Team Structure

Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT; Brewer, 1991)

(ODT; Brewer, 1991) ODT argues that individuals have a simultaneous need to be assimilated and similar to relevant others, yet at the same be sufficiently distinct and unique. Brewer (1991), posits that deviations from an optimal balance between distinctiveness and assimilation lead to negative effects for psychological well-being, individuals' conceptualization of their roles in the group, and for group functioning.

Convergence in TMS, benefits and drawbacks

A recent meta-analysis conducted by De Dreu and Weingart (2003) revealed that task type is moderately and negatively associated with team performance. For the study of TMS, this implies that teams have to engage in a constructive negotiation of individual representations of team knowledge structures in order to avoid the negative effect of task conflict on team performance Teams need to develop an atmosphere in which team members find it acceptable to engage in task-related conflict. Lovelace, Shapiro, and Weingart (2001) found that the negative effect of task disagreement was attenuated by the extent to which group members felt confident to express task-related doubts and how these doubts were expressed in teams.

Effects of Common Team History on Exchange and Information Sharing

Alge, Wiethoff, and Klein (2003) Compared to face-to-face teams, computer-mediated teams exhibited lower values of openness/trust and were less likely to share information when teams lacked a common history, an effect which was not sustained for teams which could draw on a common history. Interestingly, however, the same effect was not found for team member exchange: Here, face-to-face teams exhibited higher quality team member relationships than computer-mediated teams, irrespective of the temporal scope of teams.

Backing Up Behavior in Teams and its Effects on Performance

Barnes, Hollenbeck, Johnson, Ilgen, and Jundt (2008) demonstrates that backing-up behavior can be costly for teams. Specifically, providers of backing-up behavior were found to neglect some of their own task duties, and beneficiaries of backing-up behavior were found to reduce their task work in a subsequent task. This effect was particularly pronounced when workload was distributed evenly among team members. This study provides further support to the notion that team members struggle when aligning individual behavior with team objectives, while at the same time trying to maintain the maximum level of performance in their individual work.

Team Member Personality and Context/Setting Impact Team Performance

Beersma et al. (2003) Extroverted and Agreeable team members were found to enhance team performance under a cooperative reward structure, Teams with introverted and disagreeable team members performed better in a competitive setting. Interestingly, outcome interdependence had a particularly strong impact for team members with low performance such that their speed was increased in a competitive structure and their accuracy was increased in a cooperative structure.

Reward Structure and Outcomes

Beersma et al. (2003) Teams perform better in terms of accuracy under a cooperative reward structure, whereas a competitive reward structure was associated with higher speed. This finding lends support to a contingency view of outcome interdependence, suggesting that the dimension of a task (speed vs. accuracy) that is most relevant in a specific setting should be matched with the corresponding reward structure (competitive vs. cooperative).

Network Centrality

Being centrally located within a network. There are a few types: advice centrality, friendship centrality, and adversarial centrality

Cross-functionality may be an interpersonal dimension

Bunderson and Sutcliffe (2002) note that most research had explicitly or implicitly conceptualized functional diversity as the degree to which people differ from one another in their functional background They referred to the interpersonal type of diversity as dominant function diversity, whereas intrapersonal functional diversity refers to the degree to which individual group members unite diverse functional backgrounds in one person. According to Bunderson and Sutcliffe (2002), dominant function diversity exacerbates demands for team communication and coordination, making it difficult for teams to exploit the unique knowledge and background of all team members Bunderson and Sutcliffe (2002) emphasize the positive effect of intrapersonal functional diversity on shared team-interaction models, which allow teams to capitalize on the entire range of functional diversity represented in teams. By creating a shared language among team members, intrapersonal functionality will also reduce the potential for team conflict Today's project teams in organizations are often composed of members with highly specialized backgrounds. Believing that all team members can be familiarized with the entire inventory of knowledge, skills and experiences is unrealistic. There are clear limits with respect to the intrapersonal functional diversity that can be obtained in teams

Benefits and Drawbacks of Intragroup Relationship Types

Closure relationships reduce the need to engage in monitoring activities and increase team cohesiveness Bridging conduits ensure that individuals receive timely and diverse information on organizational matters. It is important to note that generally, developing one type of conduit generally goes at the expense of the other conduit. Acknowledging this inherent tension and trade-off between closure and bridging conduits, Oh et al. (2004) proposed that teams should seek to balance closure and bridging relationships in order to reap the benefits of both, thereby maximizing team effectiveness

Communication Interdependence

Communication interdependence refers to the degree to which communication structures affect the nature and the richness of interpersonal communication in teams. In a tightly coupled communication structure, an individual may not be able to concentrate and "turn off" social interactions, but in a loosely coupled system, one can ignore and buffer oneself from social distractions

Cooperative Goals and Team Effectiveness in Deep-Diverse Teams

Cooperative goals can also be beneficial for teams characterized by high deep-level diversity—relying on higher-quality reasoning and open discussions which establish a constructive team climate in which differences in values, beliefs, or personality can more easily be overcome. Indeed, Alper et al. (1998) reported that constructive controversy mediated the effect of cooperative goals on team confidence, which in turn promoted team effectiveness. Conversely, competitive team goals were found to be negatively related to constructive controversy, confidence, and effectiveness

Coupling (interdependence)

Coupling is a multidimensional concept that allows subunits to be simultaneously tightly coupled on one dimension, but uncoupled on another dimension at the same time. Coupling is also a dynamic concept that allows one sub-unit to be tightly coupled to another at one moment in time, but uncoupled at other times.

