Conditioning team cognition: A meta-analysis

2020 ◽  
pp. 204138662097211
Author(s):  
Ashley A. Niler ◽  
Jessica R. Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Lindsay E. Larson ◽  
Gabriel Plummer ◽  
Leslie A. DeChurch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Team Cognition ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Functional Homogeneity ◽  
Leadership Structure

Abundant research supports a cognitive foundation to teamwork. Team cognition describes the mental states that enable team members to anticipate and to coordinate. Having been examined in hundreds of studies conducted in board rooms, cockpits, nuclear power plants, and locker rooms, to name a few, we turn to the question of moderators: Under which conditions is team cognition more and less strongly related to team performance? Random effects meta-analytic moderator analysis of 107 independent studies ( N = 7,778) reveals meaningful variation in effect sizes conditioned on team composition and boundary factors. The overall effect of team cognition on performance is ρ = .35, though examining this effect by these moderators finds the effect can meaningfully vary between ρ = .22 and ρ = .42. This meta-analysis advances team effectiveness theory by moving past the question of “what is important?” to explore the question of “when and why is it important?” Results indicate team cognition is most strongly related to performance for teams with social category heterogeneity ( ρ = .42), high external interdependence ( ρ = .41), as well as low authority differentiation ( ρ = .35), temporal dispersion ( ρ = .36), and geographic dispersion ( ρ = .35). Functional homogeneity and temporal stability (compositional factors) were not meaningful moderators of this relationship. The key takeaway of these findings is that team cognition matters most for team performance when—either by virtue of composition, leadership, structure, or technology—there are few substitute enabling conditions to otherwise promote performance.

Collective orientation and its implications for coordination and team performance in interdependent work contexts

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Hagemann ◽  
Greta Ontrup ◽  
Annette Kluge
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Fire Service ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Collective Orientation ◽  
And Performance

Purpose This paper aims to explore the influence of collective orientation (CO) on coordination and team performance for interdependently working teams while controlling for person-related and team variables. Design/methodology/approach A total of 58 two-person-teams participated in a simulation-based firefighting task. The laboratory study took 2 h for each team. The effects of CO in tasks of increasing complexity were investigated under the consideration of control variables, and the relations between CO, coordination and team performance were assessed using a multivariate latent growth curve modeling approach and by estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Findings Team members high on CO performed significantly better than low-scoring members. The effect of CO on team performance was independent from an increasing task complexity, whereas the effect of CO on coordination was not. The effect of CO on team performance was mediated by coordination within the team, and the positive relation between CO and performance persists when including group efficacy into the model. Research limitations/implications As CO is a modifiable person-related variable and important for effective team processes, additional research on factors influencing this attitude during work is assumed to be valuable. Practical implications CO is especially important for highly interdependently working teams in high-risk-organizations such as the fire service or nuclear power plants, where errors lead to severe consequences for human beings or the environment. Originality/value No other studies showed the importance of CO for coordination and team performance while considering teamwork-relevant variables and the interdependence of work.

Naturalistic Decision Making and Organizational Learning in Nuclear Power Plants: Negotiating Meaning Between Managers and Problem Investigation Teams

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 1037-1057 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Carroll ◽  
Sachi Hatakenaka ◽  
Jenny W. Rudolph
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Power Plants ◽  
Management Support ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Analytical Skills ◽  
Learning And Change

We explore the linkages between naturalistic decision making, which examines decisions in context, and team and organizational learning, which examines how feedback from decisions affects context. We study 27 problem investigation teams in three nuclear power plants, a setting that combines complex team decisions with organizational learning. Further, managers who commission the teams and receive team reports are a key aspect of context for the teams and a critical conduit for organizational learning and change. Questionnaires were given to both team members and manager recipients of written team reports, and team reports were coded for qualities of their analyses and recommendations. We find that team members value reports in which the team discovered causes or lessons that could be used in other contexts, whereas managers appreciate reports with logical corrective actions from teams with investigation experience. Teams with managers or supervisors as team members are better able to reach shared understanding with their manager customers. Teams with more diverse departmental backgrounds produce deeper and more creative analyses. Teams need access to information and analytical skills in order to learn effectively, but they also need management support and boundary-spanning skills in order to diffuse their learning.

scholarly journals The Emergence of Shared Leadership in Newly Formed Teams With an Initial Structure of Vertical Leadership: A Longitudinal Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrien Fransen ◽  
Ellen Delvaux ◽  
Batja Mesquita ◽  
Stef Van Puyenbroeck
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Shared Leadership ◽  
Team Leadership ◽  
Initial Structure ◽  
Leadership Perceptions ◽  
Powerful Predictor ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Leadership Structure ◽  
Vertical Leadership ◽  
Over Time

The importance of high-quality leadership for team effectiveness is widely recognized, with recent viewpoints arguing shared leadership to be a more powerful predictor than vertical leadership. To identify changes in leadership structures over time, we longitudinally tracked the leadership structure of 27 newly formed teams ( N = 195), all having an initial structure of vertical leadership. Our findings demonstrated that the average team leadership strengthened over the course of the 24-week project and leadership tended to become more distributed among team members. Regarding the antecedents of these changes, we found evidence that the more team members are perceived as warm or competent, the higher their perceived influence. Finally, examining the consequences of these changes, the leadership structure was found to be related with team performance in that teams with higher average leadership perceptions performed better. These findings underpin the importance of shared leadership, thereby suggesting leaders to empower their team members.

