Developing a theory of the strategic core of teams: a role composition model of team performance.

Although numerous models of team performance have been articulated over the past 20 years, these models have primarily focused on the individual attribute approach to team composition. The authors utilized a role composition approach, which investigates how the characteristics of a set of role holders impact team effectiveness, to develop a theory of the strategic core of teams. Their theory suggests that certain team roles are most important for team performance and that the characteristics of the role holders in the "core" of the team are more important for overall team performance. This theory was tested in 778 teams drawn from 29 years of major league baseball (1974'-2002). Results demonstrate that although high levels of experience and job-related skill are important predictors of team performance, the relationships between these constructs and team performance are significantly stronger when the characteristics are possessed by core role holders (as opposed to non-core role holders). Further, teams that invest more of their financial resources in these core roles are able to leverage such investments into significantly improved performance. These results have implications for team composition models, as they suggest a new method for considering individual contributions to a team's success that shifts the focus onto core roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

[1]  B. Tuckman.  DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCE IN SMALL GROUPS. , 1965, Psychological bulletin.

[2]  R. Kahn,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizations , 1966 .

[3]  E. Ramsden.  Group Process and Productivity , 1973 .

[4]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[5]  T. G. Cummings.  Self-Regulating Work Groups: A Socio-Technical Synthesis , 1978 .

[6]  B. Biddle,et al.  Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors , 1979 .

[7]  P. Wright.  The Social Psychology of Organizations, (2nd Ed): Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn New York: Wiley, 1978, 838 pp. , 1979 .

[8]  D. L. Gladstein.  Groups in context: A model of task group effectiveness. , 1984 .

[9]  J. Hunter,et al.  Validity and Utility of Alternative Predictors of Job Performance , 1984 .

[10]  Daniel J. Brass.  Being in the right place: A structural analysis of individual influence in an organization. , 1984 .

[11]  D. Rousseau.  Issues of level in organizational research: Multi-level and cross-level perspectives. , 1985 .

[12]  D. Eden,et al.  Effects of crew composition on crew performance: Does the whole equal the sum of its parts? , 1985 .

[13]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Administrative Succession and Organizational Performance: How Administrator Experience Mediates the Succession Effect , 1986 .

[14]  Alice N. Outerbridge,et al.  Impact of job experience and ability on job knowledge, work sample performance, and supervisory ratings of job performance , 1986 .

[15]  B. Mullen,et al.  Theories of group behavior , 1987 .

[16]  Robert W. Keidell.  Team Sports Models as a Generic Organizational Framework , 1987 .

[17]  D. Wegner.  Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind , 1987 .

[18]  J. Hackman,et al.  The design of work teams , 1987 .

[19]  D. M. Georgoff,et al.  Harvard Business Review: David M. Georgoff and Robert G. Murdick, manager's guide to forecasting, 64 (Jan-Feb.) (1986) 110-120 , 1988 .

[20]  John E. Hunter,et al.  Job experience correlates of job performance. , 1988 .

[21]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Group intelligence: Why some groups are better than others , 1988 .

[22]  E. Sundstrom,et al.  Work teams: Applications and effectiveness. , 1990 .

[23]  Noah E. Friedkin,et al.  Theoretical Foundations for Centrality Measures , 1991, American Journal of Sociology.

[24]  J. Barney.  Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[25]  Deborah G. . Ancona,et al.  Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams. , 1992 .

[26]  David A. Hofmann,et al.  Mapping individual performance over time. , 1992 .

[27]  Anthony S. Bryk,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[28]  J. Barker.  Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-Managing Teams , 1993 .

[29]  R. Meredith Belbin,et al.  Team Roles at Work , 2022 .

[30]  Lawrence M. Kahn.  Managerial Quality, Team Success, and Individual Player Performance in Major League Baseball , 1993 .

[31]  K. Klein,et al.  Levels Issues in Theory Development, Data Collection, and Analysis , 1994 .

[32]  D. J. Abramis.  Work Role Ambiguity, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance: Meta-Analyses and Review , 1994 .

[33]  Marian N. Ruderman,et al.  Assessing the developmental components of managerial jobs. , 1994 .

[34]  Daniel R. Ilgen,et al.  Multilevel theory of team decision making: Decision performance in teams incorporating distributed expertise. , 1995 .

[35]  Mark S. Teachout,et al.  THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK EXPERIENCE AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A CONCEPTUAL AND META‐ANALYTIC REVIEW , 1995 .

[36]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  Sunk Costs in the NBA: Why Draft Order Affects Playing Time and Survival in Professional Basketball , 1995 .

[37]  M. Petty,et al.  Team-Member Exchange Under Team and Traditional Management , 1995 .

[38]  Daniel R. Ilgen,et al.  Effects of individual differences on the performance of hierarchical decision-making teams : Much more than g , 1997 .

[39]  P. Kim.  When What You KnowCanHurt You: A Study of Experiential Effects on Group Discussion and Performance , 1997 .

[40]  F. Schmidt,et al.  The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. , 1998 .

[41]  D. Chan.  Functional Relations among Constructs in the Same Content Domain at Different Levels of Analysis: A Typology of Composition Models , 1998 .

[42]  Paul E. Tesluk,et al.  Toward an integrated model of work experience. , 1998 .

[43]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  Relating member ability and personality to work-team processes and team effectiveness. , 1998 .