Challenges in computer mediated communication in teams

Cramton (2001) asserted that it is a critical challenge for such teams to establish and maintain mutual knowledge. If mutual knowledge cannot be established in teams, hidden profiles will emerge, which will eventually lead to communication failures in teams. Cramton (2001) further proposed that individuals in geographically dispersed teams will rely more strongly on social categorization processes when such communication failures occur. A stronger reliance on social categorization processes in teams increases the likelihood of dispositional attributions in such teams, which has detrimental consequences for both team cohesion and team learning

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional teams are composed of group members with different functional backgrounds or research disciplines, such as marketing, finance, or human resource management (Keller, 2001). This diverse background implies an inevitable horizontal interdependence among highly specialized group members. Cross-functional teams have been found to increase schedule and budget performance in 93 research and new product development teams (Keller, 2001). This positive effect was mediated through external communication, operationalized as the amount of task-related communication with individuals outside the research and new product development team. In the same study, Keller (2001) found that functional diversity (aka cross functional teams) was also associated with increased job stress and reduced group cohesiveness.

Kirkman and Shapiro (1997) Conceptual Model of Self Managing in Teamwork

Cultural values determine the extent to which individuals resist the implementation of self-management and the introduction of teamwork Individuals high in power distance desire a strong leader figure who directs team actions. The notion of self-management is in stark contrast to this desire. Similarly, individuals with a strong being orientation will find it difficult to adapt to self-management in the workplace as they dislike engaging in persistent, goal-directed behavior. Individuals high in determinism generally doubt that their fate is within their own control. Hence, the concept of self-management in which individuals take control of their own work is antithetical to their self-understanding. Kirkman and Shapiro (1997) further proposed that cultural values will influence the degree to which employees oppose the concept of teamwork, suggesting that employees with a strong individualistic orientation are more likely to perceive group-based rewards as unfair and to resist the introduction of teamwork. According to Kirkman and Shapiro (1997), both resistance to self-management and resistance to the introduction of teams will in turn be negatively associated with team effectiveness. Overall, this model strongly suggests that the effectiveness of self-managing work teams will depend on cultural values in countries in which they are implemented.

Feedback in Teams...Not very simple

DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner, and Wiechmann (2004) found in a laboratory study of 79 teams that individuals in teams struggle if they receive feedback for both their individual and their team performance. DeShon et al. (2004) argued that team members face a trade-off between maximizing individual goals or team goals. Empirical results provided support for this proposition: If team members were only provided with individual feedback, they focused their attention on individual performance, a decision which translated into highest levels of individual performance. If team members were only provided with team-level feedback, they focused on maximizing team performance, which was associated with the highest team-oriented performance.

What Types of Rewards are Most Effective?

Deutsch (1949) and Wageman (1995) suggested that collaborative rewards should be utilized in settings characterized by high task interdependence competitive rewards should be utilized in settings in which individuals work independently.

Distributed Team

Distributed teams as teams in which members are either separated by a large distance or in which members rely on computer-mediated communication. Hinds and Bailey (2003) Note: computer-mediated communication does not occur as a dichotomy (entirely computer-mediated face-to-face), but rather on a continuum, ranging from "with little frequency—very rarely" to "with high frequency—very often." Kirkman et al. (2004)

Negative Effects of Tight Horizontal Coupling

Drach-Zahavy (2004) argued that decreased horizontal interdependence among individuals in teams will be associated with decreased team support as individuals no longer feel accountable for the team as a whole

Mechanistic vs Organic Structures, Stress effects and team structure

Drach-Zahavy and Freund (2007) characterizes mechanistic team structures as having largely routinized jobs, pervasive rules, and a high degree of formalization and record keeping. Organic structures, on the other hand, are described as providing rich job feedback, task identity, and [individual] autonomy. She finds that mechanistic structures thrived on quantitative stress, whereas organic structures produce better results when facing high levels of qualitative stress. She argues that mechanistic structures are primarily designed to increase the efficiency of operations, which is why they are amenable to high quantitative stress. Conversely, qualitative stress increases the demand for teamwork, which makes organic structures the better fit for task environments characterized by high qualitative stress. This research failed to differentiate between horizontal and vertical autonomy

Dual Roles of External Leader

Druskat and Wheeler (2003) a team leader role and an outsider role In their role as team leader, they influence team members such that team actions are consistent with the overall strategy of the organization. They build relationships with team members and give and seek information to and from team members, thereby raising their awareness of strengths and developmental opportunities of group members. In addition, they empower teams to make decisions, while coaching them in critical stages of the decision making process. In their organizational role, external leaders develop a sense for social and political developments in the organization which are relevant for their teams. External leaders also seek to clarify the strategic direction of the organization in order to understand how individual teams can contribute to organizational effectiveness. In order to enable their teams to function effectively, external leaders also have to ensure that decision makers in the organization provide necessary resources for the team.

Complications in the role of external leader

Druskat and Wheeler (2003) External team leaders have only little legitimate control over decision making processes in teams. Can influence self-managing teams through referent or expert power. They are equipped with little legitimate power, while overseeing a large number of teams at the same time. The transition to the role of an external leader is often associated with role ambiguity for leaders as their traditional understanding of team leadership is no longer applicable to their current position. External leaders are required to span the boundary of the team with the organization, connecting autonomous teams with the overall organization

Team Learning is Superior in a Hybrid system

Ellis et al. (2003) found the hybrid approach rather than tightly coupled or largely uncoupled was best for learning Largely uncoupled structure, the learning task was too big and complex for individuals to comprehend which resulted in less learning. In a tightly structured system, the learning task was reduced in scope, however, the specialization of team members made it impossible to double-check or replicate what was learned by any one person. A hybrid structure that created "learning partners" in which two individuals shared expertise and information-processing responsibilities was associated with superior learning outcomes.

