Getting the Knack for Team-Improvised Adaptation: The Role of Reflexivity and Team Mental Model Similarity

2021 ◽  
pp. 002188632110093
Author(s):  
António C. M. Abrantes ◽  
Ana Margarida Passos ◽  
Miguel Pina e Cunha ◽  
Catarina Marques Santos
Keyword(s):  
Mental Model ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Rapid Adaptation ◽  
Unpredictable Environments ◽  
The Face ◽  
Team Mental Model ◽  
Adaptation Processes ◽  
Model Similarity ◽  
Common Understanding

Organizational teams operate in increasingly volatile environments in which the speed and degree of change accelerates, demanding rapid adaptation processes namely of the improvisational type. It is therefore essential to understand how to prepare teams to operate in such contexts. This work investigates the effects of team mental model similarity, in-action reflexivity, and transitional reflexivity on team-improvised adaptation performance and on team-improvised adaptation learning. Two experiments were conducted with a total of 121 teams. We manipulated the independent variables and used an overtime design to measure team-improvised adaptation learning. Our findings suggest that teams operating in unpredictable environments that require rapid adaptation should be able to reflect collectively, both while acting and between tasks. These teams should also develop a common understanding of the main elements of the context and the task, so that they are effective in the face of unpredictability and rapid change.

scholarly journals The Effects of Team Mental Model Complexity on Team Information Search and Performance Trajectories

2021 ◽  
pp. 105960112110232
Author(s):  
Sjir Uitdewilligen ◽  
Mary J. Waller ◽  
Robert A. Roe ◽  
Peter Bollen
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Model Complexity ◽  
Complex Environments ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Team Mental Model ◽  
Model Similarity ◽  
Over Time

Drawing on the concept of requisite complexity, we propose that mental model complexity is crucial for teams to thrive in dynamic complex environments. Using a longitudinal research design, we examined the influence of team mental model complexity on team information search and performance trajectories in a sample of 64 teams competing in a business strategy simulation over time. We found that team information search positively influences performance growth over time. More specifically, and consistent with requisite complexity, we found that mental model complexity positively influences both performance growth and information search over time, above and beyond the effects of mental model similarity and accuracy.

scholarly journals The Role of Magnetometry in Managing Arctic Archaeological Sites in the Face of Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Hodgetts ◽  
Edward J. H. Eastaugh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Site Structure ◽  
The Face ◽  
Glacial Tills

ABSTRACTClimate change is impacting archaeological sites around the globe, and Arctic sites are among the most vulnerable because the region is experiencing particularly rapid change. In the face of this threat, archaeologists, heritage managers, and northern communities need to develop strategies for documenting and monitoring Arctic sites and prioritizing them for further investigation. Using three case studies from Banks Island in the western Canadian Arctic, we demonstrate how magnetometer survey could assist in this process, despite the region's poorly developed soils, widespread glacial tills, and periglacial geomorphology, which pose challenges for the technique. The case studies illustrate the utility of magnetometry in mapping both archaeological and permafrost features in the Arctic, allowing it to rapidly investigate site structure and assess the level of threat due to climate change.

Mirror, Mirror: Guided Storytelling and Team Reflexivity’s Influence on Team Mental Models

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Tesler ◽  
Susan Mohammed ◽  
Katherine Hamilton ◽  
Vincent Mancuso ◽  
Michael McNeese
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Team Mental Models ◽  
Team Mental Model ◽  
Model Similarity ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Mirror Mirror ◽  
Methodological Ground

Because substantial evidence supports team mental model similarity as a positive predictor of team performance, it is important that we help team members to develop a shared understanding of relevant team content. The current study extended the list of team mental model antecedents to include guided storytelling as an effective team intervention. In the first known empirical investigation of planned story usage in teams, we broke new methodological ground by pioneering a team intervention to proactively harness the benefits of narrative. Results revealed that the combination of presenting important information in story format and giving members time to reflect upon their strategies had a positive effect on team mental model similarity. In addition, the positive indirect effect of storytelling on team performance via team mental model similarity was stronger when guided team reflexivity was present than absent. These findings provide encouraging evidence for the continued examination of storytelling and reflexivity in teams.

