Susan Mohammed

Metaphor No More: A 15-Year Review of the Team Mental Model Construct

Representing one type of team cognition, team mental models (TMMs) are organized mental representations of the key elements within a team’s relevant environment that are shared across team members. Although introduced amid considerable confusion concerning their nature and potential usefulness, there has been a proliferation of published studies over the past decade that have directly measured TMMs using a variety of methodologies and research designs. Capturing these exciting research developments, the purpose of this review was to inventory what has been accomplished thus far and to offer an agenda for the next wave of research. Specifically, we overview the conceptual underpinnings of TMMs, discuss measurement issues, and review the empirical record related to the outcomes, antecedents, and longitudinal work on TMMs. We conclude by highlighting fruitful opportunities for further research.

Personality Heterogeneity in Teams Which Differences Make a Difference for Team Performance

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of personality heterogeneity on team performance. Relationships were tested from 267 business students in 59 teams working on process improvement projects sponsored by organizations. The impact of personalitycomposition on two types of team tasks (oral vs. written) was examined. Relationships between predictors and criteria differed depending on the type of task performed. Specifically, higher variability on agreeableness and neuroticism resulted in lower oral presentation scores, whereas higher variability on extraversion resulted in higher oral presentation scores. Teams with higher mean cognitive ability scored better on written reports. The implications of these findings for the study of team performance are discussed.

Mental models in design teams: a valid approach to performance in design collaboration?

This article provides an overview of research into mental models in teams and discusses the relevance of this theoretical concept for design teams. Researchers in several disciplines have applied the construct of mental models to understand how people perform tasks based on their knowledge, experience and expectation. The notion has also been used to study teams and to analyse the relationship between team mental model and team performance. Five different types of mental models for studying design teams are proposed: task, process, team, competence, and context. A review the literature found only very few studies on team mental models in design-related areas. A brief overview is provided on what is known about team mental models in general, on the effect of team mental models on team performance, and on what kind of results can be transferred to design teams. A short review of measurement techniques and how they can be applied to design research is presented. Finally, implications for the field of design are discussed and a methodological framework for studying mental models in design teams is proposed.

Toward an Understanding of Cognitive Consensus in a Group Decision-Making Context

This article consolidates and integrates what has been learned about group-level interpretation into a common theoretical language and conceptual foundation on which future research can be based. The term cognitive consensus refers to similarity among group members regarding how key issues are defined and conceptualized. In addition to addressing neglected definitional issues, this article embeds cognitive consensus in an input-process-outcome framework, and propositions are offered concerning the variables that both impact and result from its development. It is argued that the notion of cognitive consensus provides a valuable means for understanding how decision makers collectively make sense of ill-structured issues in a group setting and is conceptually appealing because it integrates group, cognitive, negotiation, and decision-making research.

[Are we all on the same temporal page? The moderating effects of temporal team cognition on the polychronicity diversity–team performance relationship].

Integrating research on polychronicity, team diversity, and team cognition, we hypothesized that shared temporal cognition (overlapping knowledge) and temporal transactive memory systems (differentiated knowledge) would moderate the effects of polychronicity diversity on team performance. Results from 71 teams in an Indian organization revealed opposing moderating effects in that shared temporal cognition attenuated, but temporal transactive memory systems amplified, the negative effects of polychronicity diversity on team performance. Shared temporal cognition also exerted a strong, positive effect on team performance. Study results provide support for the continued examination of polychronicity diversity and temporal team cognition.

Time for temporal team mental models: Expanding beyond “what” and “how” to incorporate “when”

Although often ignored, establishing and maintaining congruence in team members’ temporal perceptions are consequential tasks that deserve research attention. Integrating research on team cognition and temporality, this study operationalized the notion of a temporal team mental model (TMM) at two points in time using two measurement methods. Ninety eight three-person teams participated in a computerized team simulation designed to mimic emergency crisis management situations in a distributed team environment. The results showed that temporal TMMs measured via concept maps and pairwise ratings each positively contributed uniquely to team performance beyond traditionally measured taskwork and teamwork content domains. In addition, temporal TMMs assessed later in teams’ development exerted stronger effects on team performance than those assessed earlier. The results provide support for the continued examination of temporal TMM similarity in future research.

Temporal Discounting of Strategic Issues: Bold Forecasts for Opportunities and Threats

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of a strategic issues temporal proximity on the identification of the issue as threatening or opportunity like. In Experiment 1, university students (N = 86) reacted to hypothetical threats or opportunities that differed in the degree to which they were immediate or delayed. Evidence was found for the asymmetrical discounting of strategic issues such that students discounted distant threats more than distant opportunities. In addition, it was found that, although immediate threats were viewed just as likely to occur as immediate opportunities, distant threats were seen as less likely to occur than distant opportunities. Experiment 2 (N = 222) showed that a manipulation of a threats likelihood of occurring had no effect on the temporal discounting of the hypothetical threat. However, the perceived control of threats increased as temporal distance increased. This article concludes that perceived control plays an important role in the reduced plausi...

Using the Neocities 3.1 Simulation to Study and Measure Team Cognition

This paper provides a detailed explanation of the link between NeoCITIES, a crisis management simulation of emergency response teams, and team cognition. Descriptions of the NeoCITIES simulation structure, interface, and modifications are provided, along with its functionality in effectively studying team cognition. The paper focuses on three commonly examined constructs within the team cognition literature, namely, team situation awareness, team mental models, and information sharing.

Board-based collaboration in cross-cultural pairs

This work in progress reports a study of cross-cultural collaboration mediated by board-based collaborative systems. American-Chinese and American-American pairs performed collaborative design tasks either face-to-face or remotely. Survey data, video recording, and design products were collected to examine the impact of culture (American-American vs. American-Chinese), medium (face-to-face vs. remote), and system (MimioTM vs. SMART BoardTM) on the process and outcomes of collaboration. Results from the survey showed significant effects of these variables on several reliable measures of common ground, cognitive consensus building, perceived performance, and satisfaction. The effects on perceived performance were robust. American-Chinese pairs reported a significantly lower level of consensus when using a system that supports uni-directional (Mimio™) rather than bi-directional interaction on the board.

The Effect of Team-Building on Team Process and Performance

This article reports the effects of a team-building intervention on team process and team performance of hospitality student teams, compared to a control group. Effects on process were positive and significant on all criteria. Effects on performance were all positive, though not all differences were significant. Implications for hospitality teams and team-building are discussed.