Team Orientation Research Articles

Interorganizational Teamwork in the Construction Industry

Interorganizational teamwork has attracted considerable attention over the years and is one of the characteristics of the construction industry. However, most of the research has just focused on the factors necessary for team success, rather than investigating human perceptions of interorganizational teamwork and what factors affect the individual’s perception that they are working in a team. Building on a modified model, the effects of cultural and context factors (individualism and power distance) and employee attitudes (task interdependence and trust) on team orientation (the individual’s perception of working in a team) were investigated in this research. Data were collected via questionnaire surveys from a sample of construction practitioners working in interorganizational project teams in Hong Kong. Using correlation and multiple regression analyses, the findings indicated that, as hypothesized, there were positive relationships between team orientation and contractual trust, competence trust and task interdependence, but there was a negative relationship between team orientation and opportunism. The results further suggested that the influence of team orientation was moderated to a certain extent by individualism and power distance in some employees’ attitudes.

Organisational culture and financial performance in a South African investment bank

The relationship between the organisational culture and financial performance of a South African investment bank was explored in this study. The Denison Organizational Culture Survey was used to measure the organizational culture and was administered to a sample of 327 employees. Income statement ratio analyses were used to assess the financial performance. The validity and reliability of the Denison Organizational Culture Survey was examined in a South African context for the first time. High correlations between the cultural traits suggested that the items were measuring a single trait rather than four distinguishable traits. Correlations above the 0.50 level between some subscales (team orientation, agreement, customer focus, core values and vision) and certain financial ratios were obtained. However, the results were regarded as tentative, because statistical significance was not reached for most of the correlations. The cultural trait consistency was significantly correlated with two of the four profitability ratios.

Metaheuristics for the team orienteering problem

The Team Orienteering Problem (TOP) is the generalization to the case of multiple tours of the Orienteering Problem, known also as Selective Traveling Salesman Problem. A set of potential customers...

Massachusetts General Hospital Participation in Operation Unified Assistance for Tsunami Relief in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

When Project HOPE invited Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to participate in a tsunami relief mission aboard the USNS Mercy hospital ship in January 2005, MGH responded swiftly and enthusiastically. Overcoming differences in medical styles and standards, as well as a variety of cultural and institutional differences, MGH volunteers collaborated successfully with Navy personnel and volunteers from other hospitals to deliver excellent care to a large number of tsunami victims. Lessons were learned regarding the need for better initial team orientation, more-open communication, and more-transparent decision-making; still, a rapid response of tertiary medicine, joining public and private resources, proved to be a powerful effective model.

Justice and Leader-Member Exchange: The Moderating Role of Organizational Culture

We hypothesized that organizational culture moderates the relationship between justice perceptions and leader-member exchange (LMX). In a sample of 516 teachers from 30 high schools in Turkey, we found that one dimension of culture from the Organizational Culture Profile, respect for people, strengthened the relationship between interactional justice and LMX, and another dimension, team orientation, weakened that relationship. Furthermore, aggressiveness strengthened, whereas team orientation weakened, the relationship between distributive justice and LMX. Finally, we found that in team-oriented schools, LMX was higher.

The Impact of Communication Medium on Virtual Team Group Process

Organizations must provide appropriate work group structures and communication technologies in order for work groups to function effectively and efficiently. This study investigated the hypotheses that team structure (e.g., fully collocated teams vs. virtual teams) and communication mode (i.e., face-to-face vs. videoconferencing) will impact virtual team group processes (e.g., team orientation, workload sharing, proclivity to seek and exchange information) that evolve. Furthermore, these group processes will dictate team member information exchange patterns (e.g., across all team members vs. only within collocated subgroups), which subsequently impact team productivity (i.e., accuracy and timeliness) and group process satisfaction. Four-person teams worked in either face-to-face (i.e., fully collocated group) or videoconferencing (i.e., dispersed subgroups) settings to develop detailed design documentation for specified enhancements to a hypothetical university information system. Results indicated that the dispersed subgroups exhibited more within subgroup collective behaviors and engaged greater within subgroup information exchange as compared to fully collocated teams, where more teamwide collective behaviors and information exchange were observed. Furthermore, greater team collective behaviors gave rise to greater information exchange and activation among team members. Finally, information exchange and activation were associated positively with productivity and process satisfaction.

