Essay About Work Team Characteristics And Present Studythe Focus Of The Present Study

Campion Et. Al. : Relation Between Work Team Characteristics and Effectiveness: A Replication and Extension
Relation between work team characteristics and effectiveness: A replication and extensionCampion et al. (1996)IntroductionThis paper is a follow-up on earlier research that showed that team characteristics can positively influence effectiveness. This study uses a broader approach with different criteria and more complex jobs.Prior research[pic 1]Figure 1. Themes and characteristics related to work team effectivenessIn prior research the framework in figure 1 was validated. The characteristics that are mentioned left are the key to effectiveness criteria on the right. Present studyThe focus of the present study is to generalize this framework on a new sample. The sample differs in the kind of job, the previous study was extended with different effectiveness criteria and the work units varied in the degree to which the members identified their unit as a single team. MethodSampleThe sample groups in the present study consist of more knowledge jobs, such as programmers etc.  Some look like traditional work groups, while other are highly developed teams. Measurement overviewThree objectives guided measurement in the study. They used multiple operationalism (data was collected from different sources, e.g. managers and employees), secondly they used methodological separation (e.g. different data sources or time frames), and finally they used the group as level of analysis (measure macro perceptions in the group, by having the measures to the level of the group and by analysing the interrater reliability and agreement before aggregating).Measure of work team design characteristicsThe questionnaire used in prior study was used again, but with some slight modifications. These modifications are not noteworthy.[pic 2]Figure 2. Measure of work team design characteristicsMeasure of single-team identitySingle-team identity was measured with single-team membership (how much teams does the employee/manager work in), team member permanence and single team functioning (how close is the group working with each other?).Measures of work team effectivenessSix measures were collected to measure the work team effectiveness:Employee satisfaction. Employee judgements of effectiveness. Manager judgements at time 1.Manager judgements at time 2.Other managers’ judgement at time 2. (perspective from someone outside the project)Performance appraisals. ResultsMany positive relationships were found in the statistics e.g. teams with members who only belonged to one team, and teams with permanent members, tend to be more flexible and smaller in relative size. Those teams tend to less interdependence because they can easier divide the workload.