Summary of the articles for Work, Design and Team process (part 1)

Deze samenvatting is gebaseerd op het studiejaar 2013-2014.

Part A: Information sharing groups

Groups  tend to discuss and incorporate into their decisions information that is shared (known to all members) at the expense of information that is unshared (known to a single member), because they often make suboptimal decisions on tasks structured as hidden profiles. In short, groups do not use the unique knowledge and expertise of their members.

Increasingly organizations on groups to make decisions the effectiveness of the collective information-sharing process has grave implications for the quality of decisions and performance in organizations. Due to an increasingly diverse workplace, members of work groups must learn how to pool effectively resources and knowledge from among members with different expertise and experience.

This article presents the perspective that the paradigm used for studying collective information sharing does not capture many features of information exchange that likely operate in organizational groups.

The collective information-sharing paradigm

In a lot of situations information is distributed among members as a hidden profile such that information supporting the best alternative is largely unshared. But, the best decision alternative is possible only if members share their unique knowledge. In a paradigm, members read the information, indicate their individual preferences, discuss the information and finally decides upon the best alternative. Groups do not really discover the hidden profile and discuss proportionally more shared than unshared information. Moreover, members repeat shared knowledge more it is mentioned. When information is shared as a hidden profile, this discussion bias toward shared information impairs group members’ ability to determine the best decision alternative relative to groups with all shared information.

A brief review of the collective information-sharing literature

There are  certain factors (see figure below) that influence the relative amounts of shared and unshared information that are discussed by groups. Factors that increase the amount of unshared relative to shared information presented during group discussions are expected to lead to the discovery of the hidden profile, and ultimately group decisions with higher quality. See fig 1in the attachement.

The literature review is organized into 7 types of factors that have been examined.

1.Information type and distribution

-shared information is mentioned more than partially shared information, which is discussed more than unshared information.

-group members recall more unshared pictures than words and unshared information is more likely mentioned when it appeared in boldface than normal font.

-positive information is discussed more than negative information, regardless of its sharedness.

-when information is distributed as hidden profile, unshared information is most likely discussed when members have a low percentage of shared information relative to unshared information and a low amount of total information.

-prediscussion disagreement among all members regarding which alternative is best improves hidden profile performance , increases unshared information discussed, and facilitates fast and thorough information exchange.

In conclusion, the quality of information pooling and group making improved when members disagree on the best option and when unshared information is salient and abundant.

2.Task features

-the pooling of information of collective recall groups increases when members anticipate the collective recall task before discussion: members who know that they will recall information in a group mention more unshared information than members who mistakenly believe that they will engage in group decision making instead of recall.

-by ranking the decision alternatives in order of preference in groups, they mention more information and solve a hidden profile better than groups who choose one best alternative.

-when members do choose among decision alternatives, they discuss less information as the number of alternatives increases.

-believing that the task is important does not increase the amount of information discussed, but it does slow the rate at which information is mentioned and lengthens discussions.

-when members view the hidden profile task as solvable they share information more thoroughly and choose the best alternative more often when members think the group decision is a matter of judgment.

In conclusion, to enhance information exchange by structuring the group’s task can be  best done by having members rank order the alternatives and anticipate recalling information during discussion.

3.Group structure and composition

Factors affecting the group’s structure, such as the group’s size, composition, norms, and roles, influence information sharing and hidden profile solution. Larger groups may be better at pooling information than smaller groups, although the effect is not consistent.

-when groups have a norm of critical evaluation, they are more likely to solve correctly a hidden profile and positively value unshared information compared to groups with a consensus norm.

-when members were known experts, groups were more likely to discuss unshared information and correctly solve a hidden profile.

-unshared information was better remembered by members after discussion in groups composed of experts rather than non-experts.

-Groups composed of friends solved a hidden profile better than groups composed of strangers. While another study showed that groups composed of members with an established relationship mentioned less unshared information than ad hoc groups of strangers. They found no effect of composition on hidden profile solution.

-a hidden profile was solved better  in equal status groups than mixed status groups

- same-sex groups mentioned less unshared information than mixed-sex group.

-groups containing an informed minority solved a hidden profile better than groups with an uninformed minority.

It is hard to understand how to compose groups based on status and familiarity to maximize their information sharing. However it is important to make group members aware of one another’s expertise and establish a critical evaluation norm to improve members’ pooling of information and decision quality.

4.Temporal features

-members mentioned more unshared information when they had ample time to learn the information before discussing.

-group members with low time pressure during discussion solved a hidden profile more often and reported discussing more unshared information, than those with high time pressure. While others found that groups in high time pressure discovered the solution to a hidden profile more often.

In conclusion, the longer the discussion, the better the information exchange.

5.Member characteristics

Most of the factors that researchers have implemented to improve information sharing were induced at the group level.

-leaders initially repeat more shared information than non-leader and, over time, repeat more unshared information as well.

-directive, as opposed to participative leaders, were particularly likely to repeat unshared relative to shared information.

-in different status groups, members with high task-relevant status, mention shared and unshared information in the same frequency, whereas low status members mention more shared than unshared information.

