David M. Fisher

Facet personality and surface-level diversity as team mental model antecedents: implications for implicit coordination.

Team mental models (TMMs) have received much attention as important drivers of effective team processes and performance. Less is known about the factors that give rise to these shared cognitive structures. We examined potential antecedents of TMMs, with a specific focus on team composition variables, including various facets of personality and surface-level diversity. Further, we examined implicit coordination as an important outcome of TMMs. Results suggest that team composition in terms of the cooperation facet of agreeableness and racial diversity were significantly related to team-focused TMM similarity. TMM similarity was also positively predictive of implicit coordination, which mediated the relationship between TMM similarity and team performance. Post hoc analyses revealed a significant interaction between the trust facet of agreeableness and racial diversity in predicting TMM similarity. Results are discussed in terms of facilitating the emergence of TMMs and corresponding implications for team-related human resource practices.

A multilevel cross-cultural examination of role overload and organizational commitment: investigating the interactive effects of context.

Considering the influential nature of context, the current investigation examined whether the relationship between role overload and organizational commitment was affected by various contextual factors. Drawing on the occupational stress literature, structural empowerment and cooperative climate were examined as factors that would mitigate the negative effects of role overload on organizational commitment. In addition, national culture was examined to determine whether empowerment and cooperative climate had consistent moderating effects across cultures. The relationships among these variables were examined using hierarchical linear modeling in a sample of 6,264 employees working at a multinational organization in 337 different work locations across 18 countries. Results suggested that the negative effect of role overload on organizational commitment did not vary as a function of culture in the current sample, but empowerment and cooperative climate had a moderating influence on this relationship. Furthermore, a 3-way interaction was observed between the cultural variable of power distance, empowerment, and role overload in predicting organizational commitment, suggesting that factors that serve to mitigate the negative effects of role overload in one culture may be ineffectual in another. This 3-way interaction was observed regardless of whether Hofstedes (2001) cultural value indices were used or the cultural practice scores from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project (R. J. House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004).

Distinguishing between taskwork and teamwork planning in teams: Relations with coordination and interpersonal processes.

Planning in teams represents a critical process that lays the groundwork for effective team functioning. The current investigation examined whether emergent team planning can be meaningfully characterized in terms of a distinction between planning that focuses on taskwork and planning that focuses on teamwork. In Study 1, items written to reflect commonly identified indicators of team planning were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. In Study 2, slightly modified items were provided to a separate sample, and a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. In Study 3, the relationships between the different forms of planning and other team processes (i.e., coordination, interpersonal processes) were examined in order to determine whether there are unique relationships for task-focused and team-focused planning. Results from the first 2 studies provided support for a 2-factor structure of team planning, whereas Study 3 found independent relationships for taskwork and teamwork planning with subsequent team processes. Both forms of planning also exhibited indirect relationships with team performance via the mediating role of subsequent team processes.

An Approach for Conducting Actionable Research With Extreme Teams

Extreme teams complete their tasks in unconventional performance environments and have serious consequences associated with failure. Examples include disaster relief teams, special operations teams, and astronaut crews. The unconventional performance environments within which these teams operate require researchers to carefully consider the context during the research process. These environments may also create formidable challenges to the research process, including constraining data collection and sample sizes. Given the serious consequences associated with failure, however, the challenges must be navigated so that the management of extreme teams can be evidence based. We present an approach for conducting actionable research on extreme teams. Our approach is an extension of mixed-methods research that is particularly well suited for emphasizing context. The approach guides researchers on how to integrate the local context into the research process, which allows for actionable recommendations. At the same time, our approach applies an intentionally broad framework for organizing context, which can serve as a mechanism through which the results of research on extreme teams can be meaningfully accumulated and integrated across teams. Finally, our approach and description of steps address the unique challenges common in extreme-team research. While developed with extreme teams in mind, we view our general approach as applicable to more traditional teams when the features of the context that impinge on team functioning are not adequately represented by typical descriptions of context in the literature and the goal is actionable research for the teams in question.

The Power of Percipience: Consequences of Self-Awareness in Teams on Team-Level Functioning and Performance

We integrate research on team functioning with that of self-awareness to advance the notion of self-awareness in teams as an important concept to consider when diagnosing team effectiveness. We argue that teams composed of individuals with greater levels of self-awareness will exhibit more effective team-level functioning and performance. This proposition was explored by examining the effects of self-other agreement with regard to individual-level contributions of teamwork behavior on three team-level functional outcomes (team coordination, conflict, cohesion) and team performance. Results from 515 teams (2,658 individuals) completing a high-fidelity team-based business simulation supported the effects of aggregate levels of self-awareness on team-level functioning and performance. Moreover, these effects were influential above and beyond individual contributions themselves, highlighting the unique value of team members’ self-awareness for understanding team functioning. Of the three functional outcomes, only team conflict mediated the effects of self-awareness in teams on subsequent team-level performance. Finally, results revealed that overrating among team members was a particularly problematic form of the lack of self-awareness in teams.

Contextualized personality measures in employee selection: Extending frame-of-reference research with job applicant samples

This study compared contextualized and non-contextualized personality measures in operational hiring situations, unlike previous research which has largely relied on student or job incumbent samples. Comparisons were made with regard to (A) the frames-of-reference adopted by applicants when responding to the measures, (B) relations with subsequent employment interview scores, (C) applicant reactions, and (D) mean scores for the personality scales. The findings highlight potential concerns with using non-contextualized personality measures for employee selection, as job applicants will likely adopt various frames-of-reference unrelated to the intended focus of measurement (i.e., work). Results also indicated that it may be premature to assume contextualized measures elicit improved applicant reactions despite their apparent job-relatedness. The discussion concludes with suggested directions for future research.