Team Rewards Research Articles

How should a team be rewarded to improve quality performance of NPD?

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the impact of team rewards (TR) on quality performance of new product development (NPD). In particular, the authors analyze whether the use of TR affects the performance of NPD team projects in not only accomplishing their work as a team and the outcomes of their performance but also considering the enhancement of the involvement of both internal functions and external actors (suppliers and customers) in the early stages of NPD.Design/methodology/approachThe association of TRs on quality performances of new products is theoretically approached. Seven research hypotheses are proposed to be tested with an international database from the high performance manufacturing project. Empirical strategy includes structural equation modeling.FindingsThe authors observed that TR does not produce a direct effect on quality performance of NPD, but does so mediated through the involvement of SC members in the early stages of NPD. This paper highlights that, without involvement of external and internal supply chain actors, it is not possible to obtain desired performance of new products.Originality/valueThis study advances the study of TR on quality performance of NPD by considering TR as a tool for in-group work involving different and distant actors in the process of NPD. The analysis considers different dimensions of quality performance of NPD, distinguishing between time to market, technical issues and cost of manufacturing, which have usually been considered in an aggregated way. Empirical evidence using an ample database including manufacturing companies from fourteen countries

Intergroup Competition Mitigates Effects of Reward Structure on Preference-Consistency Bias and Group Decision Failure

Group discussion often becomes one-sided and confirmatory, with poor decisions as the unfortunate outcome. Here we examine whether intergroup competition amplifies or mitigates effects of individual versus team reward on information sharing biases and group decision quality. Individuals (N = 309) in 103 interacting groups were given private information on four decision alternatives and discussed a joint decision. Private information was distributed such that groups faced a “hidden profile” in which pushing for initial preferences and commonly held information prohibits the group from finding the best alternative. Group members were rewarded for team or individual performance, and groups faced intergroup competition or not. Whereas intergroup competition did not influence common-information bias, we find that when intergroup competition is absent, groups under individual (versus team) reward have stronger preference-consistency bias and make poorer decisions. When intergroup competition is present, however, groups under individual reward perform as good as groups under team reward. Results resonate with the possibility that intergroup competition overshadows within-group rivalry, and can promote even-handed discussions within small groups of decision-makers.

Team Adaptation Under Inconsistent Team Rewards

Organizations use teams as an adaptive and flexible response to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Team adaptive performance, which is team performance under changing environmental conditions, can be facilitated by motivational mechanisms. In this paper, we investigated the effect of team rewards on team adaptive performance. Noting the temporal nature of team adaptation and emergent states, we hypothesized that team reward consistency over time (as compared to inconsistency) would result in higher team adaptive performance. We further posited that team efficacy beliefs and team distributive fairness perceptions would partially mediate this relationship. We used a between-subjects (team reward condition: consistent or inconsistent) experimental study with 43 3-person student teams who performed a coordination task with a change in the task at the midpoint. The empirical results supported our predictions. Team reward consistency led to higher team adaptive performance. Team distributive fairness perceptions fully mediated this relationship. Team reward consistency also resulted in higher team efficacy beliefs, which also contributed to team adaptive performance. Thus, our paper highlights the importance of team rewards on team adaptation.

Teamwise Mean Field Competitions

This paper studies competitions with rank-based reward among a large number of teams. Within each sizable team, we consider a mean-field contribution game in which each team member contributes to the jump intensity of a common Poisson project process; across all teams, a mean field competition game is formulated on the rank of the completion time, namely the jump time of Poisson project process, and the reward to each team is paid based on its ranking. On the layer of teamwise competition game, three optimization problems are introduced when the team size is determined by: (i) the team manager; (ii) the central planner; (iii) the team members' voting as partnership. We propose a relative performance criteria for each team member to share the team's reward and formulate some special cases of mean field games of mean field games, which are new to the literature. In all problems with homogeneous parameters, the equilibrium control of each worker and the equilibrium or optimal team size can be computed in an explicit manner, allowing us to analytically examine the impacts of some model parameters and discuss their economic implications. Two numerical examples are also presented to illustrate the parameter dependence and comparison between different team size decision making.