Leadership characteristics and business management in modern academic surgery

Management skills are necessary to successfully lead a surgical department in future. This article focuses on practical aspects of surgical management, leadership and training. It demonstrates how the implementation of business management concepts changes workflow management and surgical training. A systematic Medline search was performed and business management publications were analysed. Neither management nor leadership skills are inborn but acquired. Management is about planning, controlling and putting appropriate structures in place. Leadership is anticipating and coping with change and people, and adopting a visionary stance. More change requires more leadership. Changes in surgery occur with unprecedented speed because of a growing demand for surgical procedures with limited financial resources. Modern leadership and management theories have to be tailored to surgery. It is clear that not all of them are applicable but some of them are essential for surgeons. In business management, common traits of successful leaders include team orientation and communication skills. As the most important character, however, appears to be the emotional intelligence. Novel training concepts for surgeons include on-the-job training and introduction of improved workflow management systems, e.g. the central case management. The need for surgeons with advanced skills in business, finance and organisational management is evident and will require systematic and tailored training.

Organizational factors, leadership practices, and adoption of technological and administrative innovations: an exploratory study of Lithuanian nonprofit social service organizationsOrganizaciniai faktoriai, lyderystė ir technologinė bei administracinė inovacijos: aprašomasis Lietuvos nevyriausybini organizacij tyrimas

This exploratory study sought to describe the types of innovations implemented by Lithuanian nonprofit social service organizations, their leadership practices and organizational cultures. It also assessed the relationships among organizational innovation, leadership, organizational culture, and size. Thirty-five nonprofit organizations in Kaunas, Lithuania, constituted the sample. Technological product innovation was by far the most often implemented innovation type. While technological innovation was not related to any of the independent variables, administrative innovation was positively related to the value dimensions of team orientation and stability. Taking a closer look at the relationship between leadership and organizational culture variables provided useful insights into why there was little association between organizational innovation and the independent variables. Limitations of the study are discussed along with implications for social work practice. Šis tyrimas siekė aprašyti inovacijas, kurias diegia Lietuvos socialinės nevyriausybinės organizacijos, ši organizacij kultūr bei lyderystės praktikas. Taip pat buvo vertinti ryšiai tarp organizacij inovatoriškumo, lyderystės, organizacinės kultūros bei organizacijos dydžio. Tyrimo antrankos grup sudarė trisdešimt penkios Kauno miesto (Lietuva) nevyriausybinės organizacijos. Dažnausiai naudojam inovacij tipas—technologinės, arba produkto inovacijos. Nors technologinės/produkto inovacijos nebuvo susietos nei su vienu nepriklausomu kintamuoju, administracinės inovacijos buvo teigiamai susietos su orientacijos komandin veikl bei stabilumo vertybėmis. Gilesnis ryši tarp lyderystės ir organizacinės kultūros kintamj nagrinėjimas padėjo geriau suprasti silpnus ryšius tarp organizacini inovacij bei nepriklausom kintamj. Šis straipsnis taip pat aptaria tyrimo trūkumus bei rezultat svarb socialinio darbo praktikai.

Communication in the emergency situation.

AIM OF PRESENTATION To present results from training house officers and ward nurses in team skills such as communication and collaboration in the emergency situation SUMMARY OF RESULTS Based on the needs for higher skills in communication and team orientation in the emergency situation we developed a two day course which aims at improving the participants′ communication and collaboration skills. The intension was to establish training for junior doctors and nurses, who are unfamiliar with each others skills and the organisation as such and to facilitate transfer of knowledge to the clinical setting. The course address knowledge and practical skills through theory, discussions and full scale simulations of emergency situation and covers problems of communication and collaboration as well as decision making. Eight specific learning objectives for team skills were covered. A pre- and post questionnaire for self assessment was developed. A total of 150 participated and answered the questionnaire. The self assessment tool shows that the participants increase their understanding of the importance of clear roles, closed loop communication, planning and re-evaluation etc. CONCLUSION Training and thereby highlighting communication and team skills improve participants understanding of their role in the emergency situation.

Is there a “Big Five” in Teamwork?

The study of teamwork has been fragmented through the years, and the findings are generally unable to be used practically. This article argues that it is possible to boil down what researchers know about teamwork into five core components that the authors submit as the “Big Five” in teamwork. The core components of teamwork include team leadership, mutual performance monitoring, backup behavior, adaptability, and team orientation. Furthermore, the authors examine how these core components require supporting coordinating mechanisms (e.g., shared mental modes, closed-loop communication, and mutual trust) and vary in their importance during the life of the team and the team task. Finally, the authors submit a set of propositions for future research.

