No abstract

Although teams are considered to be the building blocks of modern organizational designs and numerous theoretical models, and narrative and meta-analytic reviews of the literature exist, there is a lack of coherence, integration, and understanding of how team composition effects relate to important team outcomes. Accordingly we have five primary goals for this article. First, we categorize team composition models into four types and highlight theory and research associated with each one. Second, we offer an integrative framework that represents members’ attributes as simultaneously contributing variance to each of the four model types. Third, we overlay temporal considerations that suggest different team compositional mixes will be more or less salient at different periods of performance episodes or stages of team development. Fourth, we integrate membership dynamics into our model. And fifth, we advance an integrative optimization algorithm that incorporates implications from all for the four previous approaches, as well as temporal dynamics and membership change. In so doing, we provide a synthesis of previous work and theories and outline a research agenda for both research and practice.

We review and synthesize previous team research and suggest that individuals' previous experiences and orientations combine to yield predispositions to occupy six different team roles, which we refer to as Team Role Experience and Orientation (TREO) dimensions. We report the development of a survey measure of TREO dimensions and establish its content validity using a sample of subject matter experts' item classifications. Furthermore, we provide evidence that TREO dimensions are distinguishable from, but related to, measures of the "Big 5" personality constructs. We also illustrate the temporal stability of the measures. Moreover, we test the predictive validity of TREO scores as related to peer ratings of members' behaviors during team activities. We discuss future theoretical and research implications of TREO dimensions, and potential future applications of the measure.

No abstract

Teams have become strategic features in organizations. Research and practice suggest team effectiveness is driven considerably by the mix of team member attributes. Given the impact a team's composition has on its objectives, private industry and military leaders place a premium on making optimal team staffing decisions. Nonetheless, the challenges associated with achieving optimal team composition are significant and indicate a need for a tool/system to help commanders optimize personnel allocation. Accordingly, this report lays the foundation for a system that incorporates the elements required to help leaders optimize team composition. For our first task, leaders with extensive team staffing experience were interviewed to uncover the implicit decision models used by team staffing experts. Supplementing extant research, the interviews contributed to our second task: the development of a team composition decision taxonomy. The taxonomy defines and organizes elements of the team staffing decision domain. The interviews and taxonomy culminated in the development of a generic, customizable team composition optimization algorithm that models team composition-effectiveness relationships. Finally, we designed a framework/methodology for a Team Optimal Profiling System (TOPS) and demonstrated its use for making an optimal team composition decision.