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Attitudes towards factors influencing team performance A multi-rater approach aimed at establishing the relative importance of team learning behaviors in comparison with other predictors of team performance

Factors influencing team performance 451 Received September 2009 Revised July 2010 Accepted August 2010

Chantal M.J.H. Savelsbergh School of Management, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands

Beatrice I.J.M. van der Heijden Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, University of Twente, Twente, The Netherlands, and Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands, and

Rob F. Poell Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish how teams view the relative importance of team learning behaviors in comparison with other predictors of team performance. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was administered to 30 team members, 19 team leaders, and 21 supervisors of 22 teams from eight Dutch organizations, Respondents were asked to indicate which criteria they applied to evaluate team performance, and which factors they deemed the most important ones in distinguishing between high and poorly performing teams. Findings – The most frequently applied criteria to measure team performance were satisfying quality requirements, reaching the target goals, and customer satisfaction. Respondents evaluated team leadership, goal clarity, and team learning behaviors as main factors influencing team performance. Attitudes of team members, team leaders, and supervisors differed in some respects. Research limitations/implications – The study uses a cross-sectional approach and a relatively small sample size. Further research using larger samples should focus on determining differences in subjective and objective performance ratings across tasks and across team types. Multi-wave designs can provide more specific information about the stability of the variables and their over-time relationships. Practical implications – This paper can help to raise awareness of differences in attitudes towards team performance criteria among team members, team leaders, and supervisors; as well as increase their ability to determine the value of factors contributing to team performance enhancement. Originality/value – The paper provides insights into the attitudes of team stakeholders towards team performance rating criteria and influencing factors. These can have substantial impact on intended and actual behaviors within the team. Keywords Team performance, Team learning, Performance criteria, The Netherlands, Employee attitudes Paper type Research paper

Team Performance Management Vol. 16 No. 7/8, 2010 pp. 451-474 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1352-7592 DOI 10.1108/13527591011090682

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The importance of high-quality teamwork for organizational success in today’s economy is emphasized by many professional as well as academic publications (e.g. Banker et al., 1996; Drucker, 2003; Glassop, 2002; Pfeffer, 1994; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006). A team can be defined as “a distinguishable set of two or more people who are “assigned specific roles or functions to perform dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively toward a common and valued goal/object/mission, who have each been assigned specific roles or functions to perform, and who have a limited life span of membership” (Salas et al., 1992, pp. 126-7). Compared to what individual employees can offer, the application of work teams is expected to result in greater adaptability, productivity, and creativity, and to provide more innovative and comprehensive solutions to complex organizational problems (see Beers, 2005). Empirical research, however, demonstrates that there is considerable variance in team performance (see, e.g. Hackman, 1987). An important question, therefore, is how this variation in team performance can be explained. The body of empirical research on variables influencing team performance is vast (Anderson and West, 1998; Edmondson, 1999; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006; Mathieu et al., 2008; Salas et al., 2004, 2007, 2008; Tannenbaum et al., 1996). Many researchers have demonstrated that the relationship between team performance and its influencing factors is a complex one, and have called for more empirical research to draw more reliable conclusions regarding its nature and strength. More specifically, some relationships between influencing factors and team performance appeared to be moderated by other variables, such as, diversity or task type (e.g. Schippers et al., 2003), or appeared to have a dynamic character (e.g. Zellmer-Bruhn and Gibson, 2006), therefore requiring longitudinal research. Although numerous team performance criteria have been applied in previous studies (Delarue et al., 2004), there is a lack of clarity about which performance criteria are applied most frequently in practice. Moreover, it is unclear whether different stakeholders actually involved in teamwork, such as team members, team leaders, and supervisors use different assessment criteria when evaluating team performance (see Poell and van der Krogt, 2003). Different stakeholders may assume different factors to influence team performance or rank order the impact of factors influencing team performance differently. Moreover, there is a tendency towards the use of multi-rater (or multi-source) performance ratings for appraisal (see Atwater et al., 2007; Cheung, 1999; Hoffman and Woehr, 2009; Waldman and Atwater, 1998). Multi-source assessment, also referred to as 360-degree appraisal or 360-degree feedback, refers to the process by which performance appraisals are collected from different sources, for instance, from team members, team leaders, and supervisors, instead of relying on appraisals from a single source (Atwater and Brett, 2005; Dunnette, 1993; London and Smither, 1995; Smither et al., 2005; Tornow, 1993). The rationale behind this is that different evaluation perspectives offer unique and valuable information, and thus add validity to the assessment of individual performance (Brett and Atwater, 2001; Heidemeier and Moser, 2009; Kwan et al., 2004; Woehr et al., 2005). In summary, the first objective of the present study is to investigate which criteria are applied for team performance ratings by different team stakeholders, and which factors are deemed important for team performance by different groups of raters. Our second objective is to determine to what extent team members, team leaders, and supervisors differ in terms of team performance rating criteria applied most frequently and factors influencing team performance deemed most important.