In conclusion, give members a high status position such as team leader or acknowledge their expertise to others, in order to facilitate the information sharing of members with valuable unshared information.

6.Discussion procedures

-members who relied on memory during the meeting mentioned less information than   those who kept their information sheets during the discussion.

-access to information during discussion did not affect hidden profile solution.

-however, access to information during discussion does improve hidden profile solutions when the information sheets during discussion identify which pieces are shared and which are unshared.

In conclusion, the group’s pooling of information and the quality of the decisions will improve when, members have access to information during discussion.

7.Communication technology

-computer-mediated-communication groups focused less on share information than face-to-face groups.

-face-to-face groups were more likely to solve correctly a hidden profile than computer-mediated-communication groups who  were less likely to solve correctly a hidden profile.

-the use of information technology failed in most cases to affect group decisions.

Theoretical explanations for the discussion bias

There are three possible explanations for why members prefer discussing shared information in contrast to unshared information:

-the higher probability for recalling shared vs. unshared information

-members’ preference-consistent evaluation of information in the hidden profile paradigm

-social comparison processes.

Collective information-sampling model

According to the information-sampling-model, information is randomly sampled for discussion from members’ memory. One presumption is that group members will mention any piece of information that they recall. So, the more memorable information is, the more likely that it will be mentioned and discussed. Moreover, increasing the number of members in the group who know a piece of information increases the likelihood that the information will be discussed. Since information is being randomly sampled from members’ memories, then shared information is more likely than unshared to be discussed because there are more members’ minds from which shared information can be sampled. Therefore, shared information has a sampling advantage over unshared information.

One conclusion drawn from the model is that the discussion bias impairs group decision making quality when information is distributed as a hidden profile.

Furthermore, shared information has its impact on decisions via pre-discussion preferences. Shared information largely affects group decisions because such information shapes each member’s pre-discussion preference. In particular, increases in mentions of unshared information improve the chances of groups choosing the optimal decision alternative in a hidden profile. Therefore, the concern about groups neglecting unshared information during discussion is legitimate, in doing so group decision quality will suffer if the information is distributed as a hidden profile.

Preference-consistent evaluation of information

The second explanation why groups prefer sharing information during discussion instead of unshared information has to do with the association between members’ prediscussion preferences and shared information in the hidden profile paradigm.

Shared information is more favorably evaluated by group members than unshared information. Due to the fact that shared information largely supports members’ initial preferences, it is evaluated as more important and therefore more worthy of discussion than unshared information.

Social comparison

The final reason for the discussion bias is based on social comparison processes. Shared information is evaluated as more important, relevant, and accurate than unshared information. Moreover, members are seen as more task-performing when they communicate shared instead of unshared information. Encouragement and validation from others when share information is mentioned may lead members to favor repeating such information.

The perspective taken in this article shifts theory about collective information sharing beyond the hidden profile paradigm and mathematical modeling to a view of group members as motivated communicators. Below you will find outlines assumptions of the collective information-sharing paradigm and challenges them with new ideas regarding how information exchange likely occurs among decision-making group members in natural settings.

Assumptions of the collective information-sharing paradigm

Information sharing is unbiased

As in the collective information-sampling model of Stasser, the assumption is that members are unbiased communicators. Meaning that members will communicate all the information that they remember, they do not prefer any particular type of information. However, in organizational decision-making groups, information sharing is a biased process. That is, members prefer some types of information over others. In particular, members have goals and deliberately select or withhold information that will help them to attain their goals during group discussions. Goal-congruent information may be more likely to be mentioned than goal-incongruent information for these sorts of goals.

Proposition 1: information sharing and withholding in decision-making groups are deliberate processes in the interest of members’ goal attainment.

All group members work cooperatively

Another assumption in Stasser’s information-sampling model is that group members are cooperative toward the shared goal of reaching the best collective decision. To determine the best alternative, members must cooperate and share their information. Thus, all members are given the same incentive to cooperate; member goals are symmetrical.

On the other hand, members of organizational decision-making groups may experience a variety of motives. Members may be rewarded if their group performs well but also may attain personal rewards if the group selects a particular alternative. These individual incentives may conflict with the group goal to choose the best option. In this way members may experience a mixture of motives which are both cooperative and competitive goal structures. These incentive structures likely influence what information members are willing to communicate. Groups may be composed of members with varying motives; some members may be more cooperative or competitive than others. In the typical information-sharing experiment groups are composed of members with the same cooperative goal. In organizations, purely cooperative or competitive groups may exist, but so may differentiating groups composed of members with different motives. The kind of information that a group members selects for discussion likely depends not only on individual member goals but also on the distribution of incentives among other members in the group.

Proposition 2: information sharing in decision-making groups depends on the particular goal structure, which varies both within and between groups.

Information is either mentioned or not

In the information-sharing literature an all-or-nothing approach (was information mentioned or not) is common, viewing information exchange limit the array of processes related to communicating information. Group members are strategic about how they mention information. Members want to satisfy their goals and thus they may choose to withhold some unshared information. Alternatively, they may communicate it with a goal-biased spin. Goal-directed information sharing involves both whether information was mentioned and the manner in which it was mentioned. Members may misinterpret or frame the information in goal-congruent ways.

