Characteristics Of Team Members Research Articles

Benefits of Women in Science

R ecent comments from Harvard President Lawrence Summers have sparked heated discussion in the United States and abroad about possible inherent (that is, genetic) differences between women and men. The debate concerns whether these differences might explain the paucity of women in elite science, engineering, and technology (SET) careers. The issue really amounts to possible differences at the high extremes of ability distributions, but the available evidence is that any inherent differences are swamped by social and cultural factors. It is the failure to encourage more women to pursue SET careers, and to maintain their presence in these positions, that requires serious attention. As John Brock, the chief operating officer of Cadbury Schweppes, points out “A diverse workforce … is the best way to expand into new markets and stimulate new business ideas … that's a significant competitive advantage.” In the United Kingdom, we have a pressing need to encourage more women to enter SET careers. The UK government's agenda for economic growth includes a commitment to increase the proportion of gross domestic product spent by both government and industry on R&D. Yet the Institute of Employment Studies predicts that by 2011, only 20% of the workforce will be white, male, able-bodied, and under 45. Eighty percent of future employment growth will be attributable to women. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: MARK HARMEL/GETTY IMAGES Industry has recognized the value of an experienced female staff. In 2002, Lord Browne, chief executive of British Petroleum (BP), remarked that “because the management of the industry has been predominantly white and male and Anglo-Saxon, those people have recruited and promoted in their own image.” Among other initiatives, BP has appointed a Vice President for Diversity, and Shell Oil holds recruiting events for female engineers at UK universities. Support for female employees during career breaks is becoming more common in UK-based companies, as industry recognizes that diversity is a strategic business issue. Industry has also responded to research showing that diverse teams are harder to manage than homogeneous groups: Absenteeism and staff turnover are higher; communication and social integration take more effort; common values and rules must be established; and the different needs, behaviors, and characteristics of team members must be supported. Team leaders must learn to manage differences of opinion—the very source of the diversity advantage. But the results are worth having: Diverse teams outperform on innovation, problem-solving, flexibility, and decision-making. The UK's Athena program was established in 1999 to address the shortage of women in SET academic careers and to deliver a significant increase in the number of women recruited to top academic jobs. The Athena Survey of SET (ASSET) report (just released) compares career pathways of more than 6500 men and women in academia and research institutes in the United Kingdom.[*][2] The survey reveals that differences between women's and men's experiences are more marked in academia than in other kinds of research organizations. Men in academic positions are more likely to report that they were encouraged to apply for promotion, as compared with their female colleagues. In academia, women rank annual performance reviews and personal development more highly than men in supporting career progression; in research institutes, the ranking by both sexes is almost identical. Nearly 50% of women in universities feel disadvantaged in terms of salary and promotion, whereas only 15% of male staff recognize this as a problem for their female colleagues. This is not to say that things haven't improved. When I went up to Cambridge University in the 1970s as an undergraduate, only 16% of all undergraduates were female, with a mere 2% studying physical sciences, and there were no female academic staff in the departments of physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, or mathematics. Now, Cambridge University has about 49% women undergraduates, of which 10 to 25% study the physical sciences, and 24% of the academic staff in the materials science department are women. At Imperial College (London), our fastest growing engineering course is bioengineering, with an undergraduate intake of 50% women. Academic research and initiatives such as Athena have been effective in highlighting the benefits of diversity and the management challenges of maintaining a diverse workforce. Industry sees the competitive and financial advantages and has responded. Despite showing the way, academia is being left behind. We must embed in our universities the best practices that we preach. [1]: pending:yes [2]: #fn-1

The Role of Group Membership Perception and Team Identity in a Virtual Team's Use of Influence Tactics

Numerous articles can be found in the management journals on the area of power and influence, both from the theoretical and empirical approaches. There is also a growing body of literature in the management publications on the subject of virtual teams and organizations. However, there is limited empirical research on virtual teams, and particularly lacking are studies concerning team identity and perceptions of group membership. Shapiro et al. (2002) proposed that factors characteristic of transnational teams put those teams at risk for low team identity which in turn leads to effort-withholding behaviors. Given the commonalities between virtual and transnational teams, this study seeks to validate some of the propositions of Shapiro and colleagues as they apply to virtual teams and their members. In addition, there are also few empirical studies with regard to the communication processes within virtual organization settings (DeSanctis & Monge, 1999). Therefore, the study also investigates the effects of team identification on a virtual team member's use of influence tactics in their team. The model proposes that a team member's level of team identification mediates the effects of team and team member characteristics on a team member's use of influence tactics.

