Teamwork in surgical specialties: an evaluation

Background/Aims Teamwork is the cornerstone of patient safety, with effective communication being essential for producing fewer complications during a patient's stay in hospital. In 2018, The Royal College of Surgeons of England published ‘The High Performing Surgical Team’, which outlined the components of a high-functioning team broken down into seven attributes: individual, team, trust, conflict resolution, commitment to task, accountability and results. This study evaluated teamwork among surgical specialties in a single centre. Methods Team members completed a survey consisting of seven sections, based on the Royal College of Surgeons of England components of teamworking, scoring statements using a 4-point Likert scale. Respondents included surgical doctors (interns, residents, registrars, fellows and consultants) and nurses (ward and theatre) from 12 surgical teams. Sections with 20% of more negative answers were considered to indicate a significant negative team attribute in that area of teamworking. Results Of the 108 respondents, 73 (67.6%) doctors and 35 (35.4%) nurses noted negative team attributes across all staff grades in at least two of the seven attributes (accountability and results), except registrars, who had one (accountability) of the seven negative attributes. Interns were reported as having negative attributes in four of the attributes (conflict resolution, commitment to task, accountability and results), while residents had negative attributes in three area (commitment to task, accountability and results). Conclusions The more junior the member of the team, the more likely they are to have negative teamworking attributes. Further evaluation would be of use to investigate whether these results are generalisable to other cohorts and to provide opportunities to improve teamwork and, therefore, patient care.

A research model for identifying factors that drive effective decision-making and the future of work

PurposeThe evolving digital transformations of organizational processes involve vast complexities. Factors such as labor resources at the individual and team levels that integrate and utilize information resources and evolving technologies to achieve collective intelligence are essential to this process. In order to better understand evolving demands of labor resources, existing research regarding worker/technology interactions for firm performance must be implemented and adapted to the changing market. This paper provides a conceptual research model enabling organizations to better understand the integration of worker/team attributes with collaboration modes, information resources and augmented technologies that yield effective collective intelligence for decision-making.Design/methodology/approachThis manuscript includes a literature review on worker/team attributes interfacing with various technology platforms and the creation of collective intelligence. It then reviews complementary research including leadership elements for organizational outcomes and introduces more current work involving a digital transformation. The literature review provides the underpinnings for a conceptual model that incorporates essential elements for the creation of collective intelligence for decision-making and adds factors that are relevant for digital transformations. These elements include augmented technologies including cognitive technologies, collaborative platforms and worker attributes (skills, social sensitivity, leadership) all of which illustrate components of intellectual capital.FindingsThe paper summarizes key findings of existing research in worker/team interactions with technology platforms on organizational performance and provides an applied, conceptual research model incorporating these findings, along with new elements in the digital era for better identifying new worker requirements.Originality/valueThe value of this work is the introduction of an applied conceptual model based on established literature findings that includes new technologies (e.g. cognitive technologies), collaboration modes and worker/team attributes to address the requirements of the evolving knowledge worker in the digital era. It provides a framework to better understand more optimal resource allocations for the creation of collective intelligence and integrates the model components within an intellectual capital framework.

Group Creative Problem Solving: The Role of Creative Personality, Process and Creative Ability

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> Team creativity is an important factor in developing new ideas for organisations. In spite of years of creativity research, little is known about various team aspects and their affect on team creativity. This study looks at the incremental explanatory value that team creative personality and divergent thinking skill processes have on team creativity.</p><p><strong>Methodology/Approach:</strong> Individual personality, creative personality, and divergent thinking skills were collected from 349 students at a large public university in the southeast US. These students were then randomly assigned to 105 teams where they developed a novel product. Individual attributes were averaged to create team attributes that were used to determine correlations with the product creativity. Hierarchical regression was used to evaluate incremental explanatory values for each of the independent variables.</p><p><strong>Findings:</strong> Group creative personality adds approximately 36 percent more explanatory power than cognitive ability and traditional personality measures in predicting team creativity. Creative processes, like team divergent thinking ability, further increased the R² of our model from 0.54 to 0.65 demonstrating that team processes affect team creativity.</p><p><strong>Research Limitation/implication:</strong> The task used in this study was not as complex as problems being considered by organizations. However, the results are expected to be indicative of the process used for more complex problems. It is also difficult to assign causality since correlations were used to verify some of our hypothesis.</p><strong>Originality/Value of paper:</strong> This research expands the findings of team creativity by identifying factors that increase team creativity.

Variables Associated With Perceived Work Role Performance Among Professionals in Multidisciplinary Mental Health Teams Overall and in Primary Care and Specialized Service Teams, Respectively

This study had a dual purpose (1) to identify variables associated with perceived work role performance (WRP) among 315 mental health professionals (MHPs) in Quebec and (2) to compare variables related to WRP in MH primary care teams (PCTs) and specialized service teams (SSTs), respectively. WRP was measured using an adapted version of the work role questionnaire. Variables were organized within five areas: individual characteristics, perceived team attributes, perceived team processes, perceived team emergent states, and geographical and organizational context. Half of the WRP variables were linked to team processes. Knowledge sharing correlated with WRP in both MH PCTs and SSTs. Team attributes had more impact on MH PCTs, while team processes and team emergent states played a larger role among SSTs. The association between WRP and knowledge sharing confirms the need for a systematic training program to promote interdisciplinary collaboration. Integration strategies (e.g., service agreements) could improve collaboration between MH PCTs and SSTs and help MHPs perform more effectively within PCTs.