Exploring Measures of Team Knowledge

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Cooke ◽  
Rene'e Stout ◽  
Krisela Rivera ◽  
Eduardo Salas
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Situation Awareness ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Team Cognition ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Team Situation Awareness ◽  
Pathfinder Network ◽  
Knowledge Similarity ◽  
Share Information

Team cognition is more than the aggregate cognition of team members. It is an emerging feature, worthy of study in its own right. In this paper we investigate potential metrics of team knowledge in the context of a broader exploratory study on measures of team knowledge, performance, and situation awareness. Team members assumed different roles in a three-person synthetic task in which they were presented with unique role-relevant information. Successful accomplishment of team objectives required team members to share information. The focus of this paper is on one of several measures collected which required judgments of pairwise relatedness ratings for mission-relevant terms. These data were submitted to Pathfinder network scaling and used to derive three metrics of team knowledge: knowledge accuracy, interpositional knowledge, and knowledge similarity. The metrics revealed different perspectives on team knowledge and were generally predictive of team performance and team situation awareness.

Being open matters: the antecedents and consequences of cross-understanding in teams

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 6-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Meslec ◽  
Daniel Graff
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Group Performance ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cognitive Diversity ◽  
Team Cognition ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Resampling Procedure ◽  
Antecedents And Consequences

Purpose – The aim of the current paper is to explore the role of cross-understanding as a mediator between openness to cognitive experience and reflective communication cognitions on the one hand and team performance on the other hand using the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model as a framework (Ilgen et al., 2005). Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of 156 participants organized in 37 student teams. Two mediation models were estimated while using a nonparametric resampling procedure of bootstrapping developed by Hayes (2012). Findings – Cross-understanding positively mediates the relation between openness to cognitive diversity and team performance and the relation between reflective communication cognition and team performance. Reflective communication cognition has a direct and negative relation to team performance. Additionally, the percentage of women within groups positively relates to group performance. Research limitations/implications – Future research could explore the validity of this model in other organizational settings and while using different indicators for team performance. Practical implications – Practitioners should encourage an open climate toward knowledge diversity and different perspectives within teams, as this might create the optimal conditions for cross-understanding to emerge. Team members should also be encouraged to learn not only about the knowledge of other team members but also about their beliefs, preferences and things they are sensitive to, as this awareness is beneficial for the overall team performance. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the team cognition literature by bringing empirical support for a relatively less investigated concept: cross-understanding. The paper establishes its relation to team performance and two of its potential antecedents – openness to cognitive diversity and reflective communication cognition.

One-eyed Epidemiologic Dummies at Nuclear Power Plants

2011 ◽  
Vol 231 (5-6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eberhard Greiser
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Intervals ◽  
Publication Bias ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Power Plants ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Childhood Leukaemia ◽  
Sufficient Data ◽  
Methodological Errors ◽  
Incident Cases

SummaryKrämer and Arminger in a preceding article in this volume insinuated that in a meta-analysis on childhood leukaemia in the vicinity of nuclear power plants (NPP) in five countries gross methodological errors had led to falsified statistics. Major assumptions were a) arbitrary exclusion of publications with nil results, and b) publication bias in conduct of the meta-analysis. It is demonstrated that all appropriate publications providing data on incident cases of leukaemia and on the underlying population or rates of incidence with confidence intervals had been included. In addition it is demonstrated that all publications excluded from the meta-analysis either did not provide sufficient data on NPPs or cases of these publications had been already included into the meta-analysis from other publications.

The cognitive underpinnings of effective teamwork: a continuation

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 507-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Ashley A. Niler ◽  
Gabriel Plummer ◽  
Lindsay E. Larson ◽  
Leslie A. DeChurch
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Team Cognition ◽  
Team Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Research ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Meta Analyses

Purpose Team cognition is known to be an important predictor of team process and performance. DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus (2010) reported the results of an extensive meta-analytic examination into the role of team cognition in team process and performance, and documented the unique contribution of team cognition to these outcomes while controlling for the motivational dynamics of the team. Research on team cognition has exploded since the publication of DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus’ meta-analysis, which raises the question: to what extent do the effect sizes reported in their 2010 meta-analysis still hold with the inclusion of newly published research? The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The authors updated DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus’ meta-analytic database with newly published studies, nearly doubling its size, and reran their original analyses examining the role of team cognition in team process and performance. Findings Overall, results show consistent effects for team cognition in team process and performance. However, whereas originally compilational cognition was more strongly related to both team process and team performance than was compositional cognition, in the updated database, compilational cognition is more strongly related to team process and compositional cognition is more strongly related to team performance. Originality/value Meta-analyses are only as generalizable as the databases they are comprised of. Periodic updates are necessary to incorporate newly published studies and confirm that prior findings still hold. This study confirms that the findings of DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus’ (2010) team cognition meta-analysis continue to generalize to today’s teams.

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