scholarly journals The Impact of Perceived Subgroup Formation on Transactive Memory Systems and Performance in Distributed Teams

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yide Shen ◽  
Michael J. Gallivan ◽  
Xinlin Tang
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Transactive Memory ◽  
Distributed Teams ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Group Members ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

With distributed teams becoming increasingly common in organizations, improving their performance is a critical challenge for both practitioners and researchers. This research examines how group members' perception of subgroup formation affects team performance in fully distributed teams. The authors propose that individual members' perception about the presence of subgroups within the team has a negative effect on team performance, which manifests itself through decreases in a team's transactive memory system (TMS). Using data from 154 members of 41 fully distributed teams (where no group members were colocated), the authors found that members' perceptions of the existence of subgroups impair the team's TMS and its overall performance. They found these effects to be statistically significant. In addition, decreases in a group's TMS partially mediate the effect of perceived subgroup formation on team performance. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for managerial action, as well as for researchers, and they propose directions for future research.

International experiential diversity and performance at project organizations

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winfried Ruigrok ◽  
Peder Greve ◽  
Martin Engeler
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Performance Outcomes ◽  
Project Team ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Project Organizations ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the link between diversity in project teams and team performance by examining the effects of players’ international career diversity on the performance of national football teams.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon the literature on project organizations and experiential diversity in teams. Using data on players’ international career backgrounds and team performance from the FIFA World Cup 2006, the authors test two hypotheses linking experiential diversity in teams and a measure of relative team performance. The dataset includes detailed individual background profiles of the 736 participating players and performance data from the 64 games played at the tournament.FindingsThe findings suggest that different types of experiential diversity have contrasting effects on team performance in a time‐limited project team setting.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings encourage team diversity researchers to further examine the impact of experiential diversity in teams on team process and performance outcomes in future research.Practical implicationsThe findings particularly highlight the need to carefully manage experiential diversity in project team settings in order to benefit from access to diverse tacit resources, while at the same time avoiding that the integrative capacities of teams becoming overstretched.Originality/valueThe paper is a step towards a better understanding of how diversity of individual career backgrounds affects team performance outcomes in project teams.

scholarly journals The Efficacy of Ethnic Stacking: Military Defection during Uprisings in Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Morency-Laflamme ◽  
Theodore McLauchlin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Group Loyalty ◽  
Limited Support ◽  
History Of ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Does ethnic stacking in the armed forces help prevent military defection? Recent research, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, suggests so; by favoring in-groups, regimes can keep in-group soldiers loyal. In-group loyalty comes at the cost of antagonizing members of out-groups, but many regimes gladly run that risk. In this research note, we provide the first large-scale evidence on the impact of ethnic stacking on the incidence of military defection during uprisings from below, using data on fifty-seven popular uprisings in Africa since formal independence. We find clear evidence for the downside: ethnic stacking is associated with more frequent defection if out-group members are still dominant in the armed forces. We find more limited support for the hypothesized payoff. Ethnic stacking may reduce the risk of defection, but only in regimes without a recent history of coup attempts. Future research should therefore trace the solidification of ethnic stacking over time.

A Systematic Review of Communication in Distributed Crews in High-Risk Environments

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-106
Author(s):  
Justine Rockwood ◽  
Dan Nathan-Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Team Performance ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Distributed Teams ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
High Risk Environments

Effective communication is critical to team performance but can be impacted by the distribution of team members. Distribution is increasingly found in high-risk environments where task complexity necessitates geographic and/or temporal separation of team members. Understanding the impact of distribution on communication is critical to ensuring effective team performance. We review the research examining communication in distributed teams in high-risk environments to provide an overview of the literature to date. Articles examining communication in distributed teams were analyzed in a systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Themes relevant to the research question were extracted from the studies using thematic analysis. Five themes were identified: updating shared mental models, effects of transmission lags, content of communication, communication protocols, and technological advances. The five themes identify directions for future research.