Modeling Team Member Characteristics for the Formation of a Multifunctional Team in Concurrent Engineering

In concurrent engineering, project tasks generally involve the establishment of multifunctional design teams in order to simultaneously consider various activities throughout the entire product life cycle. Team members from different functional departments of the company interact in every phase of development tasks to design the products and processes concurrently. To ensure a successful multifunctional team, it is important to understand the characteristics of team members. Three fundamental descriptors of team members are developed in this research. The first is to represent the multifunctional knowledge of team members due to the need of concurrent engineering. Second, to build a successful project team, teamwork capability of team members is needed by taking their experience, communication skills, and flexibility in job assignment into account. Multifunctional knowledge and teamwork capability ratings are captured from each member using analytic hierarchy process. Third, since the team members work closely, their collegiality directly affects team performance, regardless of their knowledge. Thus, the working relationship model is developed to provide such a metric. Personality profiling using Myers-Briggs type indicator serves as the basis of assessing each team member's abilities to work with others. Finally, we complete this paper by providing a step-by-step procedure with an example for selecting the best multifunctional team using the three ratings. This research helps establish an efficient multifunctional team because every team member will be capable of communicating to each other within the team due to their multifunctional knowledge, teamwork skills, as well as an established good working relationship.

A Comparison of the Perceived Importance of Information Systems Development Strategies by Developers from the United States and Korea

This study examined the perceptions of Information Systems (IS) developers from the U.S. and Korea with regards to the strategies that are considered crucial for IS success. The results of a principal component analysis revealed that the IS development strategies could be classified into four categories: (1) Organizational Integration, (2) Team Member Characteristics, (3) Project Leader Traits, and (4) Project Development Management. ANOVA results indicated that developers from both countries viewed Organizational Integration as the most important component and Project Development Management as the least important component. However, while IS developers in the U.S. viewed Team Member Characteristics as the second most important component, Korean IS developers rated the Project Leader Traits as the second most important component. Moreover, the IS developers from the U.S. rated Organizational Integration and Team Member Characteristics as significantly more important than did the IS developers from Korea. The results were discussed in terms of Hofstede’s model of national culture.

Leadership, Team Building, and Team Member Characteristics in High Performance Project Teams

Interviews of project team members about factors that lead to high levels of team performance were used to create a survey that was given to 151 project teams in the engineering and construction industry. The survey focused on project team leader behaviors, use of team building, and team member characteristics as predictors of project cost and schedule performance. Controlling for use of industry best practices, leader behaviors were found to be significant predictors of project cost performance, while neither team building nor team member characteristics were found to be significant predictors of performance.

Cultural Differences in Developers' Perceptions of Information Systems Success Factors

The current study examined the perceptions of information systems (IS) developers from Japan and the United States with regards to the strategies that are considered most important for successful implementation of an IS. The results of a principal components analysis revealed that the IS strategies could be reduced to five components: (1) Characteristics of the Team Members, (2) Characteristics of the Project Leader, (3) Management/User Input, (4) Proper Technology, and (5) Communication. The results indicated that there was a significant difference in the perceptions of Japanese and U.S. developers with respect to the importance of the five components. Japanese developers perceived the Project Leader as the most crucial component for determining the success of an IS project. Team Member Characteristics was viewed as the least important by Japanese developers. On the other hand, the developers from the U.S. viewed Communications as the most critical component. Project Leader Characteristics was perceived to be the least important by U.S. developers. The results were discussed in terms of cultural differences.

Adaptation to Self-Managing Work Teams

Two studies examined the team member characteristics (Big Five personality traits and attitude toward self-managing teams) that predict successful adaptation to participation in self-managing work teams (SMWTs) as assessed by self-ratings and manager ratings. Adaptation is conceptualized as having an immediate or short-term dimension (performing the team’s task well) and an enduring or long-term dimension (full cooperation in the team and commitment to team self-management). In both studies, member conscientiousness and attitude toward SMWTs were linked significantly to member self-ratings of long-term adaptation; attitude toward SMWTs, a malleable characteristic, was the strongest predictor. Short-term adaptation did not predict member self-ratings of long-term adaptation. However, short-term adaptation was the strongest predictor of manager ratings of member long-term adaptation. Results suggest that team members focus on internal feelings to assess their long-term (i.e., full) adaptation, whereas managers focus on short-term outcomes to assess long-term adaptation. Implications are discussed.