Proposition 3: decision-making group members not only mention information, but they misrepresent it and frame it in goal-congruent ways.

Unshared information is more important than shared information

Another assumption made in the information-sharing literature is that unshared information is more important than share information. The presumed importance of unshared information may reflect researcher’s value of task goals over social goals. Favoring shared information during discussion is a hindrance in group members’ ability to discover the correct solution to a hidden profile (a task goal), but may help members to develop trust an interpersonal closeness (a social goal).

The value of discussing shared and unshared information can be best descirbed in the context of members’ goal reaching. If members value the development of social cohesion or status acquisition more than the quality of the decision, it follows that  preferring shared information in discussion is a wise choice.

Proposition 4: either shared or unshared information may be more important depending on the content of the information, the distribution of the information among members and group members’ goals.

Hidden profile distributions are the most interesting

Theoretically, the interest in hidden profiles is apparent, it is only under these circumstances that failure to discuss unshared information impairs group decision quality. There is no evidence however, that hidden profiles, particularly those that strongly bias all members to prefer an unattractive option before discussion, exist in natural work groups. Furthermore, a hidden profile distributes information so that unshared information enhances the most attractive alternative and information that is shared enhances a less attractive decision.

Members must grapple with how to best use the information in order to satisfy their goals, unless the information available to a group is mostly shared, mostly unshared, or suggestive of one or many attractive alternatives,

Proposition 5: the process and importance of goal-directed information sharing in decision-making groups transcends a variety of information distributions.

Information is shared with all members

In the typical information-sharing experiment, group members have one opportunity to share information, during the single group meeting. Clearly, the information-sharing paradigm limits the options members have to communicate information selectively. Given the presumption that information sharing is goal-directed behavior, members’ motives likely influence not only what they communicate but to whom.

For example, unshared information can be risky to communicate because not other members can verify its accuracy. For such information members may feel safer sharing it with few rather than all members.

Proposition 6: decision-making group members select the other member(s) with whom to share information.

Conclusion

The goal of the motivated information-sharing framework is to expand the study of collective information sharing beyond the paradigm established by Stasser. According to the new framework, information exchange in decision-making groups is a deliberate process in the interest of members’ goal attainment.

Group members want to satisfy their goals and therefore they strategically choose members with whom to share information and decide the kind of information to share.

Part B: Input-Output-Process models and IMOI models

Introduction

There is a shift from questions of what predicts team effectiveness and viability to more complex questions regarding why some groups are more effective than others. In this article it is reviewed what has been learned over the past seven years by categorizing findings in terms of their relevance to the formation, functioning, and final stages of teams’ existence.

Structuring the current review: beyond the input-process-output framework

Team researchers have converged on a view of teams as complex, adaptive, dynamic systems. Teams and their members continually cycle and recycle over time and contexts. They interact among themselves and with other persons in contexts. McGrath et al. describe three levels of dynamic causal interactions: local, global and contextual. Kozlowski and colleagues’ theory of compilation and performance describes input, processes, and outcomes that develop over time as teams interact in contexts that are both inputs and processes in a developmental sequence that impacts team performance.

All these models reflect the underlying notion that teams are complex, dynamic systems, existing in larger systemic contexts of people, tasks, technologies and settings.

Prior to 1996, much of the empirical research on teams was focused on the outcomes of team performance and viability. Over the past six years more attention was focused on mediating processes that explain why certain inputs affect team effectiveness and viability.

Classis works of Steiner, McGrath and Hackman expressed the nature of team performance in classic systems model ways in which inputs leads to processes that in turn lead to outcomes ( the input-processes-output, or I-P-O model). The I-P-O framework is inadequate to characterize teams, and the most recent team literature, in the following three specific ways:

1.Many of the meditational factors that intervene and transmit the influence of inputs to outcomes are not processes.

2.An I-P-O framework limits research by implying a single-cycle linear path from inputs through outcomes, even though the authors of the classic works clearly stipulated the potential for feedback loops, and some explicitly recognized limits of I-P-O thinking. Indeed, research that is more recent has examined traditional ‘outputs’ like team performance and treated them as inputs to future team process and emergent states.

3.The I-P-O framework tend to suggest a linear progression of main effect influences proceeding from one category to the next. However, much of the recent research has moved beyond this. Interactions have been documented between various inputs and processes, between various processes and between inputs or processes and emergent states.

Thus, the I-P-O framework is not complete for summarizing the recent research and constraints thinking about teams. As an alternative model, we use the term IMOI (input-mediator-output-input). Replacing M for P shows the broader range of variables that are important meditational influences with explanatory power for explaining variability in team performance and viability.

Putting the extra I at the end of the model explicitly invokes the notion of cyclical causal feedback. Elimination of the hyphen between letters merely signifies that the causal linkages may not be linear or additive, but rather nonlinear or conditional.

We initially organized the review around studies that focus on early stages of team development, labeled the forming stage, followed by those examining issues that we see as the team develops more experience working together, labeled as the functioning stage, and finally the finishing stage, where the teams completes one episode in the developmental cycle and begins a new cycle.

