Organizational Behavior: Chapter 12

Information Richness

: the amount and depth of information that gets transmitted in a message ● highest level- face to face, lowest- computer generated reports ● higher levels better when situation is complex, difficult to understand

Creative Behavior

Team activities are focused on generating novel and useful ideas and solutions

Strong Positive

What is the effect of teamwork processes on team commitment?

Moderate Positive

What is the effect of teamwork processes on team performance?

Taskwork Processes

activities of team members that relate directly to the accomplishment of team tasks. ● creative behavior, decision making, and boundary spanning

Coordination Loss

consumption of time and energy that could otherwise be devoted to task activity.

Team Process Training

context of a team experience that facilitates the team being able to function and perform more effectively as an intact unit. ● action learning: teams are given a problem that is relevant to an organization and are held accountable for analysis, plan development, and implementation of that plan. ● training that involves experience in a team context when there are task demands that highlight the importance of effective teamwork processes.

Cohesion

development of strong emotional bonds to team members, or the team itself ● fosters motivation and commitment ● promotes higher levels of team performance ● cohesiveness can affect decision making, as members try and maintain harmony ○ groupthink: drive toward conformity at the expense of other team priorities

Team Process

different types of communication, activities, and interactions that occur within teams that contribute to their ultimate end goals.

○ Task Conflict

disagreements about team's task. Potentially beneficial if it results in generation and expression of new ideas, subject to these conditions: ■ team members trust one another, confident they can express ideas without criticism ■ members must engage in effective conflict management practices ■ dependent on team composition (emotionally stable, open to new experience).

Brainstorming

face-to-face meeting of team members in which each offers as many ideas as possible about some focal problems or issue. Rules: ● Express all ideas that come to mind ● quantity over quality ● no criticism or evaluation allowed ● build on ideas of others Brainstorming less effective than individual idea generation because: ● Tendency to social loaf during brainstorming sessions ● fear of expressing ideas despite no criticism rule ● brainstorming results in production blocking

Transportable Teamwork Competencies

general skills, knowledge, and abilities that are effective across all teams, despite context.

Process Loss

getting less from the team than you would expect according to the capabilities of its individual members.

Process Gain

getting more from the team than you would expect according to the capabilities of its individual members. synergies from process gain most important in work requiring the sharing of knowledge, skills, and effort.

Transactive Memory:

how specialized knowledge is distributed among members in a manner that results in an effective system of memory for the team. ● when specialized knowledge is relevant, and how it should be combined with other specialized knowledge to accomplish goals. ● Teamwork processes have a moderate positive relationship with team performance ● Importance of team processes to team performance more strongly positive in team that exhibit higher levels of interdependence ● teamwork processes have strong positive relationship with team commitment. ○ more satisfied with teams characterized by strong interpersonal interactions

Nominal Group Technique

individuals generate ideas first, then share them with team, and evaluate. intended to decrease social loafing and productivity blocking.

○ Relationship Conflict

interpersonal incompatibilities with respect to personal values or preferences. centered around issues not directly connected to team's task.

Social Loafing

lessened feelings or accountability cause members to exert less effort when working on team tasks than they would if they worked alone.

Motivational Loss

loss in team productivity that occurs when team members don't work as hard as they could. ● difficult to gauge individual contribution ● results in less individual accountability

Interpersonal Processes

manner in which team members manage their relationships ● Motivating and Confidence Building- Things team members do or say to affect the degree to which members are motivated to work hard on the team's task. ● Affect Management- activities that foster some sense of emotional balance and unity ● Conflict Management- activities the team uses to manage conflicts

Teamwork Processes

refer to the interpersonal activities that facilitate the accomplishment of the team's work but do not directly involve task accomplishment itself.

Team States

specific type of feelings and thoughts that coalesce in the minds of the team members as a consequence of their experience working together.

Transition Processes

teamwork activities that focus on preparation for future work. ● Mission Analysis- analysis of team's task, challenges, and available resources ● Strategy Formation- development of courses of action/ contingency plans ● Goal Specification- development and prioritization of goals related to team's mission and strategy.

Potency

the degree to which members believe that the team can be effective across a variety of situations and tasks. ● high- focus on team tasks, low- question team's goals and member capability ● potency has a strong positive impact on team performance ● promoted in teams in which members are confident in themselves and teammates, and when team has experienced success in the past.

● centralization

the degree to which the communication in a network flows through some members rather than others. the more communication flows through fewer members of the team, the higher the centralization, ● routine work benefits from a centralized structure, complex work benefits from a decentralized structure ● technology does not necessarily improve communication

Mental Models

the level of common understanding among team members with regard to important aspects of the team and its task. ● individual member capability- more likely to know where to go for the help they need ● effective processes- carry out processes effectively and smoothly

Network Structure

the pattern of communication that occurs regularly among each member of the team.

Communication

the process by which information and meaning gets transferred from a sender to a receiver.

Team Building

training intended to facilitate the development of team processes related to goals setting, interpersonal relations, problems solving, and role clarification. ● examples: ropes course, laser tag, paintball, etc. ● most likely to have positive effects for smaller teams and when the exercise emphasizes the importance of clarifying responsibilities. facilitator must also be competent in helping members see connections between exercise and work, and ensure everyone is included.

Action Processes:

● Monitoring Progress towards Goals ● Systems Monitoring- keeping track of things that the team needs to complete its work ● Helping Behavior- members going out of their way to help another member with their work ● Coordination- synchronizing team member's activities in a way that makes them mesh effectively and seamlessly.

Communicator Issues

● communicators must encode and interpret messages ● communication competence: the skills involved in encoding, transmitting, and receiving messages ● ability to regulate and understand emotions can result in clearer communication