Nursing Home Culture

In the third in a series of articles exploring working conditions and quality improvement in nursing homes, 31 nursing homes were surveyed using an adaptation of the Competing Values Framework (CVF) Organizational Assessment. The CVF provides information about the organizational culture through describing dominant perceived values, distribution of values across organizational characteristics, and orientation of values toward flexibility. Staff reported a dominant group culture, reflecting a family and team orientation within their settings. Leaders, however, were more often reported to reflect a hierarchy value orientation, emphasizing efficiency of operations and following rules and procedures.

Local government organisation on its journey to becoming a learning organisation

PurposeThis study aims to make an assessment of the status of various management practices/cultural attributes in local government and investigates their relationship with organisational performance. The local government organisation concerned is going through the process of cultural change in an effort to becoming a learning organisation.Design/methodology/approachThe results of this study are based on employees' perceptions of management practices and organisational performance collected using a survey approach. The Denison Organisational Culture Survey (DOCS) was used for collecting the data.FindingsOf the various management practices considered, the study found that team orientation has received top emphasis followed by dissemination of the core values and organisational capability development. In terms of performance measures, the offering of new services to their clients ranks number one followed by brainstorming practices in problems solving. Employee empowerment has not received much emphasis from the management despite being associated with various measures of performance such as client satisfaction, job satisfaction, quality of services, revenue growth, improved skills of employees in evaluating organisational success or failures, and successful implementation of organisational programs. Although creating change, organisational learning, and team orientation indicate positive correlations with the majority of performance measures considered in this study; there is no evidence of their relationship with financial measure of performance like revenue growth.Originality/valueThe organisational managers may find the outcomes of such investigations helpful as they provide useful information on the organisation's cultural strengths and weaknesses. Such studies would also assist managers to systematically assess their change initiatives and develop a better strategy for successful implementation of managements' tactics and business processes.

Ärztliche Einstellungen gegenüber Leitlinien

Guidelines gain importance for medical services. Their perception and use by physicians does not only rely on their attitudes towards guidelines, but also on other parameters of influence.to assess hospital physicians's attitudes concerning clinical guidelines and physician- and hospital- related factors of influence.multicenter survey with 99 junior and senior registrars from 30 departments of neurology (taking regional random samples).A majority of physicians regarded guidelines as a means of quality improvement and medical education. However, there were no generally positive or negative attitudes, but the physicians differentiated between the individual and the health system level. These patterns of attitudes did not depend upon aspects of the respective departments (such as size, internal guidelines, access to sources of information) and did not vary significantly between hospitals. Instead, there was a marked influence of personality traits on individual opinions concerning guideline utility. Senior registrars, less team-oriented physicians, younger physicians and the more prestige-motivated expressed positive attitudes. On the other hand, a sceptical and more negative attitude was found with professionals who expressed strong team orientation and scientific interest.The overall positive attitude is probably related to the identification of guideline users with their authors and also to the their present status as non-binding recommendations. The independence of attitudes from hospital characteristics, especially the existence of internal guidelines, may indicate either voluntary guideline use or rather a low impact of guidelines as management instruments or frequently used tools. The potential of guidelines for medical education does not seem to be fully utilised.

Surface‐ and deep‐level diversity in workgroups: examining the moderating effects of team orientation and team process on relationship conflict

AbstractThe increased use of teams in organizations, coupled with an increasingly diverse workforce, strongly suggests that we should learn more about how team diversity affects functioning and performance. The purpose of this study was to explore the differential impact of surface‐level diversity (gender, ethnicity), deep‐level diversity (time urgency, extraversion), and two moderating variables (team orientation, team process) on relationship conflict over time. Hypotheses were tested by tracking 45 student project teams in a longitudinal design. Results revealed that team orientation and team process moderated the diversity–conflict link. Specifically, team orientation helped to neutralize the negative effects of surface‐level (gender) diversity on relationship conflict. In a similar manner, team processes worked to weaken the deleterious effects of deep‐level diversity (time urgency) on relationship conflict. In addition, relationship conflict resulted in lower perceived performance by team members. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving New Product Quality: An Empirical Study of Product Development Teams in Taiwan

ABSTRACT The role of team and organizational factors affecting new product quality and their interactions as moderating the effects are examined. Results from a domestic study suggest that new product quality is positively affected by information capability in the team and quality orientation in the firm; in contrast, it is negatively related to the innovativeness of the new product as seen by the firm and speed-to-market pressure in the team. However, teams' information capabilities alleviate the negative effect of innovativeness on quality. Quality orientation lessens the relationship between information capability and new product quality. Functional diversity and tenure diversity do not affect new product quality. In addition, managerial implications and directions for future research are proposed.