In the formation phase, the topic of frustrating focues on affective mediators, planning behavioral ones, and structuring cognitive ones. In the functioning phase, affect, behavior, and cognition were discussed under bonding, adapting, and learning respectively. Often all processes were present in any one category. For example, trusting involves not only affect but also cognitions and behavioral intentions. In sum, we present here a 3 x 3 framework in an effort to capture the domain or research on teams, not to suggest that the organizing model is a theory of team behavior.

FORMING

-trusting

In order to trust team members, you should feel that:

a).the team is competent enough to accomplish their task (potency, collective efficacy, and team confidence).

b).that the team will not harm the individual or his or her interests (safety).

Potency

Potency is shared belief of team members that they can be effective.

-potency was positively related to employee self-ratings of effectiveness, manager judgments of team performance and group performance appraisals conducted by their organization.

- on a number of different objective measures, group confidence was positively related to managerial ratings of group performance.

-collective efficacy was positively related to a number of different group performance behaviors.

Findings in a more complex approach examining the relationship between potency-related constructs and team effectiveness:

-potency predicted performance over and above group member ability, and group goal commitment did not predict variance in performance over potency.

-team drive was positively and uniquely related to collective efficacy beliefs, whereas team expertise did not.

-contingency view: collective efficacy exerted a positive influence on performance under conditions of low uncertainty, high task interdependence, and high collectivism.

-task cohesion mediated the relationship between collective efficacy and group effectiveness.

-collective efficacy was positively related to team performance in a routine task environment, but not in a novel one.

-high levels of communication partially mediated the positive relationship between collective efficacy and team performance when the task environment was controlled.

-potency influenced later performance where collective efficacy was referenced to the team’s specific tasks and potency to more generalized setting past, present and future.

-both team efficacy and potency are meaningful predictors of team performance, and the relationship between team efficacy – but not potency – and performance was stronger when task interdependence was high.

Safety

Next to trusting the team’s competence, individuals must also trust the member’s intentions. Levels of trust can be shaped by peoples values, attitudes, and moods/emotions, as well as by previous experience. In turn, they suggested that unconditional trust, the kind most valuable to teams, should have a strong direct, positive effect on interpersonal cooperation and teamwork.

Edmonson examined both collective efficacy and a trust-related variable she called psychological safety as they related to two structural variables (team leader coaching and team leader support), team learning behaviors and team performance. She defined psychological safety as ‘a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking’.

Both psychological safety and team efficacy are mediators in the relationship between the structural variables and team learning, learning behaviors mediated the relationships between psychological safety and team performance, and team efficacy did not predict unique variance in learning behaviors.

For example in hospitals low in psychological safety, people were less likely to engage in risk taking, and they had more behaviors consistent with the status quo. Looking at both psychological and physical safety, feelings of psychological safety led indirectly to actual physical safety through the mediating influence of communication regarding unsafe acts.

-Planning

There is one key mediating variable that explains success and viability namely the degree to which the team arrives at an effective initial plan of behavioral action. Effective planning has two related, and yet distinct, components. First, the team needs to gather information that is available to the group members and/or their constituencies. The team then must evaluate and use this information to arrive at a strategy for accomplishing its mission.

Gathering information

The studies pertaining to gathering information have focused on information sharing, information seeking, and communicating.

-there was found a significant relationship between open communication and team performance.

-functional heterogeneity predicted information exchange, and information exchange in turn was positively correlated with team innovation.

-within-person diversity reflects the fact that each group member has had experience in different functional areas, and between-person diversity means that each team member has a different functional background. Information sharing was more effective in team that contained within-person diversity, relative to between-person diversity, and this, in turn, was related to higher team performance.

-group voice is the extent to which people speak up within their group. Participation rates were higher for group members who are (a) high self-esteem, (b) male, (c) Caucasian (d) high status, (e) highly educated, (f) highly satisfied with their group, and (g) in smaller, managed teams. Those with low self-esteem exhibited especially low levels of participation behavior in large groups and self-managed groups.

-rotation of the leader’s role and the provision of peer feedback promoted higher participation levels and positively impacted performance.

-group efficacy indirectly influenced information sharing through group-set goal difficulty, which in turn had an indirect positive effect on group performance through information-seeking behaviors.

Developing strategy

-better strategy development led to greater levels of unsolicited information sharing, more well developed team metal models, and higher performance during high workload situations.

-teams that were most likely to overcome problems were those anticipated problems in advance and had contingency plans in place from the very beginning.

-crews with high levels of coordination, potency, and familiarity were more likely to develop effective strategies.

-Pritchard and his colleagues have developed and implemented a team-based performance management system called ProMES ( productivity measurement and enhancement system) that focuses on identifying objective team outputs, as well as the level of these outputs required to reach various levels of effectiveness for the team. ProMES has been used in a wide variety of contexts to help improve team planning and performance.

- Structuring

Structuring is the development and maintenance of norms, roles, and interaction

patterns in the teams. Two cognitive structuring constructs have dominated the recent literature on teams. One is a shared mental model, which emphasizes common cognitive elements among group members. The second set of studies deals with transactive memory systems and emphasizes the unique and distinctive cognitive elements among group members. Ironically, one of these literatures suggests that high performance results when group members share cognitive elements, whereas the other suggest group perform best when members compartmentalize and specialize in different aspects of cognitive space that the team is required to cover.