Familiarity Mitigates the Effect of Team Reward on Functional Conflict and Citizenship Behavior

In a study of 129 new product development teams in the US, we find that team-based rewards are important to obtain desirable outcomes in newly formed teams (i.e., with low familiarity) but not in w...

Human resource managers as liaisons between firms and labour

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how human resource (HR) managers in garment factories in a Sri Lankan export processing zone (EPZ) navigated the tension between their role as stewards of employee welfare and their role to maximise firm productivity in response to time and production pressures imposed by international buyers. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role of HR managers as liaisons between firms and labour. This omission is significant, given the importance of human resource management in the recruitment and retention of labour and the role of HR managers in organisational performance and regulatory compliance. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was used based on interviews with 18 HR managers, factory managers and other key informants, and 63 factory workers from 12 firms in the Katunayake EPZ. The interviews and focus groups in English were transcribed and coded into themes arising from the literature and further developed from the transcripts. Initial codes were analysed to identify common themes across the data set. Findings HR managers were acutely aware of the competitive pressures facing the EPZ garment factories. While examples of company welfarism were evident, HR practices such as incentive payment systems and the management of employee absences reinforced a workplace environment of long hours, work intensification and occupational injury. Originality/value This paper goes some way towards filling the gap in our understanding of the roles played by HR managers in garment factories in the Global South, raising theoretical debates regarding the potential for HR managers in developing countries to distance themselves from the negative consequences of HR practices such as individual and team reward systems.

Real-time distributed non-myopic task selection for heterogeneous robotic teams

In this paper we introduce a novel algorithm for online distributed non-myopic task-selection in heterogeneous robotic teams. Our algorithm uses a temporal probabilistic representation that allows agents to evaluate their actions in the team’s joint action space while robots individually search their own action space. We use Monte-Carlo tree search to asymmetrically search through the robot’s individual action space while accounting for the probable future actions of their team members using the condensed temporal representation. This allows a distributed team of robots to non-myopically coordinate their actions in real-time. Our developed method can be applied across a wide range of tasks, robot team compositions, and reward functions. To evaluate our coordination method, we implemented it for a series of simulated and fielded hardware trials where we found that our coordination method is able to increase the cumulative team reward by a maximum of $$47.2\%$$ in the simulated trials versus a distributed auction-based coordination. We also performed several outdoor hardware trials with a team of three quadcopters that increased the maximum cumulative reward by $$24.5\%$$ versus a distributed auction-based coordination.

Network Interventions for Changing Physical Activity Behaviour in Preadolescents.

Network interventions can help achieve behavioural change by inducing peer-pressure in the network. However, inducing peer-pressure without considering the structure of the existing social network may render the intervention ineffective or weaker. In a 7-week school-based field experiment using preadolescents' physical activity (PA) as a proxy for estimating behavioural change, we test the hypothesis that boys' and girls' distinct networks are susceptible to different social incentives. We run three different social-rewards schemes, in which classmates' rewards depend on the PA of two friends either reciprocally (directly or indirectly) or collectively. Compared to a random-rewards control, social-rewards schemes had an overall significantly positive effect on PA (51.8% increase), with females being more receptive to the direct reciprocity scheme (76.4%) and males to team (collective) rewards (131.5%). Differences in the sex-specific sub-networks can explain these findings. Network interventions adapted to the network-specific characteristics may constitute a powerful tool for behavioural change.

Planning and Learning for Decentralized MDPs With Event Driven Rewards

Decentralized (PO)MDPs provide a rigorous framework for sequential multiagent decision making under uncertainty. However, their high computational complexity limits the practical impact. To address scalability and real-world impact, we focus on settings where a large number of agents primarily interact through complex joint-rewards that depend on their entire histories of states and actions. Such history-based rewards encapsulate the notion of events or tasks such that the team reward is given only when the joint-task is completed. Algorithmically, we contribute---1) A nonlinear programming (NLP) formulation for such event-based planning model; 2) A probabilistic inference based approach that scales much better than NLP solvers for a large number of agents; 3) A policy gradient based multiagent reinforcement learning approach that scales well even for exponential state-spaces. Our inference and RL-based advances enable us to solve a large real-world multiagent coverage problem modeling schedule coordination of agents in a real urban subway network where other approaches fail to scale.