“Team learning behaviors” have been suggested as an example of a highly important factor for team performance (e.g. Edmondson, 1999; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; Storm and Savelsbergh, 2005; van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005). What has remained unclear, however, is how teams evaluate the relative importance of team learning behaviors for team performance, in comparison with other factors influencing team performance. Our third objective, therefore, is to gain insight in how the different team stakeholders (i.e. members, leaders, and supervisors) evaluate the relative importance of team learning behaviors. We expect the perceived relative importance of influencing factors to provide us with more insight into the foci of attention that the different stakeholders have, and hence into the predictive success of these factors for enhancing team performance in practice. Theoretical background In line with the aim of this study, the literature review will focus on team learning and its relationship to team performance before elaborating on theory that can help us understand stakeholders’ attitudes towards factors influencing team performance. Although much research has been conducted on teams and, similarly, on learning in organizations, relatively little empirical knowledge is available about team learning (see Edmondson, 1999; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006; Salas et al., 2004). Learning can be defined as the process of acquiring knowledge through experience, which leads to a relatively enduring change in behavior (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004). In defining the concept of team learning, some researchers have emphasized the process of learning (e.g. Edmondson, 1999, 2002; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; Kasl et al., 1997), while others have stressed its outcomes (e.g. Ellis et al., 2003). The present study follows the stream of research based on process definitions of team learning (Edmondson et al., 2007). For that reason we prefer to use the term team learning behaviors (Edmondson, 1999), which refers explicitly to the behavioral patterns in the team that build the process of team learning. Definitions of team learning behaviors often capture components such as reflection and action (Edmondson, 1999; 2002; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; Tjosvold et al., 2004), sharing and processing knowledge, and making improvements (Argyris and Scho¨n, 1978; Edmondson, 2002; Gibson, 2001). Some researchers have described concrete team learning behaviors associated with these components, such as, asking questions, challenging assumptions, evaluating alternatives, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results, detecting, discussing and correcting errors, and reflective communication (Argyris and Scho¨n, 1978; Edmondson, 1999; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; Kasl et al., 1997; van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005; van Dyck et al., 2005; van Woerkom, 2003). This study builds on the definition of team learning behaviors adopted by Edmondson (1999), which can be summarized as an ongoing process of reflection and action, characterized by asking questions, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results, and discussing errors and unexpected outcomes of actions. For a team to discover gaps in its performance and, accordingly, to make changes, team members should test assumptions and discuss differences in opinions openly rather than privately or outside the group, as it is through these activities and efforts that learning is enacted at the group level. Team learning behaviors imply a change in understanding, knowledge, abilities/skills, processes/routines, or systemic coordination (Edmondson et al., 2007).

Factors influencing team performance 453

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Past research has suggested that teams can differ considerably in the extent to which they engage (either intentionally or incidentally) in team learning behaviors, and moreover, a positive relationship has been established between these learning behaviors and team performance (e.g. Edmondson, 1999; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005). It is difficult to come up with an unambiguous and conclusive definition of the concept of team performance. A wide range of performance indicators, such as operational, financial, behavioral, and attitudinal outcomes have been applied to investigate the added value of teams in organizations (Delarue et al., 2004). Since work teams always have a particular performance purpose, the present study will adhere to Hackman’s (1987) concept of task performance, being the degree to which a team meets its goals, and how well its output fulfils the team’s mission (see Bushe and Coetzer, 2007). Following other studies on team performance, we are interested in perceptions of the general work performance of teams, implying the choice of a relatively broad measure (Edmondson, 1999; de Jong et al., 2007; Salas et al., 2008) and we are curious about the prevalence with which respondents use these different criteria for team performance assessments. As mentioned above, a positive relationship between team learning behaviors and team performance has been established empirically (e.g. Edmondson, 1999). However, it is still unclear whether team members themselves evaluate team learning behaviors as a relatively important factor contributing to team performance. The beliefs of team members about the relative importance of team learning behaviors can be of interest here, as they could predict the extent to which team members will show team learning behaviors and invest in further development. The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) is used in order to frame our line of reasoning theoretically. The central premise in the theory of planned behavior is the individual’s intention to perform a given behavior (Ajzen, 1991). The theory presupposes three independent determinants of behavioral intentions: attitudes (positive/negative evaluations of the behavior), subjective norm (perceived social pressures to perform the behavior), and perceived behavioral control (the control that people think they have over the behavior). More concretely, Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) stated that beliefs produce a favorable or unfavorable attitude and subjective norm towards behaviors, which guide human action. Beliefs about the likely consequences of behavior and about the normative expectations of others will influence the extent to which an individual reveals the specific behavior. Behavioral intentions are considered to be representations of people’s plans of action that summarize their motivation to engage in a certain behavior. Applying the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) to team performance, it is expected that team members are more likely to participate in team learning behaviors if they are positively disposed towards team learning (attitude), if they perceive social pressure to participate in team learning behaviors (subjective norm), and if they believe they are able to participate in team learning behaviors (perceived control). In this line of thought, the attitudes of team members towards team learning behaviors can have a substantial impact on their intended and actual behaviors within the team. In addition, other organizational groups that are involved in the team, such as, team leaders (inside the team) and supervisors (above the team), may have different attitudes compared to the ones held by team members themselves. More concretely, due to their different interests in the team’s performance and their different involvement in the