1.shared mental models = organizational understanding of relevant knowledge that is shared by team members. The focus is on collective knowledge regarding what individual team members hold in common. The TADMUS project represented a convergence of operational, scientific, and bureaucratic efforts to create a partnership between behavioral scientists and operational naval personnel. A number of principles emerged from this and related work, particularly in connection to team training. The most important principle is that of treating teams, rather than individuals, as the basic unit of analysis, and viewing team members as active participants in a continuous learning process.

Cross-trained teams on a helicopter simulation were more likely to develop shared mental models, and teams with shared mental models performed better. Better performance resulted because the teams were more likely to display effective coordination and team backup behaviors.  Again, coordination and communication mediated the relationship between the team mental model and team performance.

2.Transactive memory = a combination of the knowledge possessed by each individual and a collective awareness of who knows what.

In contrast to shared mental models, transactive memory focuses on who knows what rather than overlapping task-or team-relevant knowledge.

Transactive memory can be broken into four elements: knowledge stock (amount of knowledge), consensus (agreement on who knows what), knowledge specialization (amount of redundancy), and accuracy ( correctness of knowledge about what others know). Task transactive memory accuracy was positively and uniquely related to both external and internal evaluations of team performance. Result suggested that different types of role structures are better suited for different types of environments. Divisional structures were thought to promote the development of mental models that were more complete, and these models in turn lead to better performance in random environments. On the other hand, functional structures should promote the development of transactive memory, thus leading to higher performance in predictable environments.

FUNCTIONING

-Bonding

Bonding reflects affective feelings that team members hold toward each other and the team. Whereas trust represent a willingness to work together on the task, bonding goes beyond trust and reflects a strong sense of rapport and a desire to stay together, perhaps extending beyond the current task content. We placed studies that examined constructs such as group cohesiveness, team viability, social integration, satisfaction with the group, person-group fit, and team commitment under this heading because they share a common core that deals with the strength of the member’s emotional and affective attachment to the larger collective. Because it takes time for team bonding to occur, its effects typically are observed not in the early formative phase but not in the more mature functioning stage.

This is an important category of studies for three reasons:

1.recent studies suggest that bonding is necessary for high levels of team performance, especially when work-flow interdependence is high.

2. organizations are increasingly employing virtual teams whose members rarely meet face-to-face. The cumulative evidence of 27 studies questions the degree to which members of virtual teams ever bond with each other in the traditional sense, and suggests that as a result, they are both slower and less accurate than face-to-face teams.

3. even in contexts that allow face-to-face interactions, attempts to implement team-based structures meet resistance due to fears among leaders or members that they will not able to manage the conflict that arises from their differences.

Managing diversity of membership

Some demographic differences, such as race/ethnicity, were much more relative to age or gender when it came to predicting satisfaction with the team, a finding later, employed emotional conflict as a criterion. All of this suggests that the simple, nondelineated construct of diversity that does not reflect the specific aspect of diversity embodied in the group has little predictive or explanatory power. Others found that the key to team bonding was developing a single culture within the team, and this was promoted by either homogeneous compositions or highly heterogeneous compositions.

Worst were moderately heterogeneous compositions that created subgroups or token members. Further, high levels of heterogeneity could be conducive to developing cohesive teams.

Another distinction is between surface-level diversity which deals with demographic differences, and deep-level diversity, which deals with differences in attitudes and values. Surface level diversity was more critical early, but gave way to deep-level diversity at later stages of the group’s development.

The distinction between social category (demographic) , value and informational diversity was also made. Over the course of team’s development, value diversity had a much more deleterious effect on commitment to the  team relative to the social category diversity.

Other findings:

-social cohesion was highest when teams were high on agreeableness, extraversion, and high emotional stability. However, variance in agreeableness harmed cohesion, variance in extraversion promoted cohesion, and variance in emotional stability was unrelated to cohesion.

-cross-functional teams create stress, which in turn lower cohesiveness. Teams high on emotional stability may weather this stress better than teams are low in this trait.

- key to manage cross-functional teams is producing effective debate, which is likely to be difficult to achieve in introverted teams or team in which all members are high in extraversion and thus fight for airtime.

-the speed with which demographically heterogeneous teams developed cooperative norms was the best predictor of their eventual viability, and this probably is related closely to the level and variability of agreeableness.

Managing conflict among team members

-face-to-face developmental feedback from peers could drastically reduce conflict, especially if this feedback is delivered at the appropriate time.

-leaders who promote procedural justice and apply rules consistently were able to minimize relationship conflict.

-group satisfaction is promoted by adopting group-level rewards that do not make fine distinctions among members, because cooperative rewards are associated with higher levels of social loafing.

-the emerging consensus is that task conflict is generally unhelpful for teams. Instead of task conflict, teams require (a) rich, unemotional debate in a context marked by trust, (b) a context were team members feel free to express their doubts and change their minds, and (c) ability to resist pressures to compromise quickly or to reach a premature consensus.

