The typology of self‐managed teams based upon team climate: examining stability and change in typologies

Abstract

Several studies have reported on psychometric and factor‐analytic work related to the team climate inventory (TCI), including its four scales and 13 subscales. This exploratory study reports on the first research to examine team typologies based on team climate scores. The TCI was administered twice to 84 and 63 self‐managed teams of management undergraduates completing graded term projects. Following each TCI administration, a two‐stage clustering procedure (Ward’s and K‐means) was used to determine the number and team composition of clusters. Clusters were then plotted on the multidimensional space (INDSCAL) and a discriminant analysis performed to determine how well cluster membership was predicted using scores from the 13 TCI subscales. At the first TCI administration, three weeks into the term projects, the study obtained three team clusters on a two‐dimensional space. Near the end of the term projects, the study found two team clusters on a two‐dimensional space. Implications are presented for team building, interventions to improve team climate and management training.