Reviewing Work Team Design Characteristics Across Industries: Combining Meta-Analysis and Comprehensive Synthesis

Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive synthesis and quantitative review of studies examining relationships between team design characteristics and team performance. Across 398 primary studies, the present study meta-analytically investigated the effects of team composition, team task design, and team leadership characteristics on team performance. The study further investigates how the effects of these team design characteristics differ according to the industry context within which the team is embedded (high technology, manufacturing, service, or student). Overall, this review emphasizes the importance of continued inquiries focusing on team design while also discussing the implications of this review for theory, practice, and future research.

When does gender diversity enhance team performance? The dual need for visionary leadership and team tenure

“…In order to measure team tenure, participants responded to the following prompt: “How long have you been working in this team?” Team average tenure was calculated by taking the average response of member's tenure on each team. This type of aggregation method for team tenure is in line with previous research (Carter et al, 2019).…”

“…Now we turn to team tenure, or the amount of time teams have spent working together. Prior research suggests that team tenure has important implications for team performance (Carter, Mead, Stewart, Nielsen, & Solimeo, 2019; Smith et al., 1994). We posit that gender‐diverse teams led by a leader high in vision communication should benefit more from the gender‐diverse composition of their team when they have more time working together; this will occur because teams will better recognize one another's expertise and will thus have enhanced information elaboration.…”

Interactive Effects of Team Virtuality and Work Design on Team Functioning

“…Empirically, too, evidence concerning the link between team virtuality and team performance is not so positive. Indeed, meta-analytic research has reported only very modest (i.e., close to zero) relationships between team virtuality and team performance (Carter, Mead, Stewart, Nielsen, & Solimeo, 2018), with a large heterogeneity in the observed associations between team virtuality and team performance across industries (Carter et al, 2018), research designs (Ortiz de Guinea, Webster, & Staples, 2012), and team types (e.g., student vs. organizational samples, short-term vs. long-term teams; Gibbs, Sivunen, & Boyraz, 2017). Altogether, research in this area has shown that team virtuality has positive, negative, and sometimes no effect on team performance (e.g., Gilson et al, 2015; Webster & Sandy Staples, 2006); these mixed results suggest that various factors potentially moderate (i.e., increase, decrease, or even reverse) the relationship between team virtuality and performance.…”

Veränderungspotenziale durch die Digitalisierung der gewerkübergreifenden Kooperation von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen im Baugewerbe in Richtung Building Information Modeling (BIM) – Eine Fallanalyse

“…Teamautonomie. Die Teamautonomie beschreibt das Ausmaß, in dem ein Team als Ganzes die Freiheit hat, seine Aufgaben und Vorgehensweisen zu bestimmen (Carter et al 2018). Sie kann anhand der Koordinationsstruktur beurteilt werden (Kim et al 2002): Für eine niedrige Autonomie steht eine sequenzielle Koordinationsstruktur, die sich auf ein schrittweises Vorgehen bezieht, das keine Abweichung von einer system-definierten, linearen Interaktionsprozedur zulässt.…”

“…Feedback bezieht sich auf Informationen, die dem Team zur Leistungssteigerung dienen sollen, und können von der Aufgabe oder von Personen (z. B. Teamleiterinnen und -leitern) stammen (Carter et al 2018;Geister et al 2006). Unterschieden werden kann zwischen Ergebnisfeedback, das Informationen zur Aufgabenperformanz beinhaltet, und Prozessfeedback, das sich auf den Prozess der Aufgabenumsetzung bezieht (Earley et al 1990).…”