Making the team [project team building and leadership

The author outlines the role of team building and team leadership in successful project management. Different teams work in radically dissimilar environments, although it can be argued that it is the project team environment that is the most complex to analyse, as each project is unique and the conditions for team selection and motivation are often less than ideal. All this implies an overwhelming case for giving more attention to the art and science of project team building. A variety of factors are invoked in building high-performing teams, including the contributions made by individual members, leadership, communications and internal power relationships. Each of these will have an effect on whether or not your team performs successfully. The characteristics of individual team members can be categorised by a combination of nine distinct roles. These comprise: plant, resource investigator, co-ordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, team-worker, implementer, completer/finisher and specialist. Their contributions and weaknesses are outlined. Three styles of leadership are also briefly discussed: laissez-faire, transactional and transformational.

Design characteristics and functioning of top management teams in Europe

This study explores the similarities and differences in the design and functioning of top management teams across national borders. Specifically, three issues are addressed. First, the status and definition of the ‘dominant coalition’ is explored. Second, the characteristics of top management team members are defined and, finally, aspects of their functioning are analyzed. A comparison between Great Britain, The Netherlands and Denmark reveals that although geographically close, significant differences still exist between the upper echelons.

Effects of intra‐group conflict on packaged software development team performance

Abstract. Data from 40 packaged software development teams are used to test a path model that relates three antecedents, the presence of intragroup conflict and the level of conflict management to software development team performance. Findings indicate that a combination of the team's characteristics, team member characteristics and existing levels of intragroup conflict accounts for nearly one‐half of the variance between the best and worst‐performing teams. Furthermore, the level of conflict management moderates the relationship between existing levels of intragroup conflict and performance. These results highlight both the complexity of the social processes of packaged software development and the value of this perspective for gaining insight on software development performance.

Editorial

Editorial

Leadership and innovation: relations between leadership, individual characteristics and the functioning of R&D teams

The main focus of this paper is the functioning of R&D teams, the role of the team leader and the characteristics of individual team members. After a brief overview of recent literature on leadership and innovation, some research results are presented from a study of leadership in self-managing teams; these teams have a number of characteristics in common with R&D teams, such as dependent tasks and job autonomy. The results lead to an integrated model for the effective functioning of R&D teams, with a focus on the relations between leadership behaviour, individual characteristics, team functioning and outcome variables.

AIDS prevention and condom availability in an urban school system: facilitating factors and programme challenges

This paper reports on a three-year evaluation of the implementation of the New York City AIDS Education and Condom Availability Program in the public high schools. Data were obtained in a sample of 12 representative high schools from surveys, interviews and focus groups with school administrators and students. The paper identifies and describes six key facilitating factors associated with variations in level of implementation: strength of the AIDS team, characteristics of AIDS team members, support of school principals, involvement of related school-based programmes, support of parents, and AIDS lessons. The paper also identifies and describes five major factors that inhibited programme use: programme quality, concerns about confidentiality, embarrassment, negative attitudes toward condoms, and relationship issues. Implications of these facilitating factors and programme challenges for con dom-availability programmes are discussed. Public high schools in cities with high HIV prevalence can play a key role in HIV prevention. By paying attention to the organisational factors that facilitate programme implementation, urban school and health officials may be able to increase the impact of these pro grammes.

UNDERSTANDING THE COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCE BETWEEN RESEARCHERS AND HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING PRACTICE

The health care field is a new arena for collaborative research carried out by practitioner-researcher teams. Although the current literature discusses factors supportive of such teams, most evidence is anecdotal or descriptive of pilot projects. In this article, the authors use survey and interview data to document health care practitioners' views on collaborative research with an experienced researcher/mentor. Topics covered include a description of the research project and process, positive and negative aspects of doing research, expectations, recommendations to colleagues starting research, and desirable characteristics in practitioners and researchers on collaborative research teams. Of all attributes mentioned, personal traits and skills were among the most frequently mentioned for both practitioners and researchers, followed by research knowledge and attitudes for practitioners, and teaching skills for researchers. The article also addresses factors important to the success of collaborative research: how to develop a project, characteristics of collaborative team members, team functioning, and institutional support.