-adapting

There are 2 adapting categories: adapting in routine vs. novel conditions and helping and workload sharing.

1.performance in routine versus novel conditions

-teams who score higher on cognitive ability and openness to experience did better when the task environment changed.

-training aimed at increasing the team’s ability to communicate and interact, as well as expanding communication from leaders improved team adaptability.

-the speed with which teams recognized that the environment has changed was also shown to be critically important for improving adaptability.

It was the speeds and not necessarily the frequency with which teams engaged in these behaviors that was critical for adaptability. And it was the timing of the behaviors, not the behaviors itself.

-feedback about deteriorating performance was not sufficient to get teams, entrained in their behavioral routines, to radically change their processes.

-teams whose initial task experience took place in a functional structure that created simple tasks with high interdependency requirements were fully able to switch to a divisional structure characterized by increased task complexity and less interdependence when the situation demanded such a change.

-rather than conceptualizing adaptability as an all-or-nothing phenomenon, a more appropriate conceptualization would propose that adaptation is a directional phenomenon that needs to consider what the team is adapting from and what it is adapting to.

2.helping and workload sharing

One specific aspect of adaptation that has been received a great deal of attention recently is the degree to which team members actively share their workload, help, or back-up each other when faced with high demands. The virtues of workload sharing are one of the critical reasons behind adopting team-based structures.

-the amount of helping behavior in the team was the only facet that had a positive impact on both the quality and quantity of team performance.

-teams that were high on conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability provided more help to one another relative to team characterized in the opposite fashion.

-helping behavior and flexibility were negatively related to variance in the member’s levels of general cognitive ability, suggesting that when high-ability members are teamed up with low-ability members, workload sharing is restricted and perhaps unidirectional.

-learning

In this part the focus primarily lies on changes in the team’s knowledge base, rather than behavioral changes that may or may not flow from such learning. There are two distinct subcategories: (1) learning from team members who are minorities and (2) learning who is the best team member for specific tasks and capitalizing on this knowledge.

1.learning from minority and dissenting team members

-unless one controls for the degree of subgroup formation, the level of the team’s diversity does not predict team learning. Teams learned best when there were a moderate number of weak subgroups.

-teams learned best when their resource allocations and task structures created ‘role partners’ who could replicate, confirm, and support each other’s personal experiences. The presence of weak subgroups seems to afford each team members some degree of psychological safety when sharing their experiences or expressing their doubts, and this seems to be essential to promote the level and nature of group participation that creates team-level learning.

-teams scored high on horizontal collectivism (a value emphasizing interdependence, sociability, and equality of in-group members) and low on horizontal individualism ( a value stressing independence, self-reliance, and equality) benefited more from the expression of minority dissent in their groups relative to others.

Groups that were high on vertical collectivism ( a value orientation that emphasized interdependence but recognized status inequalities) only obtained benefits from minority dissent when the dissenter was high in status.

2.Learning from the team’s best member

You can learn from minority members, but teams also need to learn from their members under different circumstances, and then use this knowledge to improve performance and expand the knowledge of the other team members.

-the more difficult the task the greater the ability of the team to learn from the one’s with the most knowledge and to have high performance

- Team learning is a beneficial process that organizations might want to support, it needs to be recognized that some of the factors that are known to promote learning and flexibility often do so at the expense of efficiency.

FINISHING

Groups and teams abolish for many reasons. Clearly, because many view the decline and eventual abolishment of members to be an important phase in the life cycle of teams, much more empirical work is needed on this final phase.

Part C: The multiple effects of diversity

Diversity is any kind of difference that can exist between people.

Diversity is important:

-morally: everyone deserves an equal opportunity

-economically: need to use entire workforce

-consequences: inclusion or exclusion.

There is a rise in interest in diversity because:

-more minorities in the workplace, which means that consequences become noticeable.

-more teamwork, which means that employees become more interdependent.

-globalization.

Types of diversity

Diversity can be distinguished in (1) observable or readily detectable attributes such as race or ethnic background, age, or gender, nationality and (2) diversity with respect to less visible or underlying attributes such as diversity in values: personality, cultural values socioeconomic background; diversity in skills and knowledge: education, technical abilities, functional background, occupational background, industry experience and organizational membership and; diversity in cohort membership: tenure in the organization and tenure in the group. When differences between people are visible, they are particularly likely to evoke responses that are due directly to biases, prejudices, or stereotypes. Therefore, it is important to differentiate between observable (visible) and non observable (non visible) types of diversity

Non-visible differences:

- differences in personality characteristics or values of the members of a group

- diversity of skills or knowledge (e.g., educational background, functional background, occupational background, range of industry experience)

- organizational cohort membership (joining organizations at the same time, thus having the same tenure)

• Often task related.

Visible differences (readily detectable/social category differences):

-demographic differences in race, ethnic background, and gender.

• Not directly task related.

One of the major reasons why diversity of any type creates difficulty for groups is attributable to complex, and often implicit, differences in perspectives, assumptions, and causal beliefs with which the more superficial or observable differences are correlated. A group that is diverse could be expected to have members who may have had significantly different experiences and, therefore, significantly different perspectives on key issues or problems. Underlying  differences in the schemas, or the conscious and unconscious preconceptions and beliefs, that organize people's thinking can create serious coordination difficulties for groups.

