scholarly journals Extemporaneous Coordination in Specialist Teams: The Familiarity Complementarity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenny Ching ◽  
Enrico Forti ◽  
Evan Rawley
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Team Production ◽  
Plug And Play ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Social Familiarity ◽  
Marginal Returns

Team production is ubiquitous in the economy, but managing teams effectively remains a challenge for many organizations. This paper studies how familiarity among teammates influences the performance of specialist teams, relative to nonspecialist teams. Applying theories of team production to contexts where team members coordinate interdependent activities extemporaneously, we develop predictions about factors that shift the marginal returns to specialization along two dimensions of familiarity: social familiarity and functional familiarity. We test our hypotheses in the context of Defence of the Ancients 2 (DOTA2), a major e-sports game where, in some formats, players are exogenously assigned to five-person teams. After analyzing nearly 6.5 million matches, we find that specialist teams are relatively more successful when members are more socially and functionally familiar with one another. The results suggest that the plug-and-play perspective on specialist teams is incomplete; rather, specialization and familiarity are complements in dynamic environments where team members coordinate extemporaneously.

scholarly journals Nonbinding Goals in Teams: A Real Effort Coordination Experiment

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 1026-1044
Author(s):  
James Fan ◽  
Joaquín Gómez-Miñambres
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Weak Link ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Individual Performance ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Team Production ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
The Impact

Problem definition: We investigate the impact of nonbinding (wage-irrelevant) goals, set by a manager, on a team of workers with “weak-link” production technology. Can nonbinding goals improve team production when team members face production complementarity? Academic/practical relevance: Nonbinding goals are easy to implement and ubiquitous in practice. These goals have been shown to improve individual performance, but it remains to be seen if such goals are effective in team production when there is production complementarity among workers. Methodology: We first develop a theoretical model where goals act as reference points for workers’ intrinsic motivation to complete the task. We then test our hypotheses in a controlled, human-subjects experiment. In our experiment, participants act as managers or workers, and we examine the impact of nonbinding goals on team outcomes. Results: Consistent with our model, we find evidence that team production does increase when managers are able to set goals. This effect is strongest when goals are challenging but attainable for weak-link workers. However, we also find evidence that many managers assign goals that are too challenging for weak-link workers, resulting in suboptimal team production, lower profits, and higher wasted performance (performance above the weak-link level). Managerial implications: Our analysis indicates that goals are effective motivators in teams, but some managers may have difficulty overcoming personal biases when setting goals. The task of setting team goals is more complex than setting individual goals, and many managers can benefit from training on how to set good goals for the team. Moreover, our finding that suboptimal goals also increase wasted performance suggests that improving goal-setting strategies is especially important in production settings where overperformance is costly for the firm (scrap, energy use, inventory costs, lower prices as a result of oversupply, etc.).

An observational study of ad-hoc anaesthesia teams

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-106
Author(s):  
Anderz MW Birkestam ◽  
Caisa Öster ◽  
Erebouni Arakelian
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Department ◽  
Observational Study ◽  
Emergency Departments ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Assessment Measure ◽  
Unpredictable Environment

Background Anaesthesia teams are temporarily assembled to cooperate with teams in emergency departments in the immediate management of events compromising patients’ airway, ventilation and circulation. Purpose The aim was to describe a temporary ad-hoc anaesthesia team’s performance. Design An observational study was conducted. Methods Data, collected with 12 non-participatory observations, were analysed using both an thematic method, and a validated assessment tool, the Team Emergency Assessment Measure. Results Three themes were identified: (1) flexibility in assuming varying roles, (2) expertise in verbal and non-verbal communication and (3) skills dealing with the challenges of working in unfamiliar dynamic environments. Ninety per cent of anaesthesia teams scored 7.6 (0–10) on the overall assessment according to the Team Emergency Assessment Measure rating. Conclusion Ad-hoc anaesthesia team members communicated in various ways and the anaesthesia team adapted well to the unpredictable environment in the emergency department.

