Bridging the Gap between HR Practices and I/O Research - Hollenbeck, DeRue & Guzzo - Article

Although the use of teams is become more important over the past years, almost no literature is paying attention to teams and their functioning. This article is discussing the current gaps and provides more information about team composition, training and job design.

Team Composition

Generic teamwork skills predict the team success above individual’s unique technical skills and abilities. By designing a team, there are some implications for selecting the right person. First, selection procedures should not only focus on individual-level Knowledge, Skills and Abilities, but also on teamwork KSAs. Second, recruiting for teams should emphasize the importance of teamwork requirements. Finally, team staffing decision should consider differences in employee preferences for working in groups. Measurements for the team characteristics go further than only measure the average of each team member’s responses, because team scores are dependent on circumstances and therefore you could use other score measurements.

• Mean score technique: when tasks are additive, each member contributes to team performance in proportion to her ability.

• Maximum Score: for disjunctive tasks (problem-solving tasks), because the group can perform as well as the best member.

• Minimum Score: for conjunctive tasks (mountain climbing), because the team performance is depending on the performance of the weakest member.

The mix of individual traits in team contexts is critical, and among these contexts, the appropriateness of a particular mix is dependent on personal traits, nature of a task and the desired team outcome. Diversity can positively influence the team performance, but this is dependent on the type of diversity. Demographic diversity can improve overall performance, but is ales important than other forms of diversity. The effects of diversity on other dimensions can neglect the effect of demographic diversity. Maximizing differences in individual KSAs and minimizing differences in psychological dimensions of diversity may result in effective teams.

Team Training

The relative value of team training is higher when it is executed in team context instead of individual context. The perfect training program should consist of an individual task-specific content, but also with a teamwork focus, team interaction training and a leader component. Furthermore, there should be a shared mental model, because tasks are often too complex to deal for one individual. Managers should focus on designing a trainings program, which enables the team to develop a shared mental model.

Recent research suggests that cross-functional training could have more positive effects than only task-based training. This is in composite with the thoughts that everyone should have an own task in a team, but cross-functional training generates more effective team processes (teamwork, interaction and communication. Within high workload and intense task-interdependence environments, a cross-functional team is necessary, but within other situations it a more task-based team can be appropriated.

Team Task Design

Team task design can be described as the structures and roles within a team context, which determine the allocation of tasks, responsibilities and authority. An essential element of teams is task interdependence, because without interdependence, a team should behave more like a group. But high interdependence is not the only critical element; the type of task and the level of internal and external fit are also critical elements of team task design. The type of work can change the required level of interdependence, because in behavioral tasks (production), a moderate level of interdependence is required, but in conceptual tasks (negotiating) the required interdependence has the shape of a U: very high or very low level of interdependence results in higher team performance. Organizations can use team structures to achieve a higher team performance by external fit (structure and task environment), but not by internal fit (structure and individual traits).

Judging a member’s input in the team performance can be difficult, but there are some factors that can help to measure accurately: the presence of feedback, leader experiences and the provision of information. A management perspective states that the development of feedback mechanisms that provide leaders with information on the quality of team members’ past judgments enhances overall team decision-making accuracy. But from a training perspective, managers should focus on how to use and distribute the decision influences in the best way.

Individual-based rewards can be useful in some contexts of team-based structures. Teams with high extroversion and agreeableness perform better when rewarded as a cooperative system and teams low on extroversion and agreeableness perform better when rewarded as a competitive system.