Abstract
Teamwork has been argued to play an increasingly important role in numerous jobs, and several studies focused on the effects of team composition for work-related outcomes. Recent research has also identified individuals’ character strengths and positive team roles (e.g., idea creator and relationship manager) as conducive to work-related outcomes. However, there is a scarcity of research on the role of character strengths or positive team roles on the level of teams. In the present study, we extend theoretical assumptions of team role theories to the study of character strengths and positive team roles: We examined the associations between character strengths and team roles with work-related outcomes on the individual (i.e., job satisfaction, self- and supervisor-rated performance) and the team level (i.e., teamwork quality, self- and supervisor-rated team performance). Further, we examined how the team composition relates to the outcomes, that is, whether balanced teams (i.e., all team roles or character strengths are represented in the current team) go along with desired outcomes and whether an overrepresentation of team roles or character strengths in a team (i.e., a team role or character strengths is represented by multiple team members) goes along with undesired outcomes. We studied a sample of 42 teams (N = 284 individuals) who completed measures of team roles, character strengths, teamwork quality, job satisfaction, and self-rated individual and team performance. Further, supervisor ratings of individual and team performance were collected. Results corroborated the relationships of team roles and character strengths with individual outcomes such as that specific roles and character strengths go along with individual performance and work satisfaction. Further, the results suggested that teams in which more team roles are represented report higher performance and teamwork quality. Also, teams with higher average levels of the character strengths of teamwork and fairness, and teams with more members scoring high in fairness and prudence report higher teamwork quality. Further, there is no evidence that having too many members with a particular character strength has detrimental effects on teamwork quality, work satisfaction, or performance. We conclude that extending the study of character to the level of teams offers an important advancement.
Highlights
Teamwork has often been highlighted as an important factor for the success of projects and organizational performance (e.g., Petty et al, 1995; Hoegl and Gmuenden, 2001)
Since some previous studies found effects of team role balance on teamwork quality and team performance, and relationships of character strengths with individual performance and work satisfaction, we considered all these variables: We were interested in individual and team-level performance, individual work satisfaction, and teamwork quality
All seven team roles contributed to individual work satisfaction, while all roles but Information Gatherer related to self-rated teamwork quality
Summary
Teamwork has often been highlighted as an important factor for the success of projects and organizational performance (e.g., Petty et al, 1995; Hoegl and Gmuenden, 2001). A meta-analysis reported the diversity of education or expertise within teams to go along with qualitatively better team performance, while no effects for the diversity of demographic characteristics were found (Horwitz and Horwitz, 2007) For other variables such as the personality dimensions of the fivefactor model, findings were mostly mixed (see Mathieu et al, 2008 for a review). A new framework for studying team roles has been proposed, the VIA team roles This framework has been developed from a positive psychology viewpoint and distinguishes among seven informal team roles that focus on positive behaviors and contributions to the team (VIA Institute on Character, 2013). Initial studies using this framework suggested positive associations between assuming these team roles and relevant work-related outcomes, such as work satisfaction or calling (Gander et al, 2018; Ruch et al, 2018)
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