Empowered Selling Teams: How Shared Leadership Can Contribute to Selling Team Outcomes

Customer demands and an increasingly complex environment can make team selling critical to strategy implementation, profitability and competitive advantage. The increased use of selling teams has not been matched by an increased understanding of how to foster enhanced selling team effectiveness. In this article we define empowered selling teams and the shared leadership process within such teams. We develop a limited model of selling team effectiveness where team member characteristics, and vertical leadership, influence shared leadership and shared leadership indirectly and directly influences selling team effectiveness.

Embedded Intergroup Relations in Interdisciplinary Teams

Many organizations are making a deliberate effort to use teams to carry out work as an alternative to more traditional, hierarchical approaches to defining jobs or supervising employees. The authors posit that structure and composition of work teams are likely to systematically affect group dynamics of such teams. Using the related frameworks of social identification theory and embedded intergroup relations theory, they examine the proposition that greater diversity of team member characteristics and larger team size negatively affect members' perceptions of team integration. Hypotheses were tested on 1,004 individuals working on 105 interdisciplinary treatment teams in a national sample of 29 Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatric hospitals. Five of six hypotheses received support for at least one of three dimensions of team integration examined in this article. The strongest support was found for the effects of diversity on perceptions of team functioning. Results are generally consistent with the basic premise of the embedded intergroup relations model: As teams become more diverse along most identity group and organizational group characteristics, intergroup relations among team members suffer and perceived level of team integration declines. The authors offer several suggestions about how managers and team leaders might use these findings to improve team integration.

Faster New Product Development: Investigating the Effects of Technology and Characteristics of the Project Leader and Team

In this article, Edward McDonough III examines the relationship between speed of new product development and technology, on the one hand, and characteristics of project leaders and project team members, on the other. The reported results suggest that the speed with which new products are developed is affected by the type of work undertaken on the project, i.e., its technology and the characteristics of both project leaders and the project team. However, the characteristics that affect speed differ for different types of projects and are different for team members and the team leader.

Faster new product development: Investigating the effects of technology and characteristics of the project leader and team

In this article, Edward McDonough III examines the relationship between speed of new product development and technology, on the one hand, and characteristics of project leaders and project team members, on the other. The reported results suggest that the speed with which new products are developed is affected by the type of work undertaken on the project, i.e., its technology and the characteristics of both project leaders and the project team. However, the characteristics that affect speed differ for different types of projects and are different for team members and the team leader.

People Skills: What Every Professional Should Know about Designing and Managing Meetings

AboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to Section HomeInterfacesVol. 22, No. 2 People Skills: What Every Professional Should Know about Designing and Managing MeetingsRobert E. LevasseurRobert E. LevasseurPublished Online:1 Apr 1992https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.22.2.11 Previous Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformationCited ByPeople Skills: Developing Soft Skills—A Change Management PerspectiveRobert E. Levasseur6 December 2013 | Interfaces, Vol. 43, No. 6The Blitz Meeting: A Leaner AlternativeNurse Leader, Vol. 10, No. 2An Integrated Methodological Framework for Project Task Coordination and Team Organization in Concurrent Engineering26 July 2016 | Concurrent Engineering, Vol. 13, No. 3Modeling Team Member Characteristics for the Formation of a Multifunctional Team in Concurrent EngineeringIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Vol. 51, No. 2 Volume 22, Issue 2March-April 1992Pages 1-122 Article Information Metrics Downloaded 0 times in the past 12 months Information Published Online:April 01, 1992 © 1992 INFORMSCite asRobert E. Levasseur, (1992) People Skills: What Every Professional Should Know about Designing and Managing Meetings. Interfaces 22(2):11-14. https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.22.2.11 Keywordsorganization studies: designPDF download

Information Systems Development Success: Perspectives from Project Team Participants

This research article reports on those factors project team members perceive as leading to systems development success. The amount of perceived impact of environmental variables, task variables and personal characteristics of project team members on systems success was explored. Results demonstrate that project team members are concerned with group process issues as well as with technical issues within the ranks of the project team. The sobering finding in their responses was that information systems personnel perceive neither management support nor user involvement as critical to the successful development of systems.