Comparing Self-managing Teams with Hierarchical Teams

Extant research has focused on the role that external leaders play in decoupling self-managing teams from other teams and the larger organizational context. Griffin, Patterson, and West (2001) found that supervisory support exhibited a smaller effect on job satisfaction in companies with high levels of teamwork, when compared to companies with low levels of teamwork. This finding suggests that high levels of teamwork shift team members' focus from organizational leaders to the team, thereby substituting for the motivating influence which leadership often performs for individuals at work. Douglas and Gardner (2004) argued that managers often find it difficult to hand over the control over decision making processes to self-managing teams. They found that managers relied too heavily on hard influence tactics (i.e., coalition building, legitimating, and pressure) after the organization had adopted self-directed work teams, even though soft influence tactics (i.e., inspirational appeals and ingratiation) would have been more appropriate.

Open questions for research on this topic

First, how strongly related are the individual facets of team interdependence? Second, do certain pairs of dimensions seem to go naturally together, as in the case of divisional structures that tend to be decentralized (a configuration referred to as "organic) and functional structures that tend to be centralized (a configuration referred to as "mechanistic." Third, in order to substantiate the utility of a multidimensional model of team interdependence, future research has to demonstrate that the different facets of team interdependence exhibit differential relationships with meaningful outcomes on the individual and team-level of analysis Fourth, the interaction between various structures and individual differences needs to be examined to see if certain people are differentially attracted to or perform differentially in alternative structures

Dimensions of Team Interdependence

Four specific dimensions where coupling may occur, include (a) task allocation structure- functional versus divisional (b) decision-making structure- hierarchical or self-managed (c) reward structure- cooperative versus competitive (d) communication structure- face-to-face versus virtual If one conceptualizes teams as loosely coupled systems, these are the four primary dimensions that serve as coupling opportunities. Important to break these up so that we can understand the ramifications of each form of coupling

Functional vs Divisional Task Allocation Structures

Functionally structured groups, individuals in the team all focus on specializing in one element of the task (or a few elements), whereas in divisional structures, each member performs a wider variety of tasks centered on a unique and holistic product

When is network bridging important?

Gargiulo and Benassi (2000) showed that network bridging is especially important for managers in a period of organizational change. During such times, cohesive ties functioned as a source of structural rigidity which prevented managers from coordinating complex tasks successfully. Conversely, entering cooperative relationships with individuals who were not part of a manager's established network allowed these managers to attain the flexibility required to coordinate complex organizational change processes closure conduits are associated with increased safety, whereas bridging conduits provide additional flexibility.

Training Teams on Reflecting on Team Processes as a Buffer

Gurtner, Tschan, Semmer, and Naegele (2007) investigated the extent to which teams can be trained in how they reflect on team processes. Administering a reflexivity intervention to hierarchically structured teams, they find that higher reflexivity is associated with improved communication, similarity in mental models, and ultimately, performance.

Benefits of Face-to-Face Teams

Hambley, O'Neill, and Kline (2007) found that face-to-face communication was associated with more constructive interaction among team members, when compared to videoconferencing or text-based chat. Consistent with this idea, they further reported that team cohesion was higher in face-to-face teams.

Outcome Interdependence and Team Collaboration (Diverse Team)

Harrison, Price, Gavin, and Florey (2002) The study found that outcome interdependence exhibited a positive effect on team collaboration, that is, the time team members spend in interactions. Collaboration then moderated the effects of different types of diversity on team social integration. Collaboration increased the salience of deep-level diversity over time such that high levels of collaboration enhanced the negative effect of deep level diversity on team social integration. The opposite effect was found for surface-level diversity, where high levels of collaboration weakened the negative effect of surface-level diversity on team social integration. In other words, surface-level diversity had a smaller negative effect on team social integration for teams with high levels of collaboration, when compared to teams with low levels of collaboration. Team social integration in turn was positively associated with task performance.

Hedlund, Ilgen, and Hollenbeck (1998) Study on Virtual vs Face to Face Communication

Hedlund, Ilgen, and Hollenbeck (1998) found a slight superiority for face-to-face communication relative to virtual communication with respect to higher decision making accuracy in teams, but this belied complex positive and negative paths that ran from communication structure to overall team outcomes The modest positive effect in favor of face-to-face teams was mediated by team informity and staff validity, such that face-to-face communication was associated with a more effective exchange of information among team members, which ensured that team members were better informed and that team members made more accurate recommendations to their team leaders They Also found that computer-mediated communication in teams is associated with improved hierarchical sensitivity in teams, that is, formal leaders being able to discern which staff member was most and least accurate was facilitated by the leader being separated from the group.

Characteristics of Distributed Team

Hinds and Bailey (2003) They proposed that distributed teams will lack a shared context because members of distributed teams are likely to have different perspectives and norms. Such teams will generally be more heterogeneous than face-to-face teams, characterized by lower levels of familiarity and weaker friendship ties, less cohesive and that they have a weaker collective identity than face-to-face teams. Distributed teams can further be expected to experience difficulties in transferring relevant information to all team members and to coordinate team actions effectively. Overall, Hinds and Bailey (2003) conclude that face-to-face teams can be expected to experience much higher levels of task, affective, and process conflict than face-to-face teams, an effect which will in turn reduce the performance potential of distributed teams

Research Comparing Task Allocation Structures

Hollenbeck and colleagues (2002) found that functional structures were superior to divisional structures in predictable environments, but that divisional structures outperformed functional structures when the task was unpredictable. Stewart and Barrick (2000) found that the effect of horizontal interdependence on team performance is moderated by task type, such that high interdependence exhibits a u-shaped relationship with team performance for teams engaged primarily in conceptual tasks, whereas interdependence exhibits an inversely u-shaped relationship with performance for behavioral task.