On the Operational Reality of Auditors' Independence: Lessons from the Field

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri Guénin-Paracini ◽  
Bertrand Malsch ◽  
Marie-Soleil Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Auditor Independence ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Complex Balancing ◽  
Audit Team ◽  
Relational Strategies

SUMMARY Auditor independence, which has certainly been one of the most addressed topics in auditing literature, is a complex and ambiguous construct that can be analyzed along two dimensions. The first dimension, organizational independence, relates to auditors' willingness to act in accordance with professional standards and to report errors found during the audit. The second dimension, operational independence, relates to auditors' capability to work diligently and effectively in order to detect material anomalies. Surprisingly, “much of the debate has [so far] focused on the former,” while the latter has remained largely “under-discussed” (Power 1999, 132), if not ignored. In this paper, based on ethnographic data and semi-structured interviews, we examine the realities of auditors' operational independence and discuss the practical and theoretical implications of our findings. Our evidence suggests that auditors' operational independence is both unsettled in practice and impossible to achieve through institutional measures alone. This view may challenge orthodox and regulatory conceptions of audit, but the smooth conduct of an audit engagement largely depends on the auditees' desire to cooperate. In order to arouse and maintain this desire, audit team members resort to a number of relational strategies that aim at securing their capability to work with diligence and efficacy, but that can also undermine their willingness to take enforcement action when necessary. Audit, therefore, appears to be a complex balancing act between capability and willingness. Ultimately, it is shown that because official arrangements designed to guarantee operational independence are unlikely to be effective, the reality of auditor independence remains highly uncertain and needs to be constantly negotiated and renegotiated in the field.

scholarly journals Decoding team and individual impact in science and invention

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (28) ◽  
pp. 13885-13890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ahmadpoor ◽  
Benjamin F. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Citation Impact ◽  
Team Production ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Harmonic Average ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

Scientists and inventors increasingly work in teams, raising fundamental questions about the nature of team production and making individual assessment increasingly difficult. Here we present a method for describing individual and team citation impact that both is computationally feasible and can be applied in standard, wide-scale databases. We track individuals across collaboration networks to define an individual citation index and examine outcomes when each individual works alone or in teams. Studying 24 million research articles and 3.9 million US patents, we find a substantial impact advantage of teamwork over solo work. However, this advantage declines as differences between the team members’ individual citation indices grow. Team impact is predicted more by the lower-citation rather than the higher-citation team members, typically centering near the harmonic average of the individual citation indices. Consistent with this finding, teams tend to assemble among individuals with similar citation impact in all fields of science and patenting. In assessing individuals, our index, which accounts for each coauthor, is shown to have substantial advantages over existing measures. First, it more accurately predicts out-of-sample paper and patent outcomes. Second, it more accurately characterizes which scholars are elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Overall, the methodology uncovers universal regularities that inform team organization while also providing a tool for individual evaluation in the team production era.

scholarly journals Uncertainty‐driven cooperation

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 1023-1058
Author(s):  
Doruk Cetemen ◽  
Ilwoo Hwang ◽  
Ayça Kaya
Keyword(s):  
Performance Measures ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Team Production ◽  
Ratchet Effect ◽  
Current Effort ◽  
Joint Performance ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Effort Level

We consider dynamic team production in the presence of uncertainty. Team members receive interim feedback that depends on both their current effort level and the project's uncertain prospects. In this environment, each member can encourage the others by making them more optimistic about the project's prospects. We study the extent to which this incentive counters the usual free‐riding incentive. Restricting the agents' access to feedback can increase their equilibrium effort levels by mitigating the ratchet effect. In this case, using joint performance measures can be beneficial even when individual measures are available.

scholarly journals Physical and Abstract Elements that Support Cooperation between Team Members During Systems Development

10.28945/2393 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Systems Development ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Development Team ◽  
Relationship Of

This paper addresses the problem of cooperation between team members by describing two dimensions of elements, namely the physical and abstract dimension, to be focused on by all participants of a systems development team. A conceptual framework is introduced which describes these two dimensions. In the second part of the paper the nature of and theory behind sound relationships between team members of software projects are examined. The conceptual framework shows the position and relationship of each element during systems development process. This conceptual framework helps managers to understand the complexity of such relationships and it gives a structured view of the role of the elements of the two dimensions during systems development.

scholarly journals Product Creativity as an Identity Issue: Through the Eyes of New Product Development Team Members

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Suk Park ◽  
Satoko Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Organizational Identification ◽  
New Product ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Product Identity ◽  
Product Identification ◽  
Product Creativity ◽  
Product Team

