Raquel Asencio

Charting a course for collaboration: a multiteam perspective

ABSTRACTThe translation of medical research from bench-to-bedside often requires integrated input from multiple expert teams. These collectives can best be understood through the lens of multiteam systems theory. Team charters are a practical tool thought to facilitate team performance through the creation of explicit shared norms for behavior. We extend the current literature on team charters to the multiteam context and make three practical recommendations for multiteam charter content that could facilitate effective communication and leadership processes between teams.

How Organizational Identity Affects Team Functioning: The Identity Instrumentality Hypothesis:

How does organizational identity affect team functioning? We articulate and test an identity instrumentality hypothesis that suggests that organizational identity (1) directly predicts those aspects of team functioning that enable, and are instrumental in, employees’ fulfillment of their identity with the organization; and (2) indirectly predicts other aspects of team functioning not instrumental to organizational identity fulfillment. Underlying this hypothesis is the idea that some aspects of team functioning, such as team performance and cooperative team behaviors, are important to individuals’ fulfillment of their organizational identity because the implications of these behaviors extend beyond the immediacy of the team, whereas other aspects of team functioning (e.g., team affect) are not instrumental to organizational identity fulfillment because they are relevant mainly within the team context. We test the identity instrumentality hypothesis by using meta-analytic path analysis conducted on effect estimates obtained from 132 independent studies (total N = 28,024) of organizational and team identity. As hypothesized, we find that whereas team identity fully mediates the relationship between organizational identity and team affective constructs (i.e., aspects of team functioning not instrumental to the fulfillment of organizational identity), organizational identity uniquely and directly affects cooperative team behavior and team performance, which are those aspects of team functioning that are instrumental to the fulfillment of organizational identity.

Conflict, Trust, and Cohesion: Examining Affective and Attitudinal Factors in Science Teams

Abstract In this chapter we discuss attitudinal and affective factors in the context of science teams. We review some of the key findings on conflict, trust, and cohesion in teams and discuss the differentiation between team-related and task-related definitions of each. In so doing, we discuss their relevance to team effectiveness in science teams and provide guidance on notional areas of research for understanding how these are related to effectiveness in science teams.

Team task switching: A conceptual framework for understanding functional work shifts

Modern work environments are technologically and socially rich, requiring individuals to manage multiple tasks that involve different technologies and varying degrees of interdependence. Individual and team performance hinge on functional work shifts that can involve changing tasks (multi-tasking), technologies (multi-tooling), and/or teammates (multi-teaming). We extend research on task switching to explain how the social and technological dimensions of tasks affect switch costs. The task switching literature identifies lateral shifts that occur when individuals change tasks. We also consider vertical switches that occur when individuals change from independent (i.e., working alone) to interdependent work (i.e., as part of a team) or from interdependent to independent work. We then integrate personological, social, task, and technological factors into one conceptual framework. Our framework lays the groundwork for understanding the effect of functional work shifts on task and team performance in modern-day work environments.

Space Exploration Illuminates the Next Frontier for Teams Research

Effective teamwork is beneficial for organizations on Earth, but is a sine qua non for teams venturing into outer space. The prospect of sending a team to Mars by the year 2030 invites organizational scientists to take stock of what we know and what we still need to know about teams. The team endeavoring to Mars will be multicultural and interdisciplinary, living and working in uncomfortable and dangerous conditions, and doing so in close collaboration with distant teams back on Earth. Tackling the teamwork challenges associated with a mission to Mars present an opportunity to rapidly accelerate the science of teams. In this conceptual review, we explore seven complexities of teams that are both important and understudied. Results of structured interviews with experts on human space exploration regarding the nature of teamwork in long-duration space exploration illuminate seven complexities, or key features of teams, in general, that serve as a catalyst for identifying, informing, and motivating future directions of inquiry about teams. These features, and the research they inspire, may enable organizations to build more effective teams on Earth and beyond.

Sequential Synchronization Analysis

One of the oldest questions in group research is “What makes a group more than just a collection of individuals?” This chapter posits that as group members interact, their activities can become socially entrained, constituting the group as an entity beyond the individual members. Capturing social entrainment provides a unique marker on when and how unique properties emerge at the group level. Sequential synchronization analysis is a method for assessing the type and degree of entrainment in groups and teams based on member communication and behavior. It first defines meaningful sequences of actions for each team member and then analyzes how those sequences are synchronized over time. The chapter provides a step-by-step guide on the new approach and an example.

Assessing Collaboration Within and Between Teams: A Multiteam Systems Perspective

Developing assessment methods that capture an individual’s capability to collaborate can look to the team and multiteam systems literature, which identifies six critical components of collaboration. These six include team affect/motivation, team interaction processes, and team cognition, as well as corresponding constructs at the system level, multiteam affect/motivation, between-team interaction, and multiteam cognition. This chapter defines and distinguishes teams and multiteam systems and discusses the importance of that distinction for assessing individual collaborative capacity in both small stand-alone teams and larger systems of teams working toward superordinate goals. Particularly, we describe confluent and countervailing forces—the notion that what enables team functioning and effectiveness may or may not also enable the multiteam system effectiveness. Assessments of individual contributions to team and multiteam dynamics must consider the implications to functioning both within and between teams.