Differences In Team Members Research Articles

Assessments of working group effectiveness in the planning of the New Jersey Kids Study: An applied mixed-methods study on the science of team science

Abstract Introduction: The New Jersey Kids Study (NJKS) is a transdisciplinary statewide initiative to understand influences on child health, development, and disease. We conducted a mixed-methods study of project planning teams to investigate team effectiveness and relationships between team dynamics and quality of deliverables. Methods: Ten theme-based working groups (WGs) (e.g., Neurodevelopment, Nutrition) informed protocol development and submitted final reports. WG members (n = 79, 75%) completed questionnaires including de-identified demographic and professional information and a modified TeamSTEPPS Team Assessment Questionnaire (TAQ). Reviewers independently evaluated final reports using a standardized tool. We analyzed questionnaire results and final report assessments using linear regression and performed constant comparative qualitative analysis to identify central themes. Results: WG-level factors associated with greater team effectiveness included proportion of full professors (β = 31.24, 95% CI 27.65–34.82), team size (β = 0.81, 95% CI 0.70–0.92), and percent dedicated research effort (β = 0.11, 95% CI 0.09–0.13); age distribution (β = −2.67, 95% CI –3.00 to –2.38) and diversity of school affiliations (β = –33.32, 95% CI –36.84 to –29.80) were inversely associated with team effectiveness. No factors were associated with final report assessments. Perceptions of overall initiative leadership were associated with expressed enthusiasm for future NJKS participation. Qualitative analyses of final reports yielded four themes related to team science practices: organization and process, collaboration, task delegation, and decision-making patterns. Conclusions: We identified several correlates of team effectiveness in a team science initiative's early planning phase. Extra effort may be needed to bridge differences in team members' backgrounds to enhance the effectiveness of diverse teams. This work also highlights leadership as an important component in future investigator engagement.

Did you get my Email?!—Leveraging boundary work tactics to safeguard connectivity boundaries

Being connected to the Internet through various mobile devices is pervasive in our daily professional and private lives. Yet, the way people connect, including when, with whom and through which communication channels differs, manifesting individuals’ idiosyncratic connectivity patterns. In team collaboration, where individuals are dependent on each other’s availability and responsiveness, differences in team members’ connectivity patterns can lead to clashing expectations concerning connectivity. This, in turn, can compromise individuals’ well-being and productivity and threaten team collaboration outcomes. In this paper, we address the question of how to manage connectivity in interdependent teams and align connectivity patterns to facilitate successful collaboration while at the same time safeguarding individuals’ connectivity boundaries. To address this question, we conducted a qualitative case study that involved 39 semi-structured interviews with employees and members of the management board of an international consultancy headquartered in Germany. Building on concepts established in boundary theory, we coined the term “connectivity boundaries” and identified the six boundary work tactics, externalizing, accommodating, adapting, pushing, sacrificing, and enforcing that allow team members to create, maintain, temporarily change, and reclaim their connectivity boundaries and achieve team collaboration success. We developed propositions that highlight which contextual factors and goals are associated with which boundary work tactic.

The Influence of Conflict Behavior and Conflict Management on Employee Performance at PT. Pos Indonesia Ambon Branch

Conflict is often caused by systems and structures. An inappropriate system will easily lead to conflict and differences in positions in the structure will also lead to conflict. Differences in team members in terms of education, organization, ability, cultural background, can produce different perspectives in completing tasks which are antecedent factors of conflict. The purpose of this study is to analyze and explain the effect of conflict behavior on employee performance, the effect of conflict management on performance and the effect of conflict management on strengthening conflict behavior on employee performance. The unit of analysis in this study were employees of PT. Pos Indonesia Ambon Branch, totaling 108 people. The results showed that 1) the conflicting behavior of the relationship indicators with items of feeling disliked, the presence of tension at work, the presence of personal barriers and indicators of task conflict with items rejecting other people's ideas, refusing other people's ways of working, looking down on other people had a significant effect on employee performance, 2) management with item collaboration conflict indicators actively looking for joint solutions, offering solutions for employees, item confrontation indicators ignoring the ideas offered, making decisions unilaterally, item accommodation indicators paying attention to the ideas offered, accepting every idea that is offered. offered, responding to every complaint, affecting employee performance, and 3) conflict management behavior collaboration, confrontation, accommodation has an effect on strengthening relationship conflicts and task conflicts on employee performance

Diversity and Communication in Virtual Project Teams

Introduction: Virtual teams, especially project teams, increasingly rely on computer-mediated communication for interaction when collaborating and completing their tasks. Team members represent various cultures, occupations, and industries. Virtual teams often use English as a business lingua franca in communication. This study investigates critical factors related to virtual project teams that influence computer-mediated communication. Research questions: 1. How is diversity in video meetings experienced by the members of multidisciplinary and multicultural project teams? 2. Do differences in team members' occupational or industrial backgrounds show in their opinions on video meetings? Literature review: The effectiveness of communication has been identified as playing a critical role in the success of virtual projects. Diversity, whether disciplinary or cultural, enriches teamwork by bringing different viewpoints to discussions. On the other hand, diversity can also set some challenges for communicating these viewpoints. Research methodology: Mixed methods were used to analyze data obtained from 104 responses to an online survey. Spearman's correlation coefficient and Kruskall-Wallis nonparametric tests were used for statistical analysis, and open comments were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Results and conclusion: The findings show that linguistic, cultural, and occupational diversity facilitates communication in virtual project team meetings. In addition, applying appropriate features of video meeting tools in different stages of project teamwork leads to better communication in virtual teams. A high level of English proficiency is not required, but clear communication rules are essential. In addition, some occupational or industry-specific differences in opinions on communication could be identified.