IMPACTS OF DIVERSITY ON INDIVIDUAL, GROUP, AND ORGANIZATIONAL OUTCOMES

Observable diversity

In general, the higher the diversity within a group with respect to gender, race, or age, the higher its turnover rate and the more likely it is that dissimilar individuals will turn over and be absent. Diversity may lead to discomfort for all members of a group, leading to lower integration within the group and a higher likelihood of turnover. There is also some evidence of negative affective reactions to observable differences on the part of supervisors that supervisors tend to perceive dissimilar subordinates less positively and tend to give them lower performance ratings. There may be benefits in terms of the number of alternatives considered in a decision-making task and the degree of cooperation within the group that accrue to groups that are diverse with respect to race or ethnic background. The turnover of dissimilar members of groups suggests, however, that organizational groups may not be fully capitalizing on the potential cognitive benefits of diversity. Further, prior to turning over, it is likely that individuals who feel that they are distant from other group members may feel alienated and withhold contributions to the group.

Non observable diversity

Diversity along skill- or knowledge-based dimensions seems to have some positive cognitive outcomes for top management groups and project teams. One reason may be that diversity along these skill-based dimensions translates into a greater variety of perspectives being brought to

bear on decisions and, thereby, increases the likelihood of creative and innovative solutions to problems. Also, problems such as those that a top management group deals with often require information input from a variety of functional areas within the organization. Communication between the top management group and nonmembers may be more frequent and of higher quality when the team has representatives from many different areas of the organization. There is also some evidence that groups that are diverse with respect to background and skills may have integration problems similar to those of other diverse groups in that people who are different from their peers tend to be more likely to turn over.

Furthermore, diversity in tenure may reduce social integration among group members and increase

turnover. Consistent with these arguments is the finding that supervisors tended to display greater attraction toward subordinates who were similar to themselves regarding job tenure. The effects of diversity in organizational tenure on group cognitive tasks are mixed.

DISCUSSION

There are four types of mediating variables that seem to affect the long-term outcomes (e.g., turnover, performance) of diverse groups. In the figure below they are summarized.

Affective consequences. Visible diversity have negative effects on affective outcomes(e.g., identification with the group, satisfaction) at both the individual and group levels of analysis.

Cognitive consequences. The cognitive consequences of diversity refer to the effects diversity might have on the group's ability to process information, perceive and interpret stimuli, and make decisions. It is suggested that diversity in observable attributes (ethnicity and nationality) may affect the cognitive outcomes (number of alternatives considered, quality of ideas, degree of cooperation in complex tasks) in groups in potentially positive ways.

Symbolic consequences. One study of gender diversity suggests that one reason why achieving diversity in the composition of organizational groups, and in top management groups in particular, may be important is that people behave differently when they perceive that they have access to power and opportunity than they do when the organization seems less supportive of their advancement.

Communication-oriented consequences of diversity. Members of diverse groups appear to communicate more formally and, perhaps, less frequently with each other than members of less diverse groups, but they may communicate more frequently with those outside the group. One of

the ways in which groups may benefit from skill-based diversity is the greater communication with nongroup members displayed by members of diverse groups. This finding suggests that diversity may allow a group to better fulfill any boundary-spanning role it might have as well as to managerelations with the outside constituents on whom the group depends for resources, information, and/or acceptance, such groups may be better able to benefit from the various 'thought worlds' that characterize different departments within an organization.

Part D: Faultlines and demographic diversity

A faultline divide a group’s members on the basis of one or more attributes. For instance, skin color gender faultlines divide groups into black and white subgroups. In particular, faultlines become stronger as more attributes align themselves in the same way. For instance, when we have gender faultlines and all of the women in a group are over the 70 years old and all of the men are under 40, the sex and age faultlines align and form a single stronger faultline. This article focuses on diversity of demographic differences, focusing particularly on age, sex, race, and job tenure or status.

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

Diversity = the condition or quality of being diverse, different, or varied; variety, unlikeness.

Heterogeneity = the degree of dispersion of a population in terms of a nominal demographic attribute.

Highly diverse populations are expected to experience barriers to social interaction. And demographic dissimilarity will decrease communication frequency within a group, therefore reducing group cohesion.

GROUP FAULTLINES

Group faultlines are hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more attributes.

The focus lies on demographic characteristics, because they are the most easily noted when a new group forms.

The activation of a faultline is likely to depend on a group’s task context. Faultlines can vary in strength as well. The strength of group faultlines depends on three compositional factors:

1.the number of individual attributes apparent to group members

2.their alignment, and as a consequence,

3.the number of potentially homogeneous subgroups.

Group faultlines increase in strength as more attributes are highly correlated, reducing the number, and increasing the homogeneity of the resulting subgroups. Faultlines are weakest when attributes are not aligned and multiple subgroups can form.