A TABU search heuristic for the team orienteering problem

This paper describes a tabu search heuristic for the Team Orienteering Problem (TOP). The TOP is a variant of the well-known Vehicle Routing Problem in which a set of vehicle tours are constructed such that the total collected reward received from visiting a subset of customers is maximized and the length of each vehicle tour is restricted by a pre-specified limit. The tabu search heuristic is embedded in an adaptive memory procedure that alternates between small and large neighborhood stages during the solution improvement phase. Both random and greedy procedures for neighborhood solution generation are employed and infeasible, as well as feasible, solutions are explored in the process. Results from computational experiments conducted on a set of published test problems show that the proposed technique consistently produces high-quality solutions and outperforms other published heuristics for the TOP.

Leadership made in Germany: Low on compassion, high on performance

Executive Overview As part of the GLOBE project, we collected data on culture and leadership in Germany from 457 middle managers in the telecommunications, food processing, and finance industries. The most pronounced German cultural value is performance orientation. The hallmark of German cultural practices is high levels of uncertainty avoidance and assertiveness, along with low levels of humane orientation. At work, compassion is low and interpersonal relations are straightforward and stern. It seems that conflict and controversy are built into the German societal culture. As bas been shown in the GLOBE project by using data from 61 countries, characteristics attributed to a country's outstanding leaders match closely with its cultural values and practices. This holds true for Germany. Effective German leaders are characterized by high performance orientation, low compassion, low self-protection, low team orientation, high autonomy, and high participation. Conflict and controversy seem to be built into ...

Cross-cultural differences in the behavioral consequences of imposing performance evaluation and reward systems: An experimental investigation

This study explores the effects of national culture differences on the behavioral consequences of imposing performance evaluation and reward systems (PERS). It postulates that two cultural dimensions — individualism/collectivism and power distance — can modify employees' decisions under, as well as satisfaction with, imposed performance evaluation and rewards aimed at modifying their work-related behavior. In a laboratory experiment that focused on a teamwork setting, these cultural attributes were operationalized via a comparison of US vs. Chinese nationals in Taiwan (CNT). On the whole, the results were consistent with US nationals significantly changing the team orientation of their decisions in response to imposed performance measures and rewards, but a similar impact was not found for the CNT subjects. And, consistent with culture-based predictions, US nationals had significantly lower satisfaction under imposed, rather than self-selected, performance evaluation and reward structures, while their CNT counterparts did not have a similar adverse reaction. These results are consistent with prior Anglo-American-based research that the PERS significantly affects employee behavior. But they also suggest that this finding may not be directly generalizable to employees whose national cultures differ from those of Anglo-Americans.

The integrated nursing team in primary care: views and experience of participants exploring ownership, objectives and a team orientation

The development of integrated nursing teams consisting of district nurses, health visitors and practice nurses based in general practice is a widespread recent change in primary care. This development has been justified by promising to meet the need for a more cost-effective service, through a reduction of duplication in nursing work, improvements in the consistency of advice to patients and the provision of accessible and responsive patient care. This paper reports on topic-led qualitative interview data which were collected as part of a multimethod evaluation of various models of evolving integrated nursing teams. The overall aim of the evaluation was to explore progress towards integration by assessing nurse workload, team effectiveness and staff perception of change. The assessment of workload and team effectiveness is reported elsewhere. Staff perception of change was measured by analysis of interview data collected from 12 teams, 9 months after the implementation of nurse integration in two London health authorities in 1998. A total of 33 interviews explored nurses' interpretation of integrated nursing, their expectations relating to their changing roles and activities and their perceptions of key activities and outcomes relating to the implementation of integrated working. Although achievements were identified, including some changes in clinical practice, in general participants reported a partial and variable understanding of the concept of integrated teamwork, and there was uncertainty reported over changes in professional boundaries. A lack of ownership of the process of change and a dearth of team objectives were reported. Developments towards teambuilding were more common than strategic planning to reorganize the workload of the team collectively according to a local population-based agenda. To implement an integrated approach to primary care nursing, we suggest that there is a need for increased ownership and support for teambuilding strategies and skill development. If integrated nursing is to contribute to health improvements, it is necessary that participants agree on patient-focused objectives that orient towards a collective and locally targeted delivery of care.

Requirements for an educational software development process

Software engineering education must provide the students with knowledge and practice of software development processes. These must be used in course projects, to confront the students with realistic software engineering issues. A requirements set for educational software development processes is proposed here. It includes requirements about process architecture, team orientation, project life cycle, standards and practices, student support and instructor support. Some published real-life processes were evaluated against these requirements, and a new process was designed to meet them.