team, attitudes of team members, leaders, and supervisors towards team performance criteria and their perceptions of (the importance of) factors influencing team performance may vary (Poell and van der Krogt, 2003). For instance, team leaders may be focused on short-term, instrumental leadership, arising from the relatively short duration of relations between team leaders and their subordinates (Boerlijst, 1994). This may imply that they are not too interested in stimulating further development of the capabilities, performance, and development of their team members (people management), or lack the know-how to do so. After all, it is the “here-and-now” output of the team they supervise that counts, which may result in serious neglect of team learning behaviors aimed at future performance (van der Heijden et al., 2009). Summarizing, to better understand and predict the behavior of different stakeholders involved in teams, it is highly relevant to gain more insight into their attitudes towards factors influencing team performance. Method Study design The first part of our study consisted of the construction of a survey. The aims of this instrument were to investigate which team performance criteria the various stakeholders (i.e. members, leaders, and supervisors) applied most frequently and to test statistically which factors contributing to team performance they deemed the most important (i.e. the relative importance of team learning behaviors). The second part of our study consisted of administering the survey to a large sample of team stakeholders in order to rank the team performance criteria and influencing factors. Instrument Construction The survey was constructed based on two sources of information; a literature study, and in-depth semi-structured interviews with four project managers. First, literature was used to distil important criteria to measure team performance. Also, previous literature was used to establish the various factors influencing team performance (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Gladstein, 1984; Guzzo and Shea, 1992; Hackman, 1987; Hackman and Wageman, 2005; Kwak, 2004; Tannenbaum et al., 1998; Salas et al., 2004). One of the selected factors was team learning behaviors (Edmondson, 1999; Kozlowski, 1998; Salas et al., 2004; Schippers et al., 2003; Tannenbaum et al., 1998; van den Bossche et al., 2006; West, 1996). Table I contains an overview (including literature references) of the nine factors influencing team performance that were selected for the construction of our survey. For our survey, we formulated a total of 28 statements, to operationalize the influencing factors found in literature, using existing formulations where applicable. To optimize the validity of our measures, we used literal excerpts of the core concepts from literature. Subsequently, the translation – back translation method was applied (Hambleton, 1994), that is, the wording of the influencing factor statements was translated from English into Dutch, and then back translated into English by an independent translator, followed by a careful check by the authors. The purpose of the translation – back translation procedure was to allow experts (linguistic experts and the researchers involved) to examine both versions of the survey statements so as to establish conformity of meaning. In case of inconsistencies, the items were reformulated or, if necessary, eliminated.


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Factor A Team composition aspects

456

A1 Relative size A2 Skills and knowledge

A4 Heterogeneity A5 Single team identity/dedication

Campion et al., 1993; Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Guzzo and Shea, 1992; Gladstein, 1984; Hackman, 1987; Hackman and Wageman, 2005; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006; Kwak, 2004; Tannenbaum et al., 1996 The team is staffed to the smallest number required to accomplish work assigned. The larger the team, the more coordination requirements The degree to which skills and knowledge required to perform the task are present in the team A3 Job and organizational tenure The level of experience with the job and the organization that guarantees a group’s knowledge of standard operating procedures, and that assumes positive interaction A good mix of people, neither too similar nor too different, with complementary knowledge and skills (Heterogeneity in knowledge, skills and experience) The degree to which the team includes members that only belong to one team and belong to this team more permanently

B Role clarity

Gladstein, 1984. The degree to which the team members’ behavior is specified by routines, procedures, and prescribed roles

C Goal clarity

Gladstein, 1984. The degree in which the goal the team has to attain is clear

D Interdependence D1 Task interdependence

Campion et al., 1993; Guzzo and Shea, 1992 Team members have to interact and depend on one another to accomplish the work D2 Goal interdependence The degree in which group goals and individual member goals are linked D3 Outcome/reward interdependence The degree to which individual feedback and rewards are linked to the team’s performance E Job design E1 Task variety E2 Task significance

Table I. Factors influencing team performance selected for the study

Campion et al., 1993; Hackman, 1987 Each member has the chance to perform a number of group tasks. The tasks allow members to use different skills and share dull and interesting tasks The degree to which the task is significant for others

F Leadership behavior

Druskat and Wheeler, 2004; Gladstein, 1984; Kwak, 2004; Kozlowski and Ilgen, 2006. The degree in which task leadership, maintenance leadership (building, strengthening and regulating group life) was realized and the extent of leadership influence on higher management (leadership influence). Furthermore, the extent to which the leader shows monitoring, feedback, coaching and influencing behavior

G Boundary management

Campion et al., 1996; Gladstein, 1984; Salas et al., 2004. Managing the boundary with those groups in which interaction is required or necessary. Groups who provide inputs or absorb outputs from the group (continued)

Factor H Social interaction H1 Workload sharing H2 Team spirit (potency) H3 Support team I Conflict resolution

