Inlection points and team cognition: Moments of truth for shared and unshared information exchange
by Jay Cone
This essay focuses on two broad areas of work team research: team cognition and team decision-making. Of central... more This essay focuses on two broad areas of work team research: team cognition and team decision-making. Of central concern to both research topics is how team information is processed and how members share information. I draw on themes from the team cognition and team decision-making literature to support a claim that team interactions are punctuated by moments of truth during which unique, relevant, and as yet unshared information may-or-may not become available to the group. I will define these moments in team information processing as inflection points and provide a conceptual framework for the construct. The essay concludes with a hypothesis that inflection points are a perceptible group-level phenomenon related to team effectiveness, setting the stage for a research program dedicated to substantiating the meaning and efficacy of the construct.
Download (.doc) Corporate Team Building Events
by Nathan Lee
There are many techniques, theory and methods for creating the perfect team building events. In this article I will be... more There are many techniques, theory and methods for creating the perfect team building events. In this article I will be going through some of them, evaluating the effectiveness of each.
Category work and knowledgeability within multidisciplinary team meetings
Citation Information. Text - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse. Volume 20, Issue 1, Pages 83–108, ISSN (Online) 1613-4117, ISSN (Print) 0165-4888, DOI: 10.1515/text.1.2000.20.1.83, //2000
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the display of categories within team members' talk in terms of... more
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the display of categories within team members' talk in terms of `know-how', `knowledge' and `expertise'. The paper adopts a methodological approach that draws from both Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis. The theorised relationship between multidisciplinarinity and team practice is respecified through the detailed examination of team members’ talk and category display within the meeting talk of a multidisciplinary team. The notion that different members act as filters for external discourses of distinct knowledge within team interaction is contrasted with analyses that illustrate the situated character of knowledge in team talk. Consequently, the notion of knowledge as a structurally organised phenomenon is contrasted with analyses that document, describe and illustrate the local, methodical and interactive accomplishment of knowledge in situ. Furthermore, this paper shows that knowledge, as an emergent and occasioned product of team interaction, is realised through both category and sequence in team members’ talk.
Key words:- Category, predicate, device, turn taking, adjacency, recipient design, recognisability, category display, knowledgeability.
Team cognition and the accountabilities of the tool pass
Co-authored with G. Dunnington, & M. Kim. In E. Salas, S. Fiore & M. Letsky (Eds.), Theories of team cognition: Cross-disciplinary perspectives (pp. 405-420). New York: Routledge (2012).
The volume within which this chapter appears addresses a larger agenda, one intended to eventually lead to a ‘science... more The volume within which this chapter appears addresses a larger agenda, one intended to eventually lead to a ‘science of teams’. This would require establishing an agreed upon theoretical vocabulary and set of measurement methods. Taken for granted within this larger enterprise is a shared allegiance to a way of conducting research that entails: [1] formulating an abstract model of what counts as the phenomenon of interest, [2] constructing operational means of measurement, and [3] using these measures to test hypotheses about how the matter, so construed, might be done better. The disciplines currently participating in the conversation on teamwork (i.e., cognitive and social psychology, management science, communication studies) all have a strong psychological orientation. However, as we expand the circle of participation wider and reach out to other disciplines, some controversies begin to emerge. It becomes apparent that this strategy of beginning from a base of theoretical constructions is not one that is universally embraced across the human sciences. Indeed, some social scientists reject this kind of approach categorically and on principle. We will examine one critique of formal theorizing in the social sciences and point out its relevance to the task of constructing a science of teams. We offer a sample of an alternative form of analysis and suggest a framework for what might be termed a ‘hybrid’ approach to studying teams.
Healthcare Team Performance In Time Critical Environments: Coordinating Events, Foraging, and System Processes
published in 'Journal of Healthcare Engineering', Vol. 1, No. 2, 2010
This review paper addresses issues in how healthcare providers search, obtain, and share resources in provider teams.... more This review paper addresses issues in how healthcare providers search, obtain, and share resources in provider teams. Based in part on a System of Systems (SoS) analysis of provider coordination and resource flows, this paper expands the concepts of resource foraging theory and event dynamics to develop systematic methods for studying healthcare provider coordination. Process flow and human factors emphases from industrial engineering are used to address critical concerns of single-scale and multi-scale performance in healthcare delivery settings. Provider strategies for acquiring the information and resources needed for successful healthcare delivery are dependent on interactions between task requirements, time constraints, and provider coordination processes, as well as limitations of information and resource flow capabilities. These improved definitions and measures will enhance engineers' ability to contribute to improved patient care timeliness, effectiveness, quality, and safety.
A Complex Systems Theory and Model of Distributed Team Working
by Peter Bond
This is a revised version of a chapter that appears in Kathy Milhauser's (Ed) book entitled Distributed Team Collaboration in Organizations.
Emerging tools and practices. Published by IGI Global, Hershey PA in April 2011.
Confidence in distributed or virtual team working is running high. However, some concern is evident that practice is... more Confidence in distributed or virtual team working is running high. However, some concern is evident that practice is leaping ahead of theories to guide its implementation. There are calls for new and improved theories to specifically embrace distributed team working. This chapter is a response to such calls offering a complex systems based model of organization development originally designed to improve performance of the management of technology and innovation, but which also underpins a methodology of community of practice and team development known as the KALiF System. The theory and model described here is mainly a synthesis of established team and community of practice theory, Dunbar’s Social Brain Hypothesis, and elements of complexity science based on the work of the biologists and systems thinkers Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela and also Stuart Kaufmann on attenuated supracritical systems.
Mark Neal, (2010) "When Arab-expatriate relations work well: Diversity and discourse in the Gulf Arab workplace", Team Performance Management, Vol. 16 Iss: 5/6, pp.242 - 266
by Mark Neal
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to document and analyze the case of a public sector organization in the Gulf... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to document and analyze the case of a public sector organization in the Gulf region, in which Arab-expatriate relations worked well and sustained a positive and high-performing organizational climate.
Design/methodology/approach – The research employed an embedded ethnographic approach to produce a case analysis of expatriate-local work relations.
Findings – The study found that although there may be multiple sources of difference and potential conflict between Arab locals and expatriates in the workplace, there are circumstances where the effects of such divisions are neutralized, and a positive work environment is sustained. The paper identifies the key sources of division, and social cohesion, and shows how – in this case – these factors interacted so that the negative impact of cultural difference was neutralized, and good working relations were achieved.
Originality/value – The paper is new in two respects. It is the first ethnographic study of Arab-expatriate work relations in a public sector organization in Oman. It is also the first paper to identify, and distinguish between, the factors emphasizing alterity between Arab and expatriate workers, and those encouraging social cohesion.