Horizontal Interdependence vs Vertical Interdependence

Horizontal interdependence = Task interdependence. Thompson (1967) argued that high task interdependence poses critical contingencies for all team members that have to be resolved before the team can complete their work. Horizontal interdependence is conceptualized as a form of social interdependence among individuals operating on the same hierarchical level in an organization, whereas vertical interdependence describes social interdependence in manager-subordinate relationships.

Effects of formalization/standardization on team outcomes

In a sample of customer service technicians, Gilson, Mathieu, Shalley, and Ruddy (2005) found that high levels of standardization in interdependent work teams lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction, but it also neutralized the positive effect of creative team environments on team performance. Janz, Colquitt, and Noe (1997) argued that horizontal interdependence constrains the different ways in which individuals can perform their work such that the positive influence of autonomy on work motivation gets neutralized.

When do individual differences matter over the team variables?

In tightly coupled contexts, it is often the conjunctive operationalization (the lowest scoring team member) of team composition that seems to best represent the team (LePine, Hollenbeck, Ilgen, & Hedlund, 1997). In contrast, LePine et al. (2008) showed meta-analytically how the predictive value of traditional measures of group processes tends to get muted when teams are loosely coupled. Much of the variance in loosely coupled teams reverts back to dispositional characteristics at the individual level of analysis in this case

Computer Mediated Teams seem to communicate better over time

Indeed, they found that computer-mediated teams had lower levels of trust at the beginning, but eventually reached comparable levels of trust and cooperation at the end of their three-week experiment when compared to face-to-face teams. Wilson et al. (2006) further showed that computer-mediated teams tend to rely more heavily on offensive language early on, an effect which was also associated with the lower values in trust and cooperation in these teams. Over time, however, computer-mediated teams decreased the use of inflammatory communication, which was in turn associated with higher levels of trust and cooperation.

Varieties of Team Structures

Individuals in teams that are tightly coupled on both horizontal and vertical interdependence lose a great deal of their own individual autonomy in the sense that (a) they depend a great deal on other team members to do elements of the task that they lack the ability or interest to do and (b) they are dependent upon a team leader to make decisions for the team which may or may not reflect what individual team members would do if they were acting alone. In contrast, when both vertical and horizontal interdependence are low, individuals may have great freedom and one may start to struggle to find the team in that specific instance of figure-ground confusion. Finally, the two dimensions need not be aligned at all and team members might be tightly coupled horizontally and loosely couple vertically and vice versa.

The Irony of Individual Incentives for Teamwork

Interestingly, however, the change to collective goal systems has often not been accompanied with an according change in reward structures—and instead, organizations offer only small incentives for team performance, despite a strong reliance on team goals. In fact, many organizations employ annual merit-based pay systems that actually place team members in competition with one another for variations in pay around a fixed unit average increase.

Job Enrichment and Team Functioning

Job enrichment constitutes a procedure in which individuals are awarded greater job autonomy, control, and skill variety in their work. In short, job enrichment creates complete jobs with high individual autonomy and accountability, which run counter to the interdependencies typically found in teamwork. Based on these arguments, Drach-Zahavy (2004) hypothesized and found that job enrichment practices are negatively associated with team support, but that this effect can be attenuated by enforcing a low power distance culture and collectivistic values which remind individuals of the larger objectives of the entire work team and organization.

What do self-managing teams need to be effective?

Kirkman and Rosen (1997) suggested that self-managing teams have to experience feelings of collective efficacy, meaningfulness, and impact, all of which are states which can be enhanced by the boundary-spanning functions which external team leaders perform according to the model developed by Druskat and Wheeler (2003). Kirkman and Rosen (1999) found that external leaders can contribute to the effectiveness of self-managing work teams by using team members' ideas and suggestions in decisions, by encouraging teams to set goals and to monitor individual and team performance, and by providing genuine trust to the team. Kirkman and Rosen (1999) demonstrated that these critical team states (experienced potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact) are in turn related to a number of important criteria, such as team productivity, team proactivity, customer service quality, job satisfaction, and organizational and team commitment. As such, their study sheds light on the mediating mechanisms through which external leadership of self-managing teams enhances superior team performance

Team Empowerment is important for virtual teams

Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) They further predicted that team empowerment was especially salient for teams who met less, rather than more, frequently, arguing that teams who do not meet frequently have a tendency to become passive if they lack feelings of potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact. Such teams are more likely to rely on their team leaders, instead of trusting in the capabilities of the team. For virtual teams that met less frequently face-to-face, team empowerment was associated with a dramatic increase in process improvements. It is important to note, however, that empowerment in virtual teams should have a somewhat different focus than empowerment in collocated teams. Suggested that for virtual teams, it is especially critical that all team members are informed about organizational objectives and procedures and that all team members have a high proficiency in using modern means of communication which facilitate communication across distances.

Predictors of being central in a network

Klein, Lim, Saltz, and Mayer (2004) attempted to answer the question how individuals acquire central positions in team networks, differentiating between advice centrality, friendship centrality, and adversarial centrality. They hypothesized that demographics, values, and personality characteristics determine network centrality in teams. Among all the variables included in their study, education (+) and neuroticism (-) emerged as powerful predictors of network centrality, exhibiting significant relationships with all three facets of network centrality. Activity preference, tradition and hedonism all exhibited significant relationships with two of three facets of network centrality Similarity in hedonistic and tradition values were associated with higher advice and friendship centrality in teams. Consistent with the model of surface and deep-level diversity of Harrison et al. (2002), the effects of demographic similarity were overshadowed by the effect of value similarity.