Substantive Theory of Cultural Intelligence for Virtual Team Performance: A Mixed Methods Approach

In the current business scenario, Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) are all pervasive and often viewed as new forms of inclusive work practices. Prior research identifies differences in team members’ cul...

What Methods Software Teams Prefer When Testing Web Accessibility

Accessibility has become an important focus in software development; the goal is to allow as many people as possible, regardless of their capabilities, to use software. We have investigated the methods that software teams prefer when testing the accessibility of their software. We conducted a large-scale study to evaluate six methods, using a sample of 53 people who work on various software teams. We present a detailed breakdown of the results for each testing method and analyze the differences between the methods. Our findings show that there are statistically significant differences in team members’ preferences, particularly for those with different roles. This implies that a software team should not choose a single method for all team members.

Can I relate? A review and guide for nurse managers in leading generations.

The purpose of this review is to help the nurse leader develop an understanding of the five generations currently in the health care workforce by providing defining characteristics, general behaviours, and strategies for the nurse manager to employ for each generational cohort. Generations are groups of people born during the same 15-20year time period who share similar experiences before adulthood, which shape long-term behaviours. Key descriptors and characteristics are provided. The current generational cohorts in the health care workforce are Traditionalists (born between 1922 and 1945), baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X (born between 1965 and 1979), millennials (born between 1980 and 1995), and Generation Z (born after 1995). Health care teams often comprise members of three or more generations. Intergenerational differences in team members can result in challenges; however, different perspectives provided by multiple generations can be used advantageously to strengthen the team's efficiency and outcomes. There are strengths in each generation. Key differences can be harnessed to build stronger teams through comprehensive communication strategies, customized reward systems, and workplace flexibility. Examples are provided for each area. Managers can use intergenerational differences to create a rich environment that bridges generational differences and fosters workforce cohesion.

Achievement motivation diversity and entrepreneurial team performance: the mediating role of cohesion

Entrepreneurial teams often start innovative new ventures. Based on the fact that new venture teams share potential advantages compared to solo entrepreneurs, it is also acknowledged that differences in team members' personalities, attitudes and values can impair team performance and new venture growth. Our study therefore explores the relationships between team diversity in the motivational trait Need for Achievement (NAch) and team effectiveness and efficiency. Additionally, we test cohesion as a potential mediator in the diversity-performance link. The results show that diversity in NAch is negatively related to team efficiency but not to team effectiveness. Furthermore, we found that entrepreneurial team cohesion partially mediates the negative relationship between the NAch diversity and team efficiency.

Team members' interaction anxiety and team-training effectiveness: a catastrophic relationship?

In the present study, we examined the relationship between team members' interaction anxiety and team-training effectiveness. Training in the context of teams can be focused on either individual or team outcomes. Relatedly, the individual differences of team members can hinder or facilitate the effectiveness of training for both individuals and the team as a collective. Interaction anxiety is an understudied individual difference that has been shown to be negatively related to training effectiveness in individual contexts. However, its effects in team-training contexts are yet to be investigated. A sample of 492 students in 123 four-person teams was trained to operate a complex, computer-based team task Interaction anxiety negatively related to team cohesion and team-training effectiveness. A cusp catastrophe model fit the data and showed that teams with more than one high-interaction-anxiety member were negatively affected. Interaction anxiety inhibits the social activities of team training, in turn reducing team-training effectiveness when there is more than one high-interaction-anxiety individual on the training team. These results highlight the importance of examining interaction anxiety as a training team compositional variable that may inhibit behaviors and team processesnecessary to capitalize on the positive social activities on which team training depends since the interaction anxiety composition of training teams may serve as an important boundary condition on the effectiveness team-training interventions.

Transdisciplinary ITexts and the Future of Web-Scale Collaboration

Changes in Web infrastructure have allowed ITexts to become a vehicle for transdisciplinary Web-scale collaboration so that large-scale teams can create new knowledge despite differences in team members’ disciplinary training, geographic location, and levels of expertise. In this article, the authors define Web-scale collaboration and illustrate the need for transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving. Then they introduce heuristics for creating and evaluating such transdisciplinary, collaborative Web-scale ITexts, drawing on examples generated at a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation that was held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in April 2010.

Assessing Team Knowledge Structures: Findings from the Field

The factors that impact teams' cognitive representations of the systems with which they interact is an area of concentrated research effort. Not surprisingly, research indicates that these cognitive representations impact the team's functioning with the system. Despite the importance of these cognitive representations and their impact on performance, valid and reliable measurement in naturalistic environments remains elusive. Validity and reliability of a measure are especially important to assess the impact of training. The purpose of the current effort is to evaluate the efficacy of a particular knowledge elicitation and representation methodology. A demonstration of this methodology will be presented using data collected from the command and control elements of a Division Artillery (DIVARTY) command staff. Results indicate that this methodology distinguishes differences in team members' mental models as a function of expertise and subteam membership. Implications of these differences for training are discussed, as well as directions for future research.

The eternal journey to employee devotion: new tools to manage complexity

Argues that financial accounting is an insufficient language for handling and discussing business organization, its industry and its customer markets. States systems thinking comprehends the behaviour of each individual as a participant in a larger system or structure. Demonstrates that there are five disciplines which must be cultivated to develop a learning organization and these are: personal mastery; mental models; shared vision; team learning; and systems learning. States systems thinking provides the common language that teams should use to maximize the team's effectiveness and overcome differences in team members' backgrounds and training.