by Timothy Koschmann
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.
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