Gladstein, 1984; Campion et al., 1993; Kwak, 2004 Every team member does a fair share of the work and contributes equally The team believes in itself and there is much energy and a great team spirit Members help each other out at work when needed Salas et al., 2004; Gladstein, 1984. The extent to which the team is capable of resolving interpersonal or relationshipbased conflict

Second, four in-depth semi-structured interviews were held with project managers (practitioners), aimed at finding additional criteria that they use to assess team performance. The interviews were held also to check the list of criteria already distilled from literature for clarity and completeness. The project managers were selected in view of their extensive experience (more than ten years) as project managers of teams engaged in large-scale innovative projects in the areas of information technology, construction, or new product development within different kinds of organizations. They were asked to reflect on one specific team they had managed in the past, which in their opinion performed well, and on another team, which performed poorly. We asked them to describe carefully the nature of the teams and their purpose, and to come up with the criteria they applied to assess the team’s performance (see the Appendix for the full interview protocol). The project managers were asked to verify each of the 28 statements distilled from the literature review regarding clarity, face validity and completeness. More concretely, we asked them to indicate “. . . whether you recognize the factor contained in this statement as influencing team performance, thinking about the teams you have been working with?”. All 28 statements, were agreed on, by all four interviewees. Additional statements were identified by asking the project managers to describe possibly missing statements among the 28 from literature, thus reflecting the factors they assumed to have predictive value for team performance as well. They were asked the question “If not listed in the previous statements, could you indicate why this team did or did not perform well, in your perception?”. Subsequently, we filtered these statements in order to prevent repetition. This resulted in a list of 26 additional statements that referred to criteria applied by project managers to explain team performance. The two lists of statements taken together, comprising a total of 54 statements (28 from literature, and 26 from the semi-structured interviews), were used to inform the construction of our survey (see Table II for the full list of statements). Subsequently, three researchers were asked to categorize each of the 54 statements using 11 factors initially derived from literature (see Table III). To ensure inter-rater reliability (Gwet, 2001), six statements that the three researchers could not agree on in terms of their categorization were discussed in a meeting with all participating researchers. As agreement could not be reached, the six statements were deleted (see Table III). According to Taggar and Brown (2001), the ratio of agreed on categorized items divided by the total number of items for each factor should be greater than 0.80 (see

Factors influencing team performance 457 Table I.

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Number Statement 1 2

458

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Table II. Statements about factors influencing team performance from literature and four semi-structured interviews

26 27

The supervisor shows little commitment to the team The supervisor is unclear and changeable in his assignments to the team Decision-making by the management is slow Parties headed for by the team, such as contractors and sub-contractors, underperform The team is badly supervised The team leader pays little attention to collaboration within the team The team leader does not warn the management enough when the team thinks it is necessary The team leader shows appreciation to the individual team members, but hardly to the team as a unit The team leader leaves little empowerment with the team. He/she him/herself decides “what and how” things have to be done The team leader insufficiently coaches the team, but instead he dictates and criticizes The team’s physical circumstances are not supportive to team performance The team has insufficient resources to perform The pressure of deadlines is too high, which restricts the number of meetings The team has too little authority to make decisions The team goal is unclear, with respect to for example quality requirements, deadlines and budget The team has an unclear role division Clear procedures for decision-making are lacking in the team An unfavorable proportion of external and internal team members An improvement program is lacking Too many conflicting personalities in the team Many changes in the crew The team is insufficiently focused on the team’s objectives and hardly takes them into account when prioritizing their efforts The team insufficiently monitors to what extent they succeed in realizing the team goals Team members do not show commitment to collective decisions Team members do not address each other when agreements or decisions are not observed Team members do not address each other with regard to the case, but on a personal level Team members only show responsibility for their own task or thing, and only are committed to those tasks they are explicitly assigned to

Influencing factora)

Based on literature

£

G C G – F

Based on interview

£ £ £ £

F

£

F

£

–

£

F

£

F

£

– A

£ £

K J

£

C B

£ £

£

£

J – – A A

£ £ £ £

C

£

K

£

J

£

H

£

H

£

H

£ (continued)

Number Statement 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Team members are not capable of thinking on the basis of disciplines as a whole. They only show respect for their own discipline Team members hardly know about each other who knows what and what they can expect of each other The team is divided into subgroups Team members have little interest in each other and seldom offer each other help Personalities in the team do not match The team members do not meet enough to properly adjust Team members hardly communicate with each other about choices they made because of their individual discipline Because the team members do not share information enough, they are not well informed about the team’s situation Team members strive to distinguish themselves from each other Team members share little knowledge and experience The team hardly generates or implements new ideas to perform quicker, more cost efficiently or deliver more qualitative work Team members are not curious about each other’s ideas The team hardly ever undertakes any nice things together. Team members hardly listen to each other The team has insufficient specialist knowledge and is not capable of obtaining sufficient specialist knowledge in the team The team shows little independence in solving problems, so problems escalated quickly. The team takes little responsibility for solving themselves The team is too slow in solving problems Team members have or had conflicts Team members lack trust in the sense of reciprocity for what they do and what they get from their fellow team members The team shares little interest in the (end) users. They lack commitment and care with regard to this interest The team pays little attention to the relationship with parties outside the team. The team hardly tunes in with other teams Team members differ greatly in their level of ambition Team members lack a shared idea about what the team can deliver


Based on literature

Based on interview

£

– B I

£ £

H I

£ £

459

–

£

–

£

–

£ £

– K

Factors influencing team performance

£ £

K –

£

H K

£

K

£

– – –

£ £

–

£

£

£

£

G G G A

£ £ £

C

£ (continued)

Table II.