English

This study on prospects for sustainability and viability of Nigerian manufacturing organizations through team work approach has the overall objective of ascertaining the extent to which teamwork approach to change management holds good prospects for sustenance and viability in Nigerian manufacturing organizations. The study adopted the survey research design, in which ten manufacturing companies in the South-Eastern Nigeria were studied. The population of the study was thirteen thousand, six hundred and twenty three (13,623), and the sample size was calculated to be six hundred and nineteen using the Taro Yamane’s formula. The sampling selection was the stratified sampling method. A self-developed structured questionnaire and oral interview guide were the research instruments used for the study. Data collected were presented descriptively using charts, simple frequency and percentage distribution, mean and standard deviation. The hypotheses were tested using the Z-test statistic. The major finding of the study were that teamwork approach to change management in Nigeria manufacturing organizations to a large extent holds good prospects for sustenance and viability (Zcal = 5.76 > Zcritical = 1.96, p < 0.05). The study concludes that teamwork has the prospect of making manufacturing organisations very effective, viable and sustainable. Specifically, it has the benefits of improved productivity and product quality, innovativeness and manpower development. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that, for an improved product design with high quality that will appeal to customers’ satisfaction any day, teamwork should be encouraged in Nigerian manufacturing organizations. It is also recommended that team incentives and rewards should be strictly adhered to in order to boost team performance and effectiveness. Team members should be carefully selected so that members with requisite skills are selected to work towards achieving the required objectives. Key words: Prospects for sustainability and viability of manufacturing organizations and Team work approach.

Literature review of the status quo of hospital-community-family nursing model in China

Objective To analyze the status quo of hospital-community-family nursing model in China, and provide reference for nursing staff to carry out relevant research. Methods The literatures concerning hospital-community-family nursing intervention in China included in databases such as CNKI, Wanfang, VIP and SinoMed since they were created until June 2016 were retrieved and analyzed using bibliometrics and content analysis. Results Totally 56 literatures were found up to standard. The first one was published in 2005, and the number of such literatures began to increase since 2012. Only 35.7% of them were published in core journals of nursing. Fund programs and literatures were consistently distributed, mainly from the eastern part of China. These literatures focused on patients with chronic diseases and those receiving maintenance treatment, most of which had no specific description of experiment randomization, sample size, intervention time, ethical issues and reliability and validity of research tools. There was a lack of assessment and training for multidisciplinary teams. Follow-up measures were single, mainly to develop discharge plans, telephone follow-up and family follow-up. Conclusions The application of the hospital-community-family nursing model in China is still in the middle of exploration. High-quality literatures, multidisciplinary team training and assessment systems, unified management of patient information, smart phone APPs as well as team rewards are badly needed to improve the quality of continued nursing. Key words: Hospital-community-family; Nursing model; Literature review

Unpacking the Free-Riding Construct for Organizational Research

Free-riding has been studied extensively in organizational research, yet the assumptions on which it is based on are rarely questioned. Free-riders are team members who receive shared team rewards without investing equitable individual effort into the team task, and organizational scholars commonly assume that employees choose to free-ride despite possessing the aptitude to contribute adequately to the team. However, the increasing complexity of team tasks and team compositions suggest that the distribution of responsibilities in teams can be highly fluid and is rarely equal among members. This results in variant forms of free-riding that may deviate from how scholars conventionally understood the construct. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to unpack the construct of free-riding. First, we review theories on working in teams to offer an overview of underlying mechanisms that shape individual motivation and effort on team tasks. Second, we compare the literature on shirking, social loafing, and free-riding, to clarify their similarities and differences. Next, we argue that free-riding is better understood as a multidimensional construct, and propose a 2 × 2 matrix on the dimensions of locus of causality and controllability of individual effort to untangle the construct. We then introduce and describe the four types of free- riders in the matrix- parasite, sponge, hitchhiker, and reserve, and propose how they relate uniquely to team productivity and viability. Finally, we explain how this matrix contributes to theory, discuss its limitations, and identify potential directions for future research.