Knowledge Specialization

Knowledge specialization refers to the degree to which members' knowledge overlaps with knowledge of other group members. The smaller the overlap between group members' knowledge, the more knowledge specialization occurs.

Knowledge Stock

Knowledge stock refers to the absolute amount of knowledge that is available to a team. As such, it captures the unique individual knowledge that is represented in a team.

Context Matters, Surface Diversity and Outcome Interdependence

Koopman, and Wienk (2003) predicted that outcome interdependence moderates the effect of team diversity on team reflexivity, satisfaction, commitment, and performance. Consistent with their predictions, they found that teams high on outcome interdependence are more reflexive when they are more diverse, whereas teams that were low on interdependence were found to be more reflexive when they were less diverse. Moreover, the effect of diversity on satisfaction and performance was also moderated by outcome interdependence such that team outcomes were positively affected when groups were diverse and outcome interdependence was low or when groups were highly diverse and outcome interdependence was high.

Research on Peer-Monitoring Teams and Autonomy Affecting Performance

Langfred (2004) found that high trust in teams will make team members more reluctant to monitor other group members. Monitoring activities, however, were found to be an important boundary condition for the effect of individual autonomy on team performance. Specifically, for teams with high trust and little monitoring, individual autonomy was negatively associated with team performance

Failing to establish convergence and resolve conflict

Langfred (2007) suggests that team conflict not only has negative process-related effects, but also structure-related effects. Specifically, he finds that increased team conflict is associated with lower intrateam team trust. This effect will in turn loosen future task interdependencies in teams. As such, conflict not only leads to poor processes and performance, it also destroys the structural foundations on which the team has been built.

Organizational reference groups

Lawrence (2006) defined organizational reference groups as "the set of people an individual perceives as belonging to his or her work environment that defines the social world of work in which he or she engages" (p. 80). This includes individuals with whom one shares no immediate social contact—individuals who are merely known through company newsletters or gossip

Man and Lam (2003) National Culture and Team Commitment

Man and Lam (2003) proposed that increasing group autonomy will make group behavior more salient, an effect which is going to be particularly pronounced in individualistic countries where collectives generally have a lower meaning than in collectivistic cultures. In other words, individuals will already feel a strong sense of commitment and ownership to their team in collectivistic cultures, irrespective of the degree of autonomy awarded to this team. Thus, an increase in group autonomy will not dramatically increase feelings of commitment to the team, which were already high to begin with. Conversely, individuals in individualistic cultures start with low commitment to their team, but are particularly affected by the increase in group autonomy which puts group processes suddenly center stage.

Virtual Teams will Adapt Their Communication Type Depending on the Task/Decision Process

Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) proposed that effective virtual teams will rely on richer communication media when confronted with higher level decision processes. They further predicted that the more complex the content of a message, the more appropriate it is for virtual teams to rely on rich media of communication. Further proposed that effective virtual teams develop a rhythmic temporal pattern of communication, alternating between face-to-face communication and remote communication. hey devote their face-to-face meetings to higher-level decision processes, whereas simple messages and lower-level decision processes are exchanged and decided via remote communication. This research shows how the key to team effectiveness is having a tightly coupled communication structure at one time and with one task, but then a decoupled communication structure at a later time with a different task. The most effective communication structure is thus "loosely coupled" when averaged over multiple performance episodes.

Computer-Mediated Teams and Fairness Percpetions

Members of computer-mediated teams lack such social information about other group members, which is why their reactions to unfair events are magnified. Interestingly, Tangirala and Alge (2006) also showed that this effect increases over time: Members of computer-mediated teams react even more negatively to unfair events as time elapses. Members of face-to-face teams are generally better able to correctly assess the quality of their interpersonal relationships with other group members. As such, events which are perceived as unfair will be interpreted as only one of many components which constitute the perceived quality of interpersonal relationships

Conflict Management Team Performance Relationship Moderated by Temporal coordination

Montoya-Weiss, Massey, and Song (2001) proposed that the relationship between conflict management strategies and team performance would be moderated by temporal coordination mechanisms. Their study of 35 five-person teams in the United States and Japan provided partial support for this prediction: Specifically, temporal coordination mechanisms weakened the negative influence of avoidance conflict management behaviors and compromise conflict management behaviors on virtual team performance, but they did not influence the effectiveness of the other three conflict management strategies: accommodation behaviors, competition behaviors, and collaborative behaviors.

Direction of Team Structure Change MATTERS

Moon et al. (2004) showed that teams that changed from functional to divisional structures acted much like teams who were always arrayed in divisional structures, but that divisional teams that restructured along functional lines struggled to adapt in this direction, and performed worse relative to pure functional teams. Johnson et al. (2006) found that teams that moved from cooperative to competitive structures acted much like teams that were always arrayed in competitive structures, but that teams that switched from competitive to cooperative structures failed to conform to the behaviors typically revealed in cooperative teams that never experienced competition Ellis et al. (2006) found that teams that transitioned from centralized to decentralized decision-making structures acted very much like pure decentralized teams, but that teams that moved in the opposite direction experienced all the liabilities of centralized structures, but none of their benefits

How to best conceptualize team structure for research and practice

Most researchers and practitioners in organizational contexts are likely to encounter loosely coupled teams. In this situation, one can take the sum of the levels of interdependence across the four dimensions, treat it as a unidimensional construct, and then place any one team on some continuum of overall tightness or looseness of structure. This overall construct of tightness/looseness could then be used as a continuous variable that could be used as cause, effect or moderator of cause effect relationships in theories of team behavior. There would be real value in developing this unidimensional and continuous measure of structure in terms of developing a more coherent and cumulative body of literature on structure.

