Chapter 11
Team s:
Characteristics
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Goals
 What is a team, and how are teams different than
groups?
 What are the five general team types, how are
those team types distinct from one another, and
what factors make it difficult to provide an exact
team classification?
 What are the three general types of team
interdependence?
 What factors are involved in team composition?
 How do team characteristics influence team
effectiveness?
 How can team compensation be used to manage
team effectiveness?
Slide
11-2
Team Characteristics
 Team
 Teams differ from groups in two primary
respects.
The interactions within teams revolve around
a deeper dependence on one another than
the interactions within groups.
Slide
11-3
Types of Teams
 Work teams
Purpose is to produce goods or provide
services, and they generally require a full-time
commitment from their members.
 Management teams
Responsible for coordinating the activities of
organizational subunits—typically
departments or functional areas—to help the
organization achieve its long-term goals.
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11-4
Types of Teams, Cont’d
 Parallel teams
 Project teams
 Action teams
Slide
11-5
Table 11-1
Types of Teams
Slide
11-6
Variations within Team Types
 Virtual teams
Slide
11-7
Time
Stages of Team Development
Forming
 Forming
Storming
 Storming
Norming
 Norming
Performing
 Performing
Slide
11-8
Punctuated Equilibrium
Adapted from Figure 11-2
 At the initial team meeting, members make
assumptions and establish a pattern of behavior
that lasts for the first half of its life.
Slide
11-9
Team Interdependence
 Task interdependence
 Pooled interdependence
Slide
11-10
Team Interdependence, Cont’d
 Sequential interdependence
Slide
11-11
Team Interdependence, Cont’d
 Reciprocal interdependence
Slide
11-12
Team Interdependence, Cont’d
 Comprehensive interdependence
Slide
11-13
Goal Interdependence
 A high degree of goal interdependence
exists when team members have a shared
vision of the team’s goal and align their
individual goals with that vision as a result.
Slide
11-14
Outcome Interdependence
 A high degree of outcome
interdependence exists when team
members share in the rewards that the
team earns.
Slide
11-15
Team Composition
 Team composition
 Role
Leader–staff teams
Team task roles
Team building roles
Individualistic roles
Slide
11-16
Table 11-3
Team and Individualistic Roles
Slide
11-17
Table 11-3
Team and Individualistic Roles,
Cont’d
Slide
11-18
Team Composition, Cont’d
 Member ability
Disjunctive tasks
Conjunctive tasks
Additive tasks
Slide
11-19
Discussion Questions
 Do you think student teams function best
in an additive, disjunctive, or conjunctive
manner?
 What are the advantages and
disadvantages of each structure?
Slide
11-20
Team Composition, Cont’d
 Member personality
Agreeable
Extraverted
Slide
11-21
Team Composition, Cont’d
 Team diversity
Value in diversity problem-solving approach
Similarity-attraction approach
Surface-level diversity
Deep-level diversity
Slide
11-22
Team Composition, Cont’d
 Team Size
Having a greater number of members is
beneficial for management and project teams
but not for teams engaged in production
tasks.
Research concluded that team members tend
to be most satisfied with their team when the
number of members is between 4 and 5.
 OB on Screen
Ocean’s Eleven
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11-23
Figure 11-4
Five Aspects of Team Composition
Slide
11-24
Figure 11-5
What
Characteristics
Can Be Used
to Describe
Teams?
Slide
11-25
How Important Are Team
Characteristics?
 One aspect of team effectiveness is team
performance.
 A second aspect of team effectiveness is team
viability.
 The relationship between task interdependence
and team performance is moderately positive.
 The relationship between task interdependence
and team commitment is weaker.
Slide
11-26
Figure 11-6
Effects of Task Interdependence on
Performance and Commitment
Slide
11-27
Team Compensation
 Outcome interdependence has obvious
connections to compensation practices in
organizations.
 High outcome interdependence promotes
higher levels of cooperation — if the team
wins, everyone wins, and if the team fails,
everyone fails.
Design team reward structures with hybrid
outcome interdependence.
Slide
11-28
Takeaways
 Teams are comprised of two or more people who work
interdependently over some time period to accomplish
common goals related to some task-oriented purpose.
Teams are more interdependent and task focused than
groups.
 There are several different types of teams—work teams,
management teams, parallel teams, project teams, and
parallel teams—but many teams in organizations have
characteristics that fit in multiple categories and differ
from one another in other ways.
 Teams can be interdependent in terms of the team task,
goals, and outcomes. Each type of interdependence has
important implications for team functioning and
effectiveness.
Slide
11-29
Takeaways, Cont’d
 Team composition refers to the characteristics of the
members who work in the team. These characteristics
include roles, ability, and personality, as well as the
number of team members.
 Depending on the team’s task, it may be important to
consider the average ability of the members, the ability of
the most able, or the ability of the least able.
 The effect of diversity on the team depends on time and
whether the diversity is surface-level or deep-level. The
effects of surface-level diversity tend to diminish with
time, whereas the effects of deep-level diversity tend to
increase over time.
Slide
11-30
Takeaways, Cont’d
 Task interdependence has a moderate positive
relationship with team performance and a weak
relationship with team commitment.
 Outcome interdependence has important effects
on teams, which can be managed with
compensation practices that take team
performance into account.
Slide
11-31