The Implicit Incentive Effects of Horizontal Monitoring and Team Member Dependence on Individual Performance

AbstractThis study examines the implicit incentive effects of horizontal monitoring and team member dependence for individuals working in teams but facing explicit incentives based solely on measures of individual performance. We combine proprietary performance data with survey data for 133 internal auditors. We show that the social influences of relatively high levels of both horizontal monitoring and team member dependence provide implicit incentives that motivate individual performance, making the provision of team rewards unnecessary to ensure individual and team productivity. We conclude that horizontal monitoring and team member dependence are complementary control mechanisms whose effectiveness helps explain the observed practice of organizing work into teams without explicit team‐based rewards.

UPAYA PENINGKATAN AKTIVITAS BELAJAR FISIKA MELALUI PENERAPAN PEMBELAJARAN COOPERATIVE LEARNING DI SMA NEGERI 3 BUNGO

The aims of the research was to know the increase of physics subject by using cooperative learning in SMA N 3 Bungo. As ungulan school SMA N 3 Bungo has always been consistent in doing increase the learning process in order to increase the competencies of graduates. Various attempts were made as well for the ongoing development of teachers , administrators and all elements of the school .To increase of physics subject is an acceptable way by using cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is a learning model for give a chance for students to make interactions to others. In addition cooperative learning is the best way to apply because every students has give (team reward), (individual aecountability) (equal opportunities for success) that can give motivation for student to increase ability in physics subject and make student interesting of this subject to get the great result in physics learning. As long as, students in SMA N 3 the best students in Physics always has dominate in Physics learning, without give a chance for another students, so that cooperative learning is best choice for Physics study.

Distributed reinforcement learning for adaptive and robust network intrusion response

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks constitute a rapidly evolving threat in the current Internet. Multiagent Router Throttling is a novel approach to defend against DDoS attacks where multiple reinforcement learning agents are installed on a set of routers and learn to rate-limit or throttle traffic towards a victim server. The focus of this paper is on online learning and scalability. We propose an approach that incorporates task decomposition, team rewards and a form of reward shaping called difference rewards. One of the novel characteristics of the proposed system is that it provides a decentralised coordinated response to the DDoS problem, thus being resilient to DDoS attacks themselves. The proposed system learns remarkably fast, thus being suitable for online learning. Furthermore, its scalability is successfully demonstrated in experiments involving 1000 learning agents. We compare our approach against a baseline and a popular state-of-the-art throttling technique from the network security literature and show that the proposed approach is more effective, adaptive to sophisticated attack rate dynamics and robust to agent failures.

Distributed response to network intrusions using multiagent reinforcement learning

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks constitute a rapidly evolving threat in the current Internet. Multiagent Router Throttling is a novel approach to defend against DDoS attacks where multiple reinforcement learning agents are installed on a set of routers and learn to throttle or rate-limit traffic towards a victim server. It has been demonstrated to perform well against DDoS attacks in small-scale network topologies. The focus of this paper is to tackle the scalability challenge. Scalability is one of the most important aspects of a defence system since a non-scalable defence mechanism will never be considered, let alone adopted, for wide deployment by a company or organisation. In this paper we introduce Coordinated Team Learning (CTL) which is a novel design to the original Multiagent Router Throttling approach. One of the novel characteristics of our approach is that it provides a decentralised coordinated response to the DDoS problem. It incorporates several mechanisms, namely, hierarchical team-based communication, task decomposition and team rewards and its scalability is successfully demonstrated in experiments involving up to 100 reinforcement learning agents. We compare our proposed approach against a baseline and a popular state-of-the-art router throttling technique from the network security literature and we show that our approach significantly outperforms both of them in a series of scenarios with increasingly sophisticated attack dynamics. Furthermore, we show that our approach is more resilient and adaptable than the existing throttling approaches.