Network Structure

Network structure focuses on the number and the intensity of social ties which team members share with each other as well as with individuals in the larger organizational context. Drawing from the work of Burt (2000), Oh, Chung, and Labianca (2004) differentiated between intragroup closure relationships and bridging relationships that transcend the boundary of the team. Closure in a group ensures that all team members are connected with each other Bridging emphasizes relationships among otherwise heterogeneous people in organizations.

Benefit of Organizational Reference Groups

Organizational reference groups can guide individuals' career referent selection and help individuals identify expected achievement—results which could not have been obtained if only the immediate social network of individuals in organization would have been examined as is the case in traditional social network analysis. Lawrence (2006)

Benefits of Being Loosely Coupled as an Organization

Orton and Weick (1990) proposed that organizational subunits in loosely coupled structures will find it easier to scan their respective environments and to adapt to changes in these environments.

Outcome Interdependence

Outcome Interdependence is the extent to which group members share the same goals and rewards for the work which they perform together, recognizing that even though goals and rewards may be directly coupled in many instances, this is not necessarily the case (Knight, Durham, & Locke, 2001).

Lean Management and Team Structure

Parker (2003) investigated the effect of lean production practices on work perceptions and attitudes. Lean production practices are frequently used in mass production in order to increase system stability and efficiency. At the same time, they reduce cognitive demands for individual jobs. Interestingly, however, Parker (2003) demonstrated that the increased efficiency in work structures which imply high horizontal interdependence comes at a cost as they lead to declines in perceived work characteristics, such as job autonomy, skill utilization, and participation in decision making. These perceptions in turn were found to result in lower organizational commitment and role breadth self-efficacy, while increasing job depression.

Network Breadth

Positions in an organizational network which connect otherwise separate clusters in an organization, also referred to as structural holes. That is, team managers have to balance network closure with network bridging.

Social Loafing and Identifiability of One's Contribution to Team

Price, Harrison, and Gavin (2006) investigated the role of identifiability of individual contributions for social loafing behavior. They reported a moderating effect such that the relationship between dispensability and social loafing behavior was strengthened when the identifiability of individual contributions was rated as low. In other words, the absence of an individual evaluation structure is problematic when team members feel that their individual contributions are dispensable As we have noted, when teams are tightly coupled in terms of horizontal and vertical interdependence, this yoking may make difficult to see individuals as figures and instead place them in the ground. A tightly coupled structure reduces the identifiability of individual contributions and diffuses decision-making responsibility in a manner that promotes finger pointing when a group fails to accomplish its objectives. Similarly, collective goals and a collective reward structures imply reduced identifiability of individual contributions to teamwork, which should in turn increase social loafing in teams.

Role of Internal Leaders in Self-Managing Teams

Reaffirming the influence of external leaders, internal leaders can encourage other team members to plan their own work, to set performance goals, and to monitor their own as well as others' performance. Tesluk and Mathieu (1999) found a moderately strong, positive correlation between external and internal leadership of self-managing teams. This suggests that external leaders are generally supported in their efforts to encourage team self-management by internal team leaders. In the same study: External and internal leadership exhibited a positive effect on the frequency with which teams engaged in problem management actions and strategies in order to remove performance barriers. Only external leadership was positively associated with team performance Only internal leadership was associated with a strong increase in team viability

Should teams create heterogeneous connections or homogeneous connections?

Reagans and Zuckerman (2001) R&D teams with more dense networks of interaction were more productive than R&D teams with sparse interaction networks. Interestingly, however, Reagans and Zuckerman (2001) also found that teams which exhibit more contact between team members of the same organizational tenure were less productive than teams with strong links between members of different organizational tenure. This finding suggests that team members should establish deep relationships with other team members, while at the same ensuring that their relationships are not restricted to demographically similar team members.

Ambiguous effects of diversity on social networks

Reagans, Zuckerman, and McEvily (2004) argued that an approach which focuses on demographic characteristics has ambiguous performance implications because demographic diversity exhibits differential relationships with two central social network variables: internal density and external range (or external breadth). Reagans et al. (2004) predicted and found that demographic diversity is associated with an increase in external network range, that is, with a larger pool of contacts that teams can access, while at the same time decreasing the internal network density of teams by reducing the intensity of within-team relationships. Internal network density and external network range are in turn positively associated with team performance, which renders the overall effect of demographic diversity on team performance ambiguous. This finding strongly underlines the importance of network structures for team design, and the need for coupling both within and between teams. As we saw earlier in summarizing the literature on self-managed teams, external leaders are often most adept at managing the "between team" aspects of coupling, whereas emergent, internal team leaders may be best able to manage the "within team" aspects of coupling.

Three Critical Processes Resulting From Interdependence

Related to the 4 forms of interdependence These three processes (cf. Johnson, 2003) are: Substitutability - the degree to which actions of one person substitute for actions of other person(s) Cathexis - the degree to which individuals are willing to invest psychology energy in objects and person outside of oneself Inducibility- the degree to which individuals are open to being influenced and to influencing others

Media Richness

Rich media provide instant feedback, utilize multiple cues such as body language, and use natural language rather than numbers (McGrath & Hollinghsead, 1994; Trevino, Lengel, & Daft, 1987).

Self-Managing Teams

Self-managing teams as work structures in which employees have "discretion over such decisions as methods of work, task schedules, and assignment of members to different tasks; and compensation and feedback for the performance for the group as a whole" (Hackman, cited in Manz & Sims, 1987, p. 106).