THE FAULTLINE ANALOGY

Group faultlines are analogous to geological faults, although, like any analogy, their similarities have limits. Faults are fractures in the earth’s crust; without external forces, they can be dormant for years without being observed from the surface. Faultlines in groups share at least three properties with faultlines in the earth’s crust:

1.groups members’ many demographic dimensions resemble multiple layers

2.group faultlines can go unnoticed without the presence of external forces

3.strong faultlines provide an opportunity for groups to physically crack, revealing the importance of their layered attributes.

The second similarity – alignments and/or irregularities in groups or underneath the earth’s surface – may not become salient until external forces appear. Thus, just as environmental forces can accentuate the dangers of some faults but not others, the alignment of attributes within one group may never have an observable impact, whereas an identical alignment in another group that must face an alignment –activating issue may generate considerable subgroup conflict.

HYPOTHETICAL ARCHETYPES

From table 1 we not that the two most diverse groups provide little basis for forming subgroups: any potential faultlines are fragmented tremendously. In fact, at minimum and maximum diversity, faultlines are either absent or unlikely. By their nature, faultlines become most likely in groups of moderate diversity.

THE DYNAMICS OF FAULTLINES

Demographic subgroups are more likely to form at the beginning of the group development process. Members of new groups try to make sense of both the other group members and the nature of their task. If a new group must face a task that evokes its demographic characteristics faultiness may be immediately important, and group members may gravitate toward the formation of potent subgroups.

Proposition 1: the formation of conflicting subgroups becomes more likely when the demographic characteristics within a group form a faultline and are related to the group’s task.

If subgroups form explicitly and each subgroup meets individually – independent from the larger group – additional forces can contribute to solidify the subgroup structure and strengthen rifts in the larger group. Depending on the presence and character of diverse subgroups and their patterns of communication, the possibility of polarization can help to unite or divide groups.

Highly correlated attributes facilitate the formation of the same subgroups whenever any of the correlated attributes becomes salient. However, weak group faultlines mean that different subgroups are less stable, members’ identification with these subgroups is likely to be weaker, and subgroup polarization becomes almost impossible, so it becomes more likely that individual group members will identify with the group as a whole rather than with any of its possible subgroups. Groups with strong demographic faultlines are likely to have shorter sensemaking processes in contrast to groups with weak faultlines.

Proposition 2: for groups that must perform tasks that highlight potential faultlines, the strength and clarity of the groups’ faultlines are likely to accentuate subgroups’ salience and lead to relatively short sensemaking processes. Once formed, subgroups are more likely to persist.

External forces, such as pressing deadlines and competing groups, are likely to increase group cohesiveness and draw members’ attention away from their subgroups and to the group as a whole. Individual or subgroup differences may be put aside to complete a project on time or to compete with a major competitor. In the short run this can minimize the impact of faultlines.

Increased knowledge of one’s fellow group members and greater familiarity or experience with the task make unactivated faultlines less salient. When group members have worker together, their task-oriented scripts are likely to be more potent in determining subgroup formation than their demographic characteristics.

Proposition 3: groups that have not subdivided on the basis of demographic faultlines will find that the saliene of demographic faultlines will decrease as group members’ common task experiences and mutual understandings accumulate.

These three propositions identify two markedly different paths:

1.greater internal conflict among subgroups when demographically faultlines have been activated

2.dormant and less salient demographic faultlines when demographic faultlines have not been activated.

Subgroups size, status and power

The presence of faultlines may lead to splits that cut a group into subgroups of various sizes. Larger subgroups can provide more support and act with more power so that their members are able to overcome resistance from minority subgroups and enact their suggestions. The presence of few subgroup members suggests a lack of social power and less internal support, leading to reduced confidence and less frequent opinion voicing and conflict is kept to a minimum.

Subgroups of relatively small size and/or low status may have difficulty in gaining acceptance from stronger, larger subgroups.

Proposition 4: compared to smaller subgroups, larger subgroups tend to reduce the vocalization of minority opinions within the group and to create infrequent, latent, and covert conflicts that, when they surface, last longer than members of larger subgroups might expect.

In contrast, when two subgroups are comparable in size and power, they tend to experience more intense and overt power dynamics: there is no longer any need to hide dissent since members of either subgroup can expect to be supported when they disagree with the other subgroup. When subgroups of relatively equal size and equal power form, conflict may become so extreme that dissolution into two separate entities becomes more probable.

Proposition 5: groups that split into subgroups of comparable power are likely to experience intense, overt conflict. If they successively resolve their disagreements, members will increase understandings of each other and their mutual tasks and will become less susceptible to future conflict.

DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

In this article we have introduced a new concept of group composition that we call faultlines. Group faultlines represent a potential for the formation of subgroups and the acceleration of subgroup conflict within a group. Demographic faultlines are likely to have their strongest effects at the beginning of a group’s formation. When faultlines lead to subgroup formation, conflict becomes more prevalent and more serious, and the process sets a precedent for subsequent group processes. In this article we have analyzed faultlines that are based readily on observable demographic attributes.

When groups, do not divide along their faultlines in the early stages of their development, and group members eventually get to know each other, other attributes such as personality, social and religious affiliation, hobbies, and many other dimensions may become key determinants of a group’s fautline structure.