[44]  S. Majumdar.  On the utilization of resources: perspectives from the U.S. telecommunications industry , 1998 .

[45]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  The Effect of Team Building on Performance , 1999 .

[46]  G. Neuman,et al.  Team effectiveness: beyond skills and cognitive ability. , 1999, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  D. Hofmann,et al.  The Structure and Function of Collective Constructs: Implications for Multilevel Research and Theory Development , 1999 .

[48]  S. Kozlowski,et al.  Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations: Foundations, Extensions, and New Directions , 2000 .

[49]  J. Mathieu,et al.  The influence of shared mental models on team process and performance. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[50]  Mark Keil,et al.  Why Software Projects Escalate: An Empirical Analysis and Test of Four Theoretical Models , 2000, MIS Q..

[51]  S. Kozlowski,et al.  Multilevel Theory, Research, a n d M e t h o d s i n Organizations Foundations, Extensions, and New Directions , 2022 .

[52]  Ian H. Langford,et al.  A User’s Guide to MLwiN, Version 2.10 , 2000 .

[53]  C. Lance,et al.  Replication and Extension of Models of Supervisory Job Performance Ratings , 2000 .

[54]  Daniel G. Bachrach,et al.  Attributions of the "causes" of group performance as an alternative explanation of the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and organizational performance. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[55]  R. Golembiewski.  Handbook of Organizational Behavior , 2001 .

[56]  Raymond T. Sparrowe,et al.  Social Networks and the Performance of Individuals and Groups , 2001 .

[57]  R. Klimoski,et al.  Why do ‘great minds’ think alike?: antecedents of team member schema agreement , 2001 .

[58]  Jason D. Shaw,et al.  The strategic management of people in work organizations: Review, synthesis, and extension , 2001 .

[59]  Diane L. Miller,et al.  Reexamining Teamwork KSAs and Team Performance , 2001 .

[60]  Daniel R. Ilgen,et al.  Structural contingency theory and individual differences: examination of external and internal person-team fit. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[61]  Christopher J. Meyer,et al.  Hierarchical team decision making , 2002 .

[62]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  Technical‐administrative task performance, leadership task performance, and contextual performance: considering the influence of team‐ and task‐related composition variables , 2002 .

[63]  John R. Hollenbeck,et al.  Cooperation, competition and team performance: Toward a contingency approach , 2002 .

[64]  Shawn L. Berman,et al.  Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Competitive Advantage in the National Basketball Association , 2002 .

[65]  Kyle Lewis.  Measuring transactive memory systems in the field: scale development and validation. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[66]  John R. Austin.  Transactive memory in organizational groups: the effects of content, consensus, specialization, and accuracy on group performance. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[67]  J. Stuart Bunderson,et al.  Recognizing and Utilizing Expertise in Work Groups: A Status Characteristics Perspective , 2003 .

[68]  Contents , 1997, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[69]  Henry Moon.  ASYMMETRIC ADAPTABILITY : DYNAMIC TEAM STRUCTURES AS ONE-WAY STREETS , 2004 .

[70]  J. Mathieu,et al.  Conceptual Framework and Statistical Procedures for Delineating and Testing Multilevel Theories of Homology , 2005 .

[71]  Richard A. Wolfe,et al.  Sport and Organizational Studies , 2005 .

[72]  Dustin K. Jundt,et al.  Teams in organizations: from input-process-output models to IMOI models. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[73]  T. Maclennan.  Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game , 2005 .

[74]  Greg L. Stewart,et al.  AN EXPLORATION OF MEMBER ROLES AS A MULTILEVEL LINKING MECHANISM FOR INDIVIDUAL TRAITS AND TEAM OUTCOMES , 2005 .

[75]  Mark A. Huselid,et al.  "A players" or "A positions"? The strategic logic of workforce management. , 2005, Harvard business review.

[76]  Monica A Hemingway,et al.  The importance of job autonomy, cognitive ability, and job-related skill for predicting role breadth and job performance. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[77]  F. Morgeson,et al.  SELECTING INDIVIDUALS IN TEAM SETTINGS: THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL SKILLS, PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS, AND TEAMWORK KNOWLEDGE , 2005 .

[78]  Yan Xiao,et al.  Dynamic Delegation: Shared, Hierarchical, and Deindividualized Leadership in Extreme Action Teams , 2006 .

[79]  Aleksander P. J. Ellis,et al.  The Effects of Critical Team Member Assertiveness on Team Performance and Satisfaction , 2006 .

[80]  Bradley L. Kirkman,et al.  A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[81]  Suzanne T Bell,et al.  Deep-level composition variables as predictors of team performance: a meta-analysis. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[82]  Stephen E. Humphrey,et al.  Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: a meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[83]  Stephen E. Humphrey,et al.  Trait configurations in self-managed teams: a conceptual examination of the use of seeding for maximizing and minimizing trait variance in teams. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[84]  D. Harrison,et al.  What's the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. , 2007 .

[85]  Troy V. Mumford,et al.  The team role test: development and validation of a team role knowledge situational judgment test. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[86]  Stephen E. Humphrey,et al.  Job and team design: Toward a more integrative conceptualization of work design , 2008 .

[87]  Stephen E. Humphrey,et al.  Facing differences with an open mind: Openness to experience, salience of intra-group differences, and performance of diverse work groups , 2008 .

[88]  A. Tenbrunsel,et al.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 2013 .