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Number Statement 52 53

460 Table II.

54

Team members lack a shared belief in the collectively chosen road Team members do not dare to be flexible towards their colleagues when it involves their profession Collectively analyzing mistakes in the team is “not done”


Based on literature

Based on interview

–

£

–

£

K

£

Note: a For a specification of the factors influencing team performance see Table I

also the procedure applied by Latham and Wexley, 1994). In the study by Taggar and Brown (2001), however, the number of items to classify was much greater than our number of items. In our approach, a category such as “conflict management”, with two agreed items versus a total of three items, should be deleted entirely if the 0.80 norm were applied. To warrant that categories with few items (in this particular case, three items) also remained if more than half of the number of items (in our example, two items) were agreed on, we decided to relax the norm to 0.60. Nine of the eleven factors influencing team performance complied with this inter-rater reliability norm (interdependence and job design were below this norm and therefore omitted). Table III shows how each of the three reviewers categorized the 54 statements, as well as (in the right-hand column) the resulting final nine categories of factors influencing team performance. Sample The sample for the survey consisted of, in total, 90 team members, team leaders, and team supervisors working in 15 project teams and seven operational teams from eight Dutch organizations. A total of 37 team members, 25 team leaders, and 28 supervisors were approached; however, only 70 respondents completed the survey, yielding response rates of 81 per cent (n ¼ 30) from the team members, 76 per cent (n ¼ 19) from the team leaders, and 75 per cent (n ¼ 21) from the supervisors (see Table IV for more specific sampling information). These response rates are relatively high due to the fact that the team members, team leaders, and supervisors were all addressed personally via a colleague of the first author, who was involved in this research project as a student, and who explained the purpose of the study to the participants carefully (see Tourangeau, 2004). Our sampling strategy resembles the face-to-face survey method as described by Tourangeau (2004), who found that this type of survey could achieve 90 per cent response rates. Measures Team performance. Edmondson’s team performance scale (1999), itself based on Hackman’s (1987) instrument, was selected to formulate criteria to assess team performance. We reformulated the scale items into short statements about the rating criterion concerned (e.g. “This team meets or exceeds its customers’ expectations” was reworded into “Customer satisfaction with the team’s services/products”). This procedure resulted in a list of seven rating criteria. By means of exploratory

11, 12, 20, 21, 36, 50 16, 29 2, 15, 22, 51, 52

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1, 3, 4, 47, 48, 49 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 40, 46, 53 30, 32, 45 30, 32, 34, 45 14, 17, 24, 44, 52 14, 17, 24, 28, 43, 44 13, 19, 23, 28, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 19, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 54 42, 54

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1, 3, 4, 47, 48, 49 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 36, 40, 46. 53

11, 12, 18, 20, 21, 50 16, 29 2, 15, 22, 51

Categorization by researcher 2

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1, 3, 4, 43, 47, 48, 49 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 40, 46, 53 30, 36, 32, 45 14, 17, 24, 34, 44 13, 19, 23, 35, 37, 39, 38, 41, 42, 54

11, 12, 18, 20, 21, 50 16, 29 2, 15, 22, 51

Categorization by researcher 3

11, 12, 20, 21, 50 16, 29 2, 15, 22, 51 – – 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1, 3, 4, 47, 48, 49 25, 26, 27, 31, 33, 40, 46, 53 30, 32, 45 14, 17, 24, 44 13, 19, 23, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 54

Agreed on items

Notes: Statements 18, 28, 34, 36, 43, and 52 were deleted because the three researchers were unable to reach a consensus about the best-fitting category. After data gathering, statements 4, 8, 11, 19, 33, 35, 39, 44, 45, 46, and 53 were deleted because they had received less than 0.5 per cent of the total points to be distributed

Team composition Role clarity Goal clarity Interdependence Job design Team leadership Boundary management Workload sharing/team spirit/ supportiveness I Conflict resolution J Participative decision making K Team learning behaviors

A B C D E F G H

Influencing factors from literature (see Table I) Categorization by researcher 1


Table III. Categorizations of factors influencing team performance by three researchers

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Table IV. Sample description for the survey

interviews with four project managers (see the Appendix for the full interview protocol), the resulting list of seven criteria to assess team performance was checked for clarity and completeness. Based on these exploratory interviews, we extended the list distilled from literature with two additional criteria, namely, “number of reports to the team leader about problems frustrating team progress” and “degree of competence development of the team members”. The final scale comprised nine assessment criteria (see Table V). Influencing factors. Table I provides an elaborate overview of the influencing factors used in our study, their references, and their definitions. The influencing factors were operationalized into 28 statements distilled from literature and 26 statements derived from four semi-structured interviews (for a full overview of these statements see Table II), six of which were removed after the categorization procedure by three experts (see instrument construction sub-section). The total number of statements remaining in the final survey was 48. An example of a statement was: “For what purpose was teamwork chosen?”. Respondent group

