized research on police training over a 23-year period (1988–2011) and showed that the most reflected descriptors in published articles were skills and management. There is a growing need for new police training research (Aguilar-Moya et al, 2014)
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