Employee Monitoring Devices and Self-Managed Teams

Sewell (1998) focused on the concept of group autonomy and pointed to potential negative effects that team self-management (loose vertical coupling) can have in modern work structures. He suggested that today's electronic surveillance systems may undermine lateral trust among team members in self-managed teams. In other words, the availability of data on minute differentials in individuals' contributions to team outcomes leads team members to internalize organizational norms and objectives. As such, self-managed teams establish powerful horizontal control processes which replace traditional forms of control in organizations.

Decision making in self-managed team: voting

Short of consensus, the team could vote on the decision, which still leaves the team decoupled from an external leader, and thus somewhat loosely structured Depending on how people vote, the divisions within the overall team may even promote the perceptions of subgroups and faultiness (Homan et al., 2008; Lau & Murnighan, 2005). As a collective decision-making mechanism, voting comes with its own set of freedoms and constraints. The team is freed from endless discussions and not yoked to the decisions of uncompromising members who cannot be moved from their own viewpoint. However, voting blocks can constrain the decision-making effectiveness of teams by over-ruling or out-voting some well-informed set of minority dissenters, who, over time, may disengage from the team.

Spatial Interdependence

Spatial interdependence is the degree to which the team context facilitates direct, reciprocal, frequent, and face-to-face interpersonal communication in teams. Does not focus on individuals' contributions to a task, but on the way in which team members interact to accomplish their tasks.

Decision-making in hierarchical leadership structure in team

Team members with hierarchical leaders are freed from the necessity of battling out each and every disagreement whether large or small but are constrained from making their own decisions, and may be forced to implement a decision Teams with powerful centralized leadership are tightly coupled in the sense that they can move quickly as one, however, some individuals may be bound to decisions that may differ from what they may have chosen based on their own individual volition

Interdependence

Teams are made up of multiple individuals who are linked to each other, and this connection of separate but holistically identifiable individuals creates interdependence. This interdependence may dictate decisions and actions of multiple people that are yoked in a way that differs from what any one individual would enact if he or she was truly alone.

Ramifications of TMS

Teams that develop highly specialized and refined transactive memory systems become a tightly coupled unit Austin (2003) found that the development of transactive memory systems predicted group goal performance, external group evaluations, and internal group evaluations. Hollenbeck, Ilgen, Sego, Hedlund, & Major (1995) TMS teams much more negatively impacted by turnover or the momentary loss of access to any one team member, making them highly unstable in terms or their performance.

Temporal Coordination

Temporal coordination mechanisms are defined as a process structure which directs the form and timing of communication in teams.

External Leaders as Buffers for Self-Managing Team

Tesluk and Mathieu (1999) argued that external leaders can provide important resources which shield the team and free them from resource dependencies in the organization. In terms of coupling, this implies that if teams are going to be making their own decisions, they need to be buffered, and essentially uncoupled from other teams and the task environment by their external leader. Thus, the freedom that self-managing teams have to make their own decisions, has to be supported by a buffering mechanism that decouples them from other self-managing teams in order to have coordination at the organizational level, and this seems to be the critical role for external leaders of self-managing teams. External leaders can also further influence goals, directions, and decisions in self-managing teams so that the decisions they render will be consistent with larger organizational objectives. They can help formulate team objectives, which self-managing teams then refine by deciding on how to pace work, allocate tasks, schedule work, or implement work and problem solving procedures.

Decision making in self-managed team: consensus

The only manner for teams to arrive at collective decisions that do not force one member to implement a decision he or she does not support is to arrive at consensus. If consensus is achieved, then the team is loosely coupled in the sense that each member has been convinced that the course of action is the one they would have chosen on their own Whereas self-managing teams are not constrained by a hierarchical leader and free to voice their own opinions, if they strive for consensus they may be constrained by time limits that run out prior to ever having reached consensus.

Role of External Leadership in Self-Managing Teams

There is a large literature documenting the critical role which leadership plays for self-managing teams. This literature suggests that self-managing teams do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, self-managing teams are influenced by the extent to which external leaders (leaders to whom a team reports; they are not members of the work team) and internal leaders (leaders who are members of the work team) create interdependencies with other organizational units or managerial levels in the organization. Self-managing teams can have internal leadership, external leadership, and a combination of both internal and external leadership.

Two Types of Vertical Team Structures

These include hierarchical decision-making structures where a formal leader has unilateral authority to make decisions for the team after seeking input from the team members (Bonachio & Dalal, 2006; Hollenbeck et al., 1995) or self-managing teams that resolve their own discrepancies via either consensus or, if this breaks down, voting procedures

Brandon and Hollingshead (2004)

They introduce the notions of task representation and the task-expertise-person (TEP) unit as basic constructs involved in transactive memory development, and provide a dynamic model of how TEP units are constructed, evaluated, and utilized. Over time, high performing teams converge on an optimal state where there is a high level of accuracy and sharedness regarding who is an expert on different elements of the larger overall task.

Transactive Memory Accuracy

Transactive memory accuracy specifies the extent to which mental representations of knowledge distributions overlap with actual knowledge distributions in teams

Transactive Memory Consensus

Transactive memory consensus is a third, important aspect of transactive memory systems, describing the extent to which group members agree about who has what knowledge. Transactive memory consensus can be viewed as a necessary, but not sufficient prerequisite for transactive memory accuracy.

Transactive Memory Systems

Transactive memory systems seek to better coordinate and use expertise in teams in order to solve complex problems (Austin, 2003). Austin (2003) conceptualized transactive memory systems as being composed of four distinct aspects: knowledge stock, knowledge specialization, transactive memory consensus, and transactive memory accuracy

Three Related Topics Relevant to Functional Specialization in Teams

Transactive memory sytstems (TMS) Cross-functional Team Compositions Intrapersonal Cross-Functionality.