Total

%

Team members Team leaders Team supervisors Total

30 19 21 70

43 27 30 100

Note: n ¼ 70

Criteria to measure team performance

Table V. Criteria to measure team performance applied most frequently by team members, team leaders, and supervisors

Based on items of Edmondson

Team members (%)

Team All leaders Supervisors respondents (%) (%) (%)

Satisfying quality requirements Yes

27

19

18

21

Reaching the target goals

Yes

26

22

18

20

Customer satisfaction with the team’s services/products

Yes

17

18

18

17

Timeliness

Yes

14

13

11

13

Degree of competence development of team members

No

6

11

13

10

Staying within budget

Yes

2

3

8

6

Complaints from external parties about team results

Yes

6

5

8

6

Reputation of team results

Yes

2

9

5

6

Number of reports to the team leader about problems frustrating team progress

No

2

1

1

2

100

100

100

100

Total Note: n ¼ 70

As attitudes of team members may differ from the attitudes of team leaders and/or supervisors (Schippers et al., 2003), and to prevent the so-called “common-method bias” (Doty and Glick, 1998; Podsakoff et al., 2003), different rating sources were used for team performance and its influencing factors. An advantage of the use of multiple sources is the greater validity of the measures when respondents are instructed that their appraisals will be validated against external criteria (in our case, the rating by the other two stakeholders). Our respondents were guaranteed anonymity and told that the two other team stakeholders would also provide their ratings so as to increase the validity of the results (see also Mabe and West, 1982). Nominally, identical survey items were formulated for each of the three categories of stakeholders (team members, leaders, and supervisors). This means that, with the exception of their reference to one of the three-rater groups, the items were the same, since the aim was to measure differences in rater attitudes. Procedure To identify the most frequently applied performance criteria among the three categories of raters, respondents were asked to mark each criterion they applied to assess team performance with a “yes” or “no”. Furthermore, we applied a six-point constant-sum procedure to analyze the importance of each statement, as is often used in customer satisfaction research (see Fontenot et al., 2007, for an elaborate example of a procedure aimed at identifying the relative importance of factors influencing customer satisfaction). The constant-sum procedure requires the respondents to distribute a fixed number of points across several items, with the most important items receiving the greatest number of points. Attributes that are not important are assigned a value of 0. The same number can be used more than once, as long as the sum of all values assigned is 6 (in our specific case). This straightforward method allows for easy data collection and for calculation of an importance value for each item. Moreover, it provides the researchers with assessments based on the respondents’ priorities. By choosing the constant-sum procedure, we are in line with researchers who have indicated that the resulting so-called self-stated measures of importance provide validity that can only be obtained in this manner (Hanson, 1992; Hauser, 1991). Following this procedure, team members, team leaders, and supervisors were asked to assign six points to the 54 statements in the survey to indicate which factors they deemed most important for influencing team performance. Our respondents were prompted to keep in mind a high-performing team versus a poorly performing team that they had recently been involved with. In the instruction of the survey, we carefully explained that respondents could assign all six points to just one statement, thereby indicating that they thought only one single factor was crucial in influencing team performance. On the other hand, respondents could also decide to assign one (or more) points to several statements, thereby expressing the relative importance of more than one factor. After data collection was completed, 11 items were eliminated that had received less than 0.5 per cent of all points from any of the three groups of raters (i.e. items 4, 8, 11, 19, 33, 35, 39, 44, 45, 46, and 53). The resulting 37 statements (constituting 77 per cent of the initial 48 statements) were used for further analysis.


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Results As Table V shows, the most frequently applied criteria to measure team performance that emerged from the analysis were satisfying quality requirements, realizing the target goals, and customer satisfaction. These three criteria came out on top for all three groups of raters. At first sight, some of the other criteria did seem to differ across the three-rater groups. For example, “staying within budget” seemed to be relatively more frequently applied by supervisors, while “the reputation of team results” seemed to be relatively more frequently applied by team leaders, compared with the other groups of raters. To test how statistically significant these differences were, the answers of the respondents on the dichotomous “yes”/“no” scale were analyzed using Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests for each performance criterion (“yes” implies that the respondent applied the specified performance criterion; “no” implies that the respondent did not apply that performance criterion). We found no significant differences among the three rater groups, except for the performance criterion “degree of competence development of team members” (x 2 ðdf ¼ 2; n ¼ 70Þ ¼ 9:63; p , 0:008) Team members themselves appeared to be less concerned in assessing team performance about their own competence development than team leaders or supervisors were about the competence development of the team members. When we investigated which factors influencing team performance were perceived to be the most important ones, our respondents attributed 17 per cent of the total distributed points to the survey statements referring to “team leadership”. As Table VI shows, statements dealing with “team learning behaviors” were assigned 15 per cent of the total distributed points. Similarly, 15 per cent of the total distributed points were given to statements dealing with “goal clarity”. Each of the three-rater groups seemed to differ in their weighting of the various factors influencing team performance. To test whether these apparent differences were statistically significant, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted, using the respondents’ rankings as assigned in the survey (see also Conover and Iman, 1981). This rank transformation approach is more robust to non-normality and more resistant to outliers and