The impact of within-team variance on transactive memory system development and team performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Goodell King
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Transactive Memory ◽  
Memory System ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dispersion Models ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Transactive Memory System ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the dispersion models, where within-team variance is the outcome of interest, and propose the application of these models to the measurement of the transactive memory system (TMS). As teams become increasingly prominent in educational contexts and within organizations, it is important to evaluate how various measures of individual and team attributes relate to team performance. One measure that has been evaluated by a number of previous empirical studies is TMSs. Design/methodology/approach In past studies of TMS and in most teams research, team-level data are collected and correlated with performance, or individual-level data are collected, aggregated to the team-level data and then correlated with performance. While this is appropriate in situations where data are isomorphic or similar across levels of measurement, there are often important differences among within-team responses that lead to a discrepancy between the sum of individual attributes and a team-level measure. Findings Preliminary results demonstrate that within-team variance in reported levels of TMS has an inverse relationship with team performance. Research limitations/implications Future research should further evaluate the ability for dispersion models of TMS to predict team performance, especially in organizational settings with professional rather than student teams. Originality/value This paper provides a new approach to measuring TMS and relating TMS to team performance.

Dispersion beyond miles: configuration and performance in virtual teams

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambika Prasad ◽  
Darleen DeRosa ◽  
Michael Beyerlein
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Performance ◽  
Electronic Communication ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand different aspects of structural dispersion in virtual teams (VTs). The study measures five types of dispersion, their impact on VT performance and the moderating effect of electronic communication. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data from 44 globally distributed VTs representing 403 members. The authors used details of the members’ locations to measure five elements of dispersion for each team: spatial, time-zone, number of locations, extent of numerical balance across locations and extent of isolated members for a team. The authors used two items to assess effective electronic communication and measured team performance on four items from three sources – members, leaders and third-party stakeholders. Findings Using regression, the authors found that the number of sites, degree of team balance and isolation had a negative impact on team performance. Spatial and temporal dispersion did not impact performance. Effective electronic communication moderated the relationship of team performance with team balance and the number of sites. Research limitations/implications Study presents novel findings on the role of team configuration in VTs. Limitations: the study provides pointers to the likelihood of a non-linear relationship between spatial distance and performance; however, the scope of the paper does not permit an examination of this model. Future research can study this relationship. Second, the study does not examine how team configuration impacts the team processes that discount performance. Finally, the study treats each index of dispersion as independent of the others. The analysis does not study the interplay between and among the indices. Practical implications The findings provide clear indicators for managers and researchers of VTs on the issues associated with the location and configuration of the teams. Managers, while designing and managing dispersed members are now informed of the impact of the number of sites and the sub-group dynamics. The study underscores the importance of effective electronic communication in managing dispersion. Social implications The study presents how faultiness based on location of VT sub-groups (as represented in the configuration of a team) can hamper performance. Literature suggests that this faultiness can also extend to social identities (based on gender, culture, etc.). The indicators provided by this study in this respect provide a topical focus for research because diverse dispersed teams are becoming more prevalent. Originality/value The study is the first empirical exploration of dispersion in VTs beyond the traditionally acknowledged dimensions of spatial distance and time-zones. It is a timely response to the recent trends in literature. Additionally, the study derives data from a unique data set of global VTs, thus making findings easily generalizable.

Distributed Cognition in Top Management Teams and Organizational Ambidexterity

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 919-945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ciaran Heavey ◽  
Zeki Simsek
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Structure ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Transactive Memory ◽  
Top Management Teams ◽  
Management Teams ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Transactive Memory Systems ◽  
The Impact

How can a firm develop, distribute, and use knowledge more effectively and efficiently in ways that increase its ability to pursue an ambidextrous orientation? Synthesizing insights from social cognition and upper-echelons perspectives, we offer a new theoretical vantage point that brings the role of top management teams’ cognitive structure to the fore and, in particular, the enabling influence of transactive memory systems. We argue that transactive memory provides a top management team with a system for generating, distributing, and integrating knowledge based on members’ specific areas of expertise in ways that increase its ability to both differentiate and integrate strategic agendas for ambidexterity. From a multisource study of top management teams in a sample of technology-based small-to-medium-sized firms, we find that while top management teams with well-developed transactive memory systems are able to pursue an ambidextrous orientation, the impact of transactive memory is also shaped by diverse organizational experience and functional expertise within these teams. We discuss the scope and significance of these findings for theory, future research, and managerial practice.

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