Self-Management and Cross Functional Teams

Uhl-Bien and Graen (1998) found that self-management was beneficial for functional teams (tight horizontal coupling), but not for cross-functional teams (high degree of horizontal interdependence). In fact, self-management even exerted a weak, negative effect on team effectiveness in cross-functional teams, again illustrating how tight coupling reduces the impact of individual differences. This runs counter to the job design lit that says autonomy is good for performance

Collective Identification as a Buffer

Van der Vegt and Bunderson (2005) further suggested that collective identification can serve as a buffer against the negative impact of different knowledge structures in teams. Specifically, expertness diversity was negatively related to team learning and performance when team identification was low, but exhibited a positive effect when team identification was high.

Goal Interdependence Moderates Relationship Between Team Identification and OCBs

Van der Vegt, Van de Vliert, and Oosterhof (2003) examined the moderating effect of goal interdependence and task interdependence on the relationship of informational dissimilarity and both team identification and OCBS, positing that it is the configuration of task interdependence and outcome interdependence that matters for the relationship of informational dissimilarity with team identification and OCBs. Low task interdependence paired with high outcome interdependence (and vice versa) is detrimental for teams with high informational dissimilarity. Conversely, congruent combinations of low task interdependence and low outcome interdependence and high task interdependence and high outcome interdependence were associated with an insignificant relationship of informational dissimilarity with team identification and OCBs.

Effects of Tightly Coupled and Loosely Coupled Systems with Regard to Task Allocation (Summary)

Very tightly coupled teams (low team member autonomy and satisfaction, less creativity, higher conflict) Highly uncoupled teams (less standardization and customer satisfaction, less communication and helping, more variability caused by individual differences) These results suggest that the effectiveness of horizontal interdependence and autonomy should always be evaluated with respect to the specific criteria at hand, but that in most cases, it seems that loosely coupled teams will probably be the safest bet in terms of avoiding well-documented problems of alternative task allocation structures

Wageman (2001) Team Design Variables for the Ideal Team Setting

Wageman (2001) differentiated between four structural team design variables which leaders can manipulate in an ideal setting: First, establishing a real team with clear and stable membership; second, giving teams a clear direction by developing a clear statement of purpose; third, providing teams with an enabling structure by choosing the appropriate team size, skill diversity, task interdependence, task goals, and strategy norms; fourth, providing teams with a supportive organizational context which recognizes and rewards excellent team performance. This study is important because it discusses both the absolute effect of goal structure and reward mechanisms on team processes and outcomes as well as the relative magnitude of these effects when compared to other team design features.

Organization as a moderator for Outcome Interdependence in Teams

Wageman (2001), however, also emphasized that team leaders often cannot control the team's purpose or how rewards are allocated. Instead, environmental and institutional forces would often determine these factors. This qualifies the large impact which outcome interdependence has for team outcomes—outcome interdependence presents a powerful leverage for team design, but only to the extent that it can be manipulated by team leaders.

What is the most powerful team design feature

Wageman's (2001) results identify outcome interdependence as one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful structural team design feature. Similarly, the quality of group processes was best predicted by a clear direction, group rewards, strategy norms, and task objectives, was highly predictive of team self-management

Loosely Coupled Systems

Weick (1976) used the term "loosely coupled systems" to convey the image that organizations can be conceived as holistic units that are collectively responsive, but that each element of the holistic system preserves its own unique identity, as well as its own physical and logical separateness.

Critiques of the Original Computer-Mediated Communication Literature

Wilson, Straus, and McEvily (2006) aptly pointed out that previous research on computer-mediated teams had largely relied on studies which only provided a snapshot of computer-mediated teams, ignoring how computer-mediated teams perform over longer periods of team when compared to face-to-face teams.

Cooperative Goal Interdependence, Transactive Memory and Team Performance

Zhang, Hempel, Han, and Tjosvold (2007) investigated the effect of cooperative goal interdependence on team performance, mediated by transactive memory system. Consistent with the findings reported by Alper et al. (1998, 2000) and Wageman (2001), Zhang et al. (2007) found a positive effect of cooperative goal interdependence on team performance. Interestingly, cooperative goal interdependence was strongly associated with transactive memory systems, exhibiting higher validities than the other two predictors included in the model (task interdependence and support for innovation).

Structural Adaptation Theory

movement in some structural directions is easier or more natural relative to movement in other directions (Beersma, et al. 2009)

Individual Differences Effects in Teams Depending on Task Allocation Structure

the relationship between team-level processes such as strategy formulation, coordination and conflict management were higher when horizontal interdependence was high relative to when teams were less tightly coupled. This finding coincides with the previously discussed study by Hollenbeck et al. (2002), who find that individual-level factors play a larger role in a divisional structure, whereas team-level factors play a larger role in more tightly coupled functional structures.

Self-Managing Leadership Behaviors and Team Structure

Cohen, Chang, and Ledford (1997) self-managing leadership behaviors exhibit very similar relationships with outcomes in both self-managing and traditional team structures. Hence, self-managing leadership behaviors are not only the result of team empowerment, but also of the degree to which team members feel that it is appropriate to self-manage. This can in turn be a function of cultural norms and values.

Team

Teams have been defined as "small groups of interdependent individuals who share responsibility for specific outcomes," Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005

Effects of Goal Interdependence on Job Satisfaction

Van der Vegt, Emans, Van de Vliert, 2001 When goal interdependence was low, task interdependence did not predict job satisfaction and team satisfaction, whereas high goal interdependence was associated with a positive relationship between task interdependence and job and team satisfaction. In other words, the combination of high task interdependence and high goal interdependence is associated with maximum levels of job and team satisfaction.