Factors influencing team performance

Table VI. Factors influencing team performance deemed the most important ones by team members, team leaders, and supervisors

Team leadership Team learning behaviors Goal clarity Team composition Boundary management Workload sharing/team spirit/supportiveness Participative decision making Role clarity Conflict resolution Total

Team members

Team leaders

16 17 9 13 11 9 9 4 4 91

13 13 18 11 8 11 8 3 2 88

All Supervisors respondents 22 13 20 11 7 5 7 6 2 92

17 15 15 11 9 8 8 5 3 90

Notes: The total percentage of points is less than 100 per cent due to the fact that statements scoring less than 0.5 per cent of the total distributed points (statements 4, 8, 11, 19, 33, 35, 39, 44, 45, 46, and 53) were eliminated before the analysis. n ¼ 70. All figures are percentages

non-constant variance than is an ANOVA without the rank transformation (Helsel and Hirsch, 2002, p. 177). Statistically significant differences were found in the scores of the three rater groups on “goal clarity” and “leadership behavior” at the 0.05 level (Fgoalclarity (df ¼ 2, n ¼ 70) ¼ 5.043, p ¼ 0.009, and Fleadershipbehavior (df ¼ 2, n ¼ 70) ¼ 3.426, p ¼ 0.038). Post-hoc comparisons using the Bonferroni test (as it is valid for unequal sample sizes) on weightings of leadership behavior, however, indicated that (unlike the rank scores in the ANOVA) the mean scores on leadership behavior did not differ significantly among team members (M ¼ 0:87; SD ¼ 0:71), team leaders (M ¼ 0:78; SD ¼ 0:80), and supervisors (M ¼ 1:34; SD ¼ 0:78). However, post-hoc comparisons using the Bonferroni test on weightings on goal clarity, indicated that the mean score for the team members (M ¼ 0:57; SD ¼ 0:66) was significantly lower than that for the supervisors (M ¼ 1:19; SD ¼ 0:92). Team leaders (M ¼ 1:11; SD ¼ 0:76) did not appear to differ significantly from either team members or supervisors in their weighting of goal clarity as a factor influencing team performance. Our analyses indicated that team members placed less emphasis on goal clarity as a factor influencing team performance than their supervisors did. Conclusions and discussion The first objective of this study was to investigate which criteria different team stakeholders apply for team performance ratings and which factors they deem important for team performance. Respondents appeared to apply three criteria most frequently: satisfying quality requirements, realizing the target goals, and customer satisfaction. In terms of factors influencing team performance, respondents appeared to evaluate leadership behavior, goal clarity, and team learning behaviors as the top three important factors. Our second objective was to determine to what extent team members, team leaders, and supervisors differed in terms of team performance rating criteria applied most frequently and factors influencing team performance deemed most important. We found that team members were less concerned with their own competence development as a performance criterion than team leaders or supervisors were with team members’ competence development. Team members also perceived goal clarity as a less important factor than supervisors did. Our research design unfortunately did not allow us to investigate the rationale behind team members differing from the other stakeholders in these respects. One possible explanation why team members may apply competence development less often as a performance criterion is that establishing it requires a great deal of self-reflection on their part, which is easier to accomplish for stakeholders operating at some more distance from the team itself (i.e. team leaders and supervisors, who scored higher here). As for team members perceiving goal clarity as less important an influencing factor than supervisors did, one possible explanation is that supervisors usually carry more responsibility for setting and evaluating team goals than team members, which could cause supervisors to attach more importance to the clarity of those goals. A more general explanation would be that team members attribute a relatively greater importance to factors influencing behavior, whereas team leaders and supervisors deem “objective” team characteristics more important. Team members may assume that team characteristics influence team performance


