A validation study of Belbin's team roles

Abstract

The Belbin team role preferences of the members of 55 teams were assessed by three independent methods: (1) Cattell's 16PF (Form 5) personality questionnaire, (2) video observation of a business simulation exercise and subsequent analysis with a Belbin behavioural checklist, and (3) Saville and Holdsworth's Occupational Personality Questionnaire. The 338 participants were drawn in approximately equal measure from managerial and non-managerial levels from equal numbers of manufacturing and public service organizations. A multitrait- multimethod correlation matrix derived from the data collected from the participants was employed to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validities of the Belbin team roles. Application of the Campbell and Fiske criteria to the matrix did not produce clear support for discriminant validity. Application of a correlated uniqueness model in a confirmatory factor analysis showed the Belbin team role model to be overparameterized and to lack both convergent and discriminant validity. Further modelling revealed that the Belbin team roles fit easily into a "Big Five" five-factor personality framework

Emergent Team Roles in Organizational Meetings: Identifying Communication Patterns via Cluster Analysis

“…The effectiveness of a team then depends on the ability of its members to assess themselves and to adapt to the team. There have been efforts to validate Belbin's team role inventory (Fisher, Hunter, & Macrosson, 2001). Moreover, the notion that team role balance is beneficial for team performance has received some empirical support (Senior, 1997).…”

Team dynamics in virtual, partially distributed teams: Optimal role fulfillment

“…Belbin has stated that this is insufficient when used alone (Belbin, 2004). Lastly, there is the Belbin behavior checklist developed by Fisher et al (2001). This checklist has also been used by Davies and Kanaki (2006) to understand interpersonal characteristics associated with team roles.…”

“…These personality-based roles are clustered around action-oriented roles, people-oriented roles, and thinking/problem-solving-oriented roles. Interestingly, four of Belbin's eight roles seem to correspond to the NEO-PI-R five factors personality (Big 5) (Costa & McCrae, 1985, 1989, 1992: Resource Investigator with Extraversion, Plant with Openness, Team worker with Agreeableness, and Shaper with Neuroticism (Fisher, et al, 2001). Turel and Zhang (2010) found evidence that virtual team personality composition was important for team performance, and Cogliser et al (2012) found that personality-driven (particularly agreeableness) task-oriented leadership lead to higher team performance.…”

“…Raters began by reading through all passages written by one individual and then rated them for all of Belbin's roles using the role descriptions and the revised Belbin behavior checklist (Fisher et al, 2001). They then moved through each team member following the same process.…”

“…Similarly, task-oriented behavior on the part of the team, rather than any sort of team development behavior, was found to be particularly important by Jarvenpaa et al (1998) in a short-duration virtual task. Although attempts have been made to pair up Belbin's team roles with task and relationship roles, thus far, it has unfortunately proven to be an unacceptable model fit (Fisher, Hunter, & MacRosson, 2001). Thus, while we know that task-oriented behavior appears to be important, the form (the roles and behaviors) of team members remains open to investigation.…”