Stephen Fisher

Team or group? Managers’ perceptions of the differences

States that organizations are using teams and groups to an increasing extent yet current researchers often use the terms interchangeably, despite literature indicating both that their processes and outputs may be very different, and that these differences may have important consequences. Examines how, in order to differentiate between management teams and groups based on the descriptions of managers’ experience in the workplace, 319 part‐time MBA students completed a checklist comprising 149 adjectives. Analyses showed that both teams and groups were best described by separate one factor solutions. Discusses how teams and groups were described equally as “affective”, “effective”, “energetic” and “flexible”; teams were described as “creative”, “innovative”, and “well rounded”, groups were described as “negotiating”, “networking”, “persuasive”, and “the sum of individual goals”. Posits that such characterizations were taken as suggesting that teams create resources and add to their environments while groups manage and redistribute their resources, and further, that teams have stable, valued interpersonal relations but groups do not.

Cognitive style and team role preference

Team role preference, as formulated by Meredith Belbin, and cognitive style are both rooted in personality. As a consequence, it should be possible to successfully hypothesise certain relationships between team role preferences and cognitive style, or one or more of its components. To test this idea, data was collected by administering the Kirton Adaption Innovation inventory and Cattell’s 16PF personality questionnaire to a group of undergraduate students (n = 183) who were reading a mixed engineering and business degree. This paper reports correlations which substantiate some of the postulated relationships. The findings, which suggest that the ideal Belbin team contains a balanced mix of adaptors, innovators and bridgers, give a new perspective to the Belbin team role model, and should provide some guidance to those who seek to build and operate “Belbinesque” teams.

Further evidence concerning the Belbin Team Role Self‐perception Inventory

Against the background of a recent investigation into the internal reliability and the validity of the Belbin Team Role Self‐perception Inventory, two linked studies were undertaken. In the first, test‐retest reliabilities of the Belbin self‐perception inventory were measured and found to be unsatisfactory; in the second, correlations with team roles forecast on the basis of 16PF data were attempted and, with the exception of one team role, no substantial correlations were established. Provides support for the use of 16PF as the preferred method for estimating team role preferences rather than the Belbin self‐perception inventory data.

Control and Belbin’s team roles

Consideration of Belbin’s team role model led to the view that some of the roles proposed might require the exercise of control, but others much less so. A hypothesis which indicated which roles might be expected to manifest expressed and wanted control was developed and then tested using Schutz’s FIRO‐B questionnaire. A mixture of graduates in employment and undergraduates still at university were utilised as subjects for the investigation. After consideration of the validity of Schutz’s constructs, the data obtained were construed as supporting the hypothesis and adding weight to the claims for the validity of the Belbin team role model.

A validation study of Belbin's team roles

The Belbin team role preferences of the members of 55 teams were assessed by three independent methods: (1) Cattells 16PF (Form 5) personality questionnaire, (2) video observation of a business simulation exercise and subsequent analysis with a Belbin behavioural checklist, and (3) Saville and Holdsworths Occupational Personality Questionnaire. The 338 participants were drawn in approximately equal measure from managerial and non-managerial levels from equal numbers of manufacturing and public service organizations. A multitrait-multimethod correlation matrix derived from the data collected from the participants was employed to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validities of the Belbin team roles. Application of the Campbell and Fiske criteria to the matrix did not produce clear support for discriminant validity. Application of a correlated uniqueness model in a confirmatory factor analysis showed the Belbin team role model to be overparameterized and to lack both convergent and discriminant validity. Further modelling revealed that the Belbin team roles fit easily into a “Big Five” five-factor personality framework.

The distribution of Belbin team roles among UK managers

Ascertains the preferred team roles of a substantial sample of UK managers using Belbin’s model. Finds that co‐ordinators and resource investigators are present in great numbers, but few completers, monitor evaluators, plants and shapers are encountered. Highlights the significance of this finding for firms seeking to create balanced and, hopefully, optimally‐structured teams. Adduces some evidence for the validity of the Belbin team role construct.

Belbin’s team role theory: for non‐managers also?

Belbin team role scores derived from the 16PF5 personality questionnaire data were obtained from a sample of volunteers drawn from industrial and local authority organizations. The volunteers, comprising male and female managers and non‐managers, with approximately equal numbers in each of the four possible categories, were set into teams. Approximately half of the 55 teams comprised solely managers, the other half solely non‐managers. The distribution of Belbin team roles over all the teams was not controlled. All teams completed a business game typically used for training managers in team decision making. The distribution of Belbin scores amongst all the volunteers and the results of the business game provided evidence in support of the claim that Belbin’s team role theory can be applied to non‐managerial personnel.

Early influences on management team roles

Reports the results of an investigation into the effect of the childhood family environment on the management team roles (as defined by Belbin) adopted by 199 young adults. Moos′s Family Environment Scale and Cattell′s 16PF were used to obtain measures of family environment and management team roles, respectively and significant correlations of the anticipated magnitude were obtained which showed how behaviours learned in the early home may be carried over into management team behaviour.