The relationship between communication and team performance : testing moderators and identifying communication profiles in established work teams

Communication is one team process factor that has received considerable research attention in the team literature. This literature provides equivocal evidence regarding the role of communication in team performance and yet, does not provide any evidence for when communication becomes important for team performance. This research program sought to address this evidence gap by a) testing task complexity and team member diversity (race diversity, gender diversity and work value diversity) as moderators of the team communication — performance relationship; and b) testing a team communication — performance model using established teams across two different task types. The functional perspective was used as the theoretical framework for operationalizing team communication activity. The research program utilised a quasi-experimental research design with participants from a large multi-national information technology company whose Head Office was based in Sydney, Australia. Participants voluntarily completed two team building exercises (a decision making and production task), and completed two online questionnaires. In total, data were collected from 1039 individuals who constituted 203 work teams. Analysis of the data revealed a small number of significant moderation effects, not all in the expected direction. However, an interesting and unexpected finding also emerged from Study One. Large and significant correlations between communication activity ratings were found across tasks, but not within tasks. This finding suggested that teams were displaying very similar profiles of communication on each task, despite the tasks having different communication requirements. Given this finding, Study Two sought to a) determine the relative importance of task versus team effects in explaining variance in team communication measures for established teams; b) determine if established teams had reliable and discernable team communication profiles and if so, c) investigate whether team communication profiles related to task performance. Multi-level modeling and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that task type did not have an effect on team communication ratings. However, teams accounted for 24% of the total variance in communication measures. Through cluster analysis, five reliable and distinct team communication profiles were identified. Consistent with the findings of the multi-level analysis and repeated measures ANOVA, teams’ profiles were virtually identical across the decision making and production tasks. A relationship between communication profile and performance was identified for the production task, although not for the decision making task. This research responds to calls in the literature for a better understanding of when communication becomes important for team performance. The moderators tested in this research were not found to have a substantive or reliable effect on the relationship between communication and performance. However, the consistency in team communication activity suggests that established teams can be characterized by their communication profiles and further, that these communication profiles may have implications for team performance. The findings of this research provide theoretical support for the functional perspective in terms of the communication – performance relationship and further support the team development literature as an explanation for the stability in team communication profiles. This research can also assist organizations to better understand the specific types of communication activity and profiles of communication that could offer teams a performance advantage.

Intergroup processes in intragroup contexts: The roles of group status, group identification and communication in diverse work teams

The present research examines employee identification and communication in organisations. In Study 1, 2229 soldiers from a military organisation completed measures of perceived status and strength of identification with their unit, employment category and their brigade. As predicted, the status of a key organisational group influenced reactions to different organisational groups: full-time soldiers evaluated their work unit and the organisation as being lower in status and identified less strongly with both of these groups than part-time soldiers. The second study extended these findings to a different research context: a large psychiatric hospital undergoing downsizing and restructuring. Surprisingly, there were no differences in survivors' and victims' levels of identification with organisational groups. Instead, and consistent with Study 1, there was evidence to suggest that employees adjusted their patterns of identification and perceptions of group status through a compensatory mechanism that maximised opportunities for selfenhancement and positive distinctiveness. In the third study, employees from a public hospital (N = 142) rated communication from double ingroup members (same work unit/same occupational group) more favourably than communication from partial group members (same work unit/different occupational group). These results are considered in terms of their practical implications for identity management in organisations.

The impact of social presence on team performance in social networking platforms

Next to the extensive use of social networking platforms (SNPs) for communication and relationship building with friends and relatives, SNPs are also increasingly used for enhancing collaboration at work. SNP usage at the workplace is fundamentally different and it is unclear how SNPs can improve collaboration as well as in what way their designs should be modified and adapted to collaboration settings. This research identifies specific SNP functions that enhance social presence as particularly beneficial for collaboration. Consequently, two designs of SNPs, one with high social presence and one with low social presence, are outlined and its impacts on collaboration are discussed. A framework is constructed that illustrates how social presence in SNPs can improve team performance through enhancing transactive memory within teams (intra-group collaboration) and relational capital across teams (inter-group collaboration). In addition, it is outlined how this framework could be evaluated in an experimental setting of teams working on a complex group task.