scholarly journals The role of teleoaffective profiles in practice adaptation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Spotswood ◽  
James Steele ◽  
Patroklos Androulakis-Korakakis ◽  
Alex Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Resistance Training ◽  
Consumer Research ◽  
Binary Outcomes ◽  
Practice Elements ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
The Face ◽  
Adaptation Processes ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Empirical Material

Consumer research is interested in the way consumers navigate consumption in the face of disruption, often using practice theory to focus on how practitioners creatively realign practice elements in order to carry on. Although recognising their significance, this research undertheorizes the significance, role and characteristics of 'meanings' in practice adaptation, presenting them as constraining and yet easy to adapt. We explore and theorize meanings in practice adaptation by mobilising the theoretical leverage of Schatzki’s (2002) concept of ‘teleoaffective structures’. Through our empirical material, we illuminate how multifaceted teleoaffective components constituent of teleoaffective structures are integrated differently into routinised practice performances in relatively stable ways; incorporated via ‘teleoaffective profiles’ that are unique to practitioners but properties of practices. Furthermore, we propose that teleoaffective profiles have different characteristics that condition practice adaptation, as teleological orientations and affective engagements afford different pathways towards integration with available materials and competences. We use our empirical material, based on interviews with loyal gym-based resistance training practitioners during COVID-19 gym closures, to illuminate our argument that practitioners can have ‘rigid’, ‘elastic’ or ‘fluid’ teleoaffective profiles. The characteristics of these profiles, which are unique but remain the properties of the practice, mean that adaptation processes and experiences unfold differently. This perspective advances from accounts of adaptation that are centred on binary outcomes of success or failure. Furthermore, our theorization advances from practice-oriented consumption adaptation research that foregrounds practitioner creativity and fails to adequately incorporate understandings of how practice elements condition adaptation processes. Yet, we retain practitioner experiences in our analysis. Teleoaffective components, profiles and properties provides further theoretical leverage to the practice turn in consumption research and advances the burgeoning focus on the significance of teleoaffective structures in the topographies of practices

Questions on the role of biofilms for the adaptation of microorganisms to unfavorable environmental factors by the example of P. aeruginosa

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-383
Author(s):  
Vasily N. Afonyushkin ◽  
N. A. Donchenko ◽  
Ju. N. Kozlova ◽  
N. A. Davidova ◽  
V. Yu. Koptev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Barrier Function ◽  
Infectious Agent ◽  
Antagonistic Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Pathogenic Potential ◽  
The Face

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widely represented species of bacteria possessing of a pathogenic potential. This infectious agent is causing wound infections, fibrotic cystitis, fibrosing pneumonia, bacterial sepsis, etc. The microorganism is highly resistant to antiseptics, disinfectants, immune system responses of the body. The responses of a quorum sense of this kind of bacteria ensure the inclusion of many pathogenicity factors. The analysis of the scientific literature made it possible to formulate four questions concerning the role of biofilms for the adaptation of P. aeruginosa to adverse environmental factors: Is another person appears to be predominantly of a source an etiological agent or the source of P. aeruginosa infection in the environment? Does the formation of biofilms influence on the antibiotic resistance? How the antagonistic activity of microorganisms is realized in biofilm form? What is the main function of biofilms in the functioning of bacteria? A hypothesis has been put forward the effect of biofilms on the increase of antibiotic resistance of bacteria and, in particular, P. aeruginosa to be secondary in charcter. It is more likely a biofilmboth to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and provide topical competition in the face of food scarcity. In connection with the incompatibility of the molecular radii of most antibiotics and pores in biofilm, biofilm is doubtful to be capable of performing a barrier function for protecting against antibiotics. However, with respect to antibodies and immunocompetent cells, the barrier function is beyond doubt. The biofilm is more likely to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and providing topical competition in conditions of scarcity of food resources.

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