In this study, we introduce a concept of product identification that denotes the overlap between identities of a new product and its developer. As creativity is the most important identity dimension in the new product, we draw on two dimensions of creativity: novelty and meaningfulness. According to the argument that novelty represents exploration, whereas meaningfulness represents exploitation, we hypothesize that product novelty is associated with an explorative behavior of new product team members, while product meaningfulness is associated with exploitative behavior. More importantly, product identification is proposed as the mechanism that explains the amplification effect of product identity on team members. Based on survey data collected from 200 Japanese new product development (NPD) team members, we conduct a statistical analysis to test the hypotheses. The findings demonstrate the alignment between the identity of a new product and the behaviors of the NPD members, which is amplified by product identification but not by organizational identification.

scholarly journals Mapping disciplinary differences and equity of academic control to create a space for collaboration

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-67
Author(s):  
Lynne Siemens ◽  
Jeff Smith ◽  
Yin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Research Direction ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Disciplinary Differences ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Work Pattern ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Traditional Work ◽  
Academic Control

Academics are collaborating more as their research questions are becoming more complex, often reaching beyond the capacity of any one person. However, in many parts of the campus, teamwork is not a traditional work pattern, and team members may not understand the best ways to work together to the benefit of the project. Challenges are particularly possible when there are differences among the disciplines represented on a team and when there are variations in academic control over decision making and research direction setting. Disparities in these two dimensions create potential for miscommunication, conflict, and other negative consequences, which may mean that a collaboration is not successful. This paper explores these dimensions and suggests a space for collaboration; it also describes some benefits and challenges associated within various positions within the framework. Academic teams can use this tool to determine the place they would like to occupy within the collaboration space and structure themselves accordingly before undertaking research.  

scholarly journals Virtual team learning: The role of collaboration process and technology affordance in team decision making

2016 ◽  
pp. 602-627 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Team Decision Making ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Technology Affordance ◽  
Team Decision ◽  
Study Teams ◽  
Collaboration Process

The study examines two dimensions that impact virtual team decision making. One is the influence of collaboration process structure: the sequences, patterns, and routines participants use to interact and solve problems. The other is technology affordance: the strengths and weaknesses of technologies in terms of the usefulness they offer to teams when performing tasks. Some teams used a structured collaboration process with monitoring, coordination, and backup functions during a decision-making discussion. Other teams had no discussion process instructions. In addition, some teams possessed stronger technology affordance including both chat and an editable document. Other teams used chat technology alone, which offered fewer collaboration possibilities. The collaboration process and technology affordance factors were tested in an experiment in which four-person online teams worked as a personnel hiring committee. Information about four job candidates was distributed to create a hidden profile in which some information was shared across all team members, while other information was visible only to specific members. Two hundred and eight students, comprising fifty-two teams completed the study. Teams using the structured collaboration process made more accurate and higher-quality decisions. In addition, scores were higher when technology affordance included both chat and editable document tools, but this influence was not significant.

Integrating BIM and augmented reality for interactive architectural visualisation

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Wang ◽  
Xiangyu Wang ◽  
Wenchi Shou ◽  
Bo Xu
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Augmented Reality ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Case Manager ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Building Information ◽  
Building Life Cycle

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate a new approach with its supporting building information modelling (BIM) + augmented reality (AR) tool to enhance architectural visualisation in building life cycle. Traditional approaches to visualise architectural design concentrate on static pictures or three-dimensional (3D) scale models which cause problems, such as expensive design evolution, lack of stakeholders’ communication and limited reusability. The 3D animated fly-throughs still occur on a computer screen in two-dimensions and seem cold and mechanical, unless done with advanced production software. Design/methodology/approach – The method of this research included case study and interview. It was, first, stated, from the building process perspective, how the BIM + AR for Architectural Visualisation System (BAAVS) was realised by integrating two types of visualisation techniques: BIM and AR, and four stages of building life cycle. Then the paper demonstrated four case studies to validate the BAAVS. Finally, four interviews were made with each case manager and team members to collect feedback on utilising BAAVS technology. Questions were asked in the areas of benefits, drawbacks and technical limitations with respect to BAAVS. Findings – Feedback from the stakeholders involved in the four cases indicated that BAAVS was useful and efficient to visualise architectural design and communicate with each other. Originality/value – This paper demonstrates BAAVS that integrated BIM and AR into architectural visualisation. The system supports an innovative performance that allows: designers to put virtual building scheme in physical environment; owners to gain an immersive and interactive experience; and property sellers to communicate with customers efficiently.

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