Team performance according to ball possession characteristics : a social networks approach

Over the last few years, football entered in a period of accelerated access to large amount of match analysis data. Social networks have been adopted to reveal the structure and organization of the web of interactions, such as the players passing distribution tendencies. In this study we investigated the influence of ball possession characteristics in the competitive success of Spanish La Liga teams. The sample was composed by OPTA passing distribution raw data (n=269,055 passes) obtained from 380 matches involving all the 20 teams of the 2012/2013 season. Then, we generated 760 adjacency matrixes and their corresponding social networks using Node XL software. For each network we calculated three team performance measures to evaluate ball possession tendencies: graph density, average clustering and passing intensity. Three levels of competitive success were determined using two-step cluster analysis based on two input variables: the total points scored by each team and the scored per conceded goals ratio. Our analyses revealed significant differences between competitive performances on all the three team performance measures (p < .001). Bottom-ranked teams had less number of connected players (graph density) and triangulations (average clustering) than intermediate and top-ranked teams. However, all the three clusters diverged in terms of passing intensity, with top-ranked teams having higher number of passes per possession time, than intermediate and bottom-ranked teams. Finally, similarities and dissimilarities in team signatures of play between the 20 teams were displayed using Cohen’s effect size. In sum, findings suggest the competitive performance was influenced by the density and connectivity of the teams, mainly due to the way teams use their possession time to give intensity to their game.

Examining communication and team performance during clinical handover in a complex environment : the private sector post-anaesthetic care unit

* Threats to patient safety during clinical handover have been identified as an ongoing problem in health care delivery.

* In complex handover situations, organisational, cultural, behavioural and environmental factors associated with team performance can affect patient safety by undermining the stability of team functioning and the effectiveness of interprofessional communication.

* We present a practical framework for promoting systematic, comprehensive measurement of the factors involved in clinical handover.

* The framework can be used to develop viable solutions to the problems of clinical handover.

* The framework was devised and used in a recent project examining interprofessional communication and team performance during clinical handover in post-anaesthetic care units.

* The framework combines five key concepts: clinical governance, clinician engagement, ecological validity, safety culture and team climate, and sustainability.

* We believe that use of this framework will help overcome the limitations of previous research that has not taken into account the complex and multifaceted influences on clinical handover and interprofessional communication.

Job-related diversity and team performance: An empirical analysis of the US music industry

A significant amount of research has been carried out to investigate the existing bonds between team characteristics and team outcomes in contexts of social creativity. Specifically, how work group diversity affects its performance is of great relevance but unfortunately, there is no clear understanding of the diversity-performance relationship. Therefore, to improve our understanding of this phenomenon, it would be worthwhile to investigate further empirical settings. For this reason, we decided to study the music industry that, to our knowledge, has never been chosen as empirical setting for the application of the theoretical constructs linked to the topic of team diversity and performance. Our research aims at analyze the US music industry to study the relationship between job-related characteristics of team diversity and team performances.

The effects of the outdoor experiential ropes course on perceived team performance

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to explore the perceived effects of the Ropes Course on the performance of intact work teams. The dependent variable, team performance, was measured by the Team Performance Assessment, a 20 question inventory. The Ropes Course, the independent variable, was an outdoor experiential training program presently marketed as a highly effective team building training program. Issues the team addressed in the highly emotional and physical environment were purported to transfer back to the work environment and act as a catalyst for change The Ropes Course in this study consisted of a day long series of outdoor mental, emotional and physical exercises addressing the issues of goal-setting, role expectations, accountability, trust, respect, communication, problem-solving and decision-making. The 68 subjects, 37 in the treatment group and 31 in the control were employees of a large international financial institution. They were not chosen by random selection. The work teams' managers recognized a need to improve team morale, performance and functioning due to corporate reengineering and downsizing resulting in team members' job losses. Control teams were partially matched to the treatment teams on the basis of professional composition and similar job descriptions. The pretest of the Team Performance Assessment was given the morning of the Ropes Course treatment and the posttest was given three to five weeks later. The control teams received the pretests and posttests at about the same time intervals at their work location but received no Ropes Course treatment. The treatment teams' scores and the control teams' scores were statistically compared using the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and the Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) at the .05 level of significance. The statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between the control and experimental teams after the team building Ropes Course training as measured by the Team Performance Assessment (Gilbert, 1996). ^