Managerial Discretion and Task Interdependence in Teams

Prior research suggests that providing managers with discretion over team bonus allocation can improve team performance because it enhances the relation between team members’ contributions to team output and their rewards. This study investigates whether task interdependence influences managers’ ability to enhance this relation and, therefore, alters the effect of managerial discretion over compensation on team performance. Task interdependence reflects the degree to which the increase in team performance resulting from a team member’s effort depends on the efforts and skills of the other team members. Consistent with our predictions, we find that, managers are able to use their discretion over compensation to enhance the relation between team members’ contributions to team output and reward to a greater degree when task interdependence is absent than when task interdependence is present. Also consistent with our predictions, we find that the effect of managerial discretion on team performance depends on task interdependence. Specifically, our results show that managerial discretion over compensation has a positive effect on team performance when task interdependence is absent and negative effect on team performance when task interdependence is present. The results also suggest that predicted effects of task interdependence become more pronounced when task interdependence goes up. Our results have practical implications for firms, which have flexibility in designing their incentive systems in a team environment, because we identify conditions under which the effectiveness of granting managers discretion over team compensation is likely to vary.

The relationship of human resource function's roles on high-involvement work practices and quality initiatives in Malaysian manufacturing companies

The study's purpose was to assess the effect of different human resource function's roles on quality initiatives and high–involvement work practices in the Malaysian manufacturing companies. This study was carried out in line with achieving total quality management and consequently business excellence. The conceptual framework has been adapted from prior research to assess the impact of different HR function's roles on Malaysian manufacturing companies. A total of 81 HR and quality managers completed the online survey questionnaire for measuring the effect of HR function's role on high–involvement work practices' features including team work, skill development, communication, performance evaluation, reward and recognition, and empowerment and quality initiatives. t–test and MANOVA were performed to test the hypotheses. The research proved the positive influence of driving and steering roles of HR and revealed that steering role of HR function has the most positive effect on high–involvement work practices and quality initiatives among others.

Outcome interdependence shapes the effects of prevention focus on team processes and performance

Although the effects of regulatory focus on individual-level performance have often been studied, relatively little is yet known about team-level effects. Filling this void, we integrate the notion that promotion-focused individuals are concerned with progress and achievement, whereas prevention-focused individuals are concerned with security and vigilance, with the insight that team processes and performance depend on outcome interdependence (individual versus team rewards). The hypothesis that prevention-focused teams react more strongly than promotion-focused teams to differences in outcome interdependence was tested among 50 teams performing an interactive command-and-control simulation. Regulatory focus and outcome interdependence were both manipulated. The results showed that prevention-focused teams working for team rather than individual rewards reported higher work engagement and less error intolerance, coordinated more effectively, and performed better. Promotion-focused teams were not influenced by outcome interdependence. We discuss the implications of our results for theory and effective team management.

Under the influence of the team? An investigation of the relationships between team autonomy, individual autonomy and social influence within teams

This study contributes to the debate about whether teamwork facilitates or constrains the single team member's autonomy at work. We investigate whether team autonomy can explain employees' individual autonomy, the teams' informal influence on its members and employees' desire for either individual or team influence. Questionnaire data were collected among employees in four Danish companies from different industries with various types of team organization: permanent, project-based and mixed teams. The results of the multiple regression analyses show that team autonomy is positively associated with individual autonomy, which is neither moderated by the team's ability to make the employee feel responsible nor by team support. Team autonomy is positively associated with facilitative social influence, i.e. team reward, team support and we find a negative association between team autonomy and team coercion. Moreover, employees who experienced more team than individual autonomy wanted their teams to control more work issues compared to employees who experienced lower team than individual autonomy.