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more indirectly, that is, through team behaviors, for example communicating with management or external stakeholders. Team leaders and supervisors, in turn, may assume that changing the team characteristics will have a greater instant effect on team performance. Especially if they have an instrumental leadership style aimed at short/term performance, they could be more interested in team characteristics and neglect team (learning) behaviors aimed at future team performance (see van der Heijden et al., 2009). More research is needed to see whether these possible explanations are more than mere speculation. In any case, the different attitudes among the three-rater groups reinforced our ideas about the added-value of using a multi-source procedure (see, Poell, 2000; van der Krogt and Vermulst, 2000). This is in line with previous recommendations by other scholars (Edmondson and McManus, 2007; Lovelace et al., 2001) who advocated the use of multi-source data, both internal and external to the team, to enhance the credibility of findings and to serve triangulation and, hence, validity purposes ( Jick, 1979). The third objective of our study was to gain insight in how team stakeholders evaluated the relative importance of team learning behaviors as a factor influencing team performance. Findings supported our basic proposition that those actually involved in teams evaluate team learning behaviors as an important factor influencing team performance, besides other factors, such as, team leadership and goal clarity. This is in line with earlier correlational studies about team learning and performance (Edmondson, 1999; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005). In general, our findings provide a greater insight into the attitudes of team members, team leaders, and supervisors towards team performance rating criteria and influencing factors. To the best of our knowledge, empirical research aimed at investigating how various stakeholders actually involved in teams evaluate the relative importance of team learning behaviors compared with other factors influencing team performance has not been carried out yet. Following Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of reasoned action, such attitudes of team stakeholders can have a substantial impact on their intended and actual behaviors within the team. Especially now that we have established that the attitudes of the various team stakeholders differ in some respects, looking at their intentions and actual team behaviors using Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) framework can offer additional understanding of team dynamics, especially if future research also takes into account the subjective norms and perceived behavioral control of team stakeholders. Limitations and implications of the study A first limitation of the present study is the relatively small sample size (70 team members, team leaders, and supervisors from eight organizations in The Netherlands). Incidentally, respondents were distributed across organizations very unequally, hindering the examination of possible firm-level differences. Research using larger samples from more organizations will be required to investigate the extent to which our findings can be generalized to other occupational settings, organizations, and/or countries. More empirical research in this area is needed also to clarify the reasons underlying the differences among raters. Future work should also focus on determining differences in subjective as well as in objective performance ratings across tasks and across different types of teams (for instance, operational versus project teams).

A second limitation lies in the fact that, all data were collected at one point in time, that is to say, this study was cross-sectional. Research using multi-wave designs can provide more specific information about the stability of the variables, and about cross-lagged (i.e. over time) relationships, compared to our present cross-sectional approach (de Lange, 2005; Taris and Kompier, 2003). To further address this question, a longitudinal research design will be required. Nevertheless, we think that our results are significant and provide interesting challenges for future research and cross-validation in different settings and countries. Further research could focus also on the relationship between the various components comprising team learning behaviors (predictors), on the one hand, and team performance (outcome variable) using validated measurement scales, on the other hand. Our study adds to the team learning and performance debate by investigating how various stakeholders, each highly involved in teams, rate the relative importance of team learning behaviors compared with other factors influencing team performance. Another strength of the present approach is that we collected attitudinal data from three different types of raters (team members, team leaders, and supervisors) in order to better understand how they might differ. In terms of practical implications, our study shows the different attitudes of various team stakeholders that may result in different behaviors of those involved in teams. Our findings can help team stakeholders to understand better how team members, team leaders, and supervisors think about ways to enhance team performance in view of their different ideas about team performance criteria and factors influencing team performance. The conclusions of our study stress the need for organizations to pay more attention to how team members, team leaders, and supervisors assess performance in order to reach their goals. Moreover, our study has added the attitudes of team stakeholders to the vast number of possible factors influencing team performance studied in previous research (see Table I). Over and above the insights previously gained from academic studies, this addition may help team stakeholders choose with more confidence how and what to invest in when striving for higher team performance. An increased awareness of team learning behaviors may help stakeholders tailor their efforts towards increased team learning and, hence, improved team performance. Moreover, hopefully, the results of our practically relevant study will breed the willingness of team stakeholders to participate in further research into questions, such as, “which factors promote or hinder team learning behaviors?”. References Ajzen, I. (1991), “The theory of planned behavior”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 179-211. Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Anderson, N. and West, M.A. (1998), “Measuring climate for work group innovation: development and validation of the team climate inventory”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 235-58. Argyris, C. and Scho¨n, D. (1978), Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.


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Appendix. Interview protocol


Figure A1.

About the authors Chantal M.J.H. Savelsbergh, MSc, is Assistant Professor of Strategic HRM at the Open University of The Netherlands. She holds a MSc in management science from the Technical University of Eindhoven (The Netherlands). Her main interest is in teams and team learning and development. Before her academic career she fulfilled several functions in HR and IT departments in Dutch companies. Currently she is finishing her PhD which focuses on team learning, team performance and role stress in project teams. Chantal M.J.H. Savelsbergh is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Beatrice I.J.M. van der Heijden is Full Professor of Strategic HRM at the Open University of The Netherlands. She is Director of Research and Doctoral Programs at the Maastricht School of Management and Head of the Department of Organizational Behavior/Human Resource Management. Moreover she is affiliated with the University of Twente, Department HRM. She holds a MA in psychology from the Catholic University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands), and a

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PhD in Management Science from the University of Twente (The Netherlands). In 2000 she was a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (Scotland). Currently, she coordinates two European cross-cultural research projects on career success. Her main research areas are career development, employability, and aging at work. Rob F. Poell, PhD, is Full Professor of Human Resource Development in the department of Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. His main scholarly interest is in workplace learning. He is the incoming editor of Human Resource Development International and was elected to the Board of Directors for the international researchers’ association Academy of Human Resource Development twice. He has published in Management Learning, Adult Education Quarterly, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Small Group Research, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Personnel Review, International Journal of Human Resource Management, among others.

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