Computational studies to understand the role of social learning in team familiarity and its effects on team performance

This paper concerns social learning modes and their effects on team performance. Social learning, such as by observing others' actions and their outcomes, allows members of a team to learn what other members know. Knowing what other members know can reduce task communication and co-ordination overhead, which helps the team to perform faster since members can devote their attention to their tasks. This paper describes agent-based simulation studies using a computational model that implements different social learning modes as parameters that can be controlled in the simulations. The results show that social learning from both direct and indirect observations positively contributes to learning about what others know, but the value of social learning is sensitive to prior familiarity such that minimum thresholds of team familiarity are needed to realise the benefits of social learning. This threshold increases with task complexity. These findings clarify the level of influence that sociality has on social learning and sets up a formal framework by which to conduct studies on how social context influences learning and group performance.

Everyday communication and identity work of Chinese students in Australia

 Chinese cultural patterns have heavily influenced Chinese students’ everyday communication and identity work in Australia. The process of their becoming identity is represented in everyday communication. All those changes in their everyday communication trigger their identity work. Their identity work is an intense and ongoing project; its influences are unfinalisable.

Performance profiles of football teams in the UEFA Champions League considering situational efficiency

Performance of football teams varies constantly due to the dynamic nature of this sport, whilst the typical performance and its spread can be represented by profiles combining different performance-related variables based on data from multiple matches. The current study aims to use a profiling technique to evaluate and compare match performance of football teams in the UEFA Champions League incorporating three situational variables (i.e. strength of team and opponent, match outcome and match location). Match statistics of 72 teams, 496 games across four seasons (2008-09 to 2012-13) of this competition were analysed. Sixteen performance-related events were included: shots, shots on target, shots from open play, shots from set piece, shots from counter attack, passes, pass accuracy (%), crosses, through balls, corners, dribbles, possession, aerial success (%), fouls, tackles, and yellow cards. Teams were classified into three levels of strength by a k-cluster analysis. Profiles of overall performance and profiles incorporating three situational variables for teams of all three levels of strength were set up by presenting the mean, standard deviation, median, lower and upper quartiles of the counts of each event to represent their typical performances and spreads. Means were compared by using one-way ANOVA and independent sample t test (for match location, home and away differences), and were plotted into the same radar charts after unifying all the event counts by standardised score. Established profiles can present straightforwardly typical performances of football teams of different levels playing in different situations, which could provide detailed references for coaches and analysts to evaluate performances of upcoming opposition and of their own.

Questioning the merits and demerits of electronic communication in Social Work

This paper examines the social dynamics of electronic exchanges in the human services, particularly in social work. It focuses on the observable effects that email and texting have on the linguistic, relational and clinical rather than managerial aspects of the profession. It highlights how electronic communication is affecting professionals in their practice and learners as they become acculturated to social work. What are the gains and losses of the broad use of electronic devices in daily lay and professional, verbal and non-verbal communication? Will our current situation be seriously detrimental to the demeanor of future practitioners, their use of language, and their ability to establish close personal relationships? The paper analyzes social work linguistic and behavioral changes in light of the growth of electronic communication and offers a summary of merits and demerits viewed through a prism emerging from Baron’s (2000) analysis of human communication.

The link between self-managed work teams and learning organisations using performance indicators

Both the learning organization literature and the self-managed work team literature have alluded to the potential links between teamwork and learning. However, as yet the link between these two concepts remains undeveloped. This study uses a survey of a random sample of 200 Australian organizations to empirically examine the relationships between self-managed work teams and the learning organization using performance indicators as a medium. It was found that the learning organization concept displays a moderate to strong link with three measures of performance used in this study: knowledge performance, financial performance and customer satisfaction. Although the self-managed work team concept did not display any significant relationship with performance, the qualitative component of the survey did emphasize that there is a common belief that self-managed teams can increase performance in the right setting. While an insignificant relationship between self-managed teams and the learning organization was also found, this study suggests some methodological concerns for future research into the relationship between self-managed teams and the learning organization.

