Shared Team Experiences and Team Effectiveness: Unpacking the Contingent Effects of Entrained Rhythms and Task Characteristics

Abstract

This study explores the conditions under which shared team task-specific (STTS) experiences in crew-based arrangements may negatively influence team effectiveness. We suggest that the entrained rhythms featured in social entrainment theory act as a dual-edged sword with the potential to generate complacency detriments in addition to the commonly cited synchronization benefits. We argue that the manifestation and influence of the countervailing forces (i.e., synchronization and complacency) on the STTS experience-team effectiveness relationship will depend on salient task characteristics (i.e., frequency and difficulty). More specifically, frequently performed tasks create conditions for complacency to manifest (generating an inverted-U shaped relationship between STTS experience-team efficiency), whereas infrequently performed tasks do not (generating a positive, linear relationship). We further this distinction by layering on task difficulty that, we posit, acts to amplify the respective negative and positive consequences. Analyses of archival data from 8,236 surgeries performed over one year at a large hospital located in the southwestern region of the United States were consistent with our hypotheses and 30 semi-structured interviews with operating room personnel added richness and precision to our theory. Ancillary analyses on patient post-surgery recovery rate yielded additional insights. Implications and future directions are discussed.

A Strategic Core Role Perspective on Team Coordination: Benefits of Centralized Leadership for Managing Task Complexity in the Operating Room

“…More difficult tasks require teams to use more complex interactions and sequencing of skills and knowledge (Wood, 1986). Few studies have examined effects of surgical difficulty on goal attainment in medical settings (e.g., Xiao et al, 1996;Xiao & Mackenzie, 1998), while others examined effects of task difficulty on team performance (e.g., Luciano, Bartels, D'Innocenzo, Maynard, & Mathieu, 2018;Vashdi, Bamberger, & Erez, 2013). Unexpected events have been studied more frequently, providing evidence that distractions, interruptions and complications during surgery harm team performance (Goodell, Cao, & Schwaitzberg, 2006;Healey, Primus, & Koutantji, 2007;Healey, Sevdalis, & Vincent, 2006a;Kurmann et al, 2012).…”

“…More difficult tasks require teams to use more complex interactions and sequencing of skills and knowledge (Wood, 1986). Few studies have examined effects of surgical difficulty on goal attainment in medical settings (e.g., Xiao et al, 1996; Xiao & Mackenzie, 1998), while others examined effects of task difficulty on team performance (e.g., Luciano et al, 2018; Vashdi et al, 2013).…”

Interaction between task characteristics and technology affordances

“…Prior studies have shown that tasks could be described using general characteristics that may facilitate comparisons. These include characteristics such as task routineness, task autonomy, task difficulty, task variety, task interdependence, task equivocality and task significance (Luciano et al, 2018;Parkes, 2017;Kao, 2017;Haerem et al, 2015;Elaheh et al, 2016;Goodhue and Thompson, 1995).…”

Extemporaneous Coordination in Specialist Teams: The Familiarity Complementarity

“…Functional familiarity, however, can clearly be a double-edged sword. Having a similar functional background may facilitate mutual understanding and communication between teammates, given their shared understanding of how one should behave under different contextual conditions of the work environment (Luciano et al 2018). However, ceteris paribus, functional familiarity implies redundancy, which means teams of a fixed size must sacrifice breadth of knowledge in return for functional familiarity.…”