Efficient team actions: Outline of a theory of teams in sport

So far, social psychology in sport has preliminary focused on team cohesion, and many studies and meta analyses tried to demonstrate a relation between cohesiveness of a team and it's performance. How a team really co-operates and how the individual actions are integrated towards a team action is a question that has received relatively little attention in research. This may, at least in part, be due to a lack of a theoretical framework for collective actions, a dearth that has only recently begun to challenge sport psychologists. In this presentation a framework for a comprehensive theory of teams in sport is outlined and its potential to integrate the following presentations is put up for discussion. Based on a model developed by von Cranach, Ochsenbein and Valach (1986), teams are information processing organisms, and team actions need to be investigated on two levels: the individual team member and the group as an entity. Elements to be considered are the task, the social structure, the information processing structure and the execution structure. Obviously, different task require different social structures, communication and co-ordination. From a cognitivist point of view, internal representations (or mental models) guide the behaviour mainly in situations requiring quick reactions and adaptations, were deliberate or contingency planning are difficult. In sport teams, the collective representation contains the elements of the team situation, that is team task and team members, and of the team processes, that is communication and co-operation. Different meta-perspectives may be distinguished and bear a potential to explain the actions of efficient teams. Cranach, M. von, Ochsenbein, G., & Valach, L. (1986).The group as a self-active system: Outline of a theory of group action. European Journal of Social Psychology, 16, 193-229.

Communication and behavior in high reliability organizations: An Analysis of Communication in Civil Aviation

Communication can be seen as one of the most important features to manage conflicts and the stress of the work teams that operate in environments with strong pressure, complex operations and continuous risk, which are aspects that characterize a high reliability organization. This article aims to highlight the importance of communication in high-reliability organizations, having as object of study the accidents and incidents in civil aviation area. It refers to a qualitative research, outlined by documental analysis based on investigations conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Center of Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents. The results point out that human errors account for 60 to 80 percent of accidents and incidents. Most of these occurrences are attributed to miscommunication between the professionals involved with the air and ground operation, such as pilots, crewmembers and maintenance staff, and flight controllers. Inappropriate tone of voice usage, difficulties to understand different accents between the issuer and the receiver or even difficulty to perceive red flags between the lines of verbal and non-verbal communication, are elements that contribute to the fata of understanding between people involved in the operation. As a research limitation this present research pointed out a lack of a special category of "interpersonal communications failures" in the official agency reports. So, the researchers must take the conceptual definition of "social ability", communication implied, to classify behaviors and communication matters accordingly. Other research finding indicates that communication is superficially approached in the contents of air operations courses what could mitigate the lack of communications skills as a social ability. Part of the research findings refers to the contents of communication skills development into the program to train professional involved in air flight and ground operations. So, it is expected that this present article gives an appropriate highlight towards the improvement of flight operations training programs. Developing communication skills among work teams in high reliability organizations can contribute to mitigate stress, accidents and incidents in Civil Aviation Field. The original contribution of this article is the proposal of the main contents that should be developed in a Communication Skills Training Program, specially addressed to Civil Aviation operations.

Assessing performance and capability in the work place : focusing on essential skills and knowledge in student work placements

The determination of performance standards and assessment practices in regard to student work placements is an essential and important task. Inappropriate, inadequate, or excessively complex assessment tasks can influence levels of student engagement and the quality of learning outcomes. Critical to determining appropriate standards and assessment tasks is an understanding and knowledge of key elements of the learning environment and the extent to which opportunities are provided for students to engage in critical reflection and judgement of their own performance in the contexts of the work environment. This paper focuses on the development of essential skills and knowledge (capabilities) that provide evidence of learning in work placements by describing an approach taken in the science and technology disciplines. Assessment matrices are presented to illustrate a method of assessment for use within the context of the learning environment centred on work placements in science and technology. This study contributes to the debate on the meaning of professional capability, performance standards and assessment practices in work placement programs by providing evidence of an approach that can be adapted by other programs to achieve similar benefits. The approach may also be valuable to other learning contexts where capability and performance are being judged in situations that are outside a controlled teaching and learning environment i.e. in other life-wide learning contexts.