Teams are widely recognized as the basic building blocks of most modernday organizations (Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008). Team-based designs enable organizations to quickly align their human resources with the multitude of changing work demands and competitive pressures. Enhancing team effectiveness offers a powerful means by which organizations can gain and maintain competitive advantage. Team effectiveness can be driven by a number of factors such as a supportive organizational environment, team-oriented external leadership, design features, dynamic processes and emergent states, and a host of other variables (Mathieu et al., 2008). However, research and practice have suggested that the best teams are well designed up-front. Teams that have an optimal mix of members’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) are better positioned to work well together and to perform effectively than are teams composed of a less-optimal combination of members (Bell, 2007; Ilgen, 1999). In short, team composition serves as the foundation upon which other team factors are built, and represents a key enabling feature of teams. Moreover, understanding how a team is “composed” can provide insights for targeted team development activities.
Numerous characteristics have been used to index team composition, including personality, functional expertise, competencies, goal orientations, teamwork orientations, and a host of other attributes (Klimoski & Zukin, 1999; Mathieu, Tannenbaum, Donsbach, & Alliger, 2014). Importantly, these individual attributes motivate and enable individuals to occupy different team roles (Stewart, Fulmer, & Barrick, 2005). A role is generally defined as a cluster of related and goal-directed behaviors taken on by a person within a specific situation (Stewart, Manz, & Sims, 1999). Teams rely on different members to fulfill different critical needs such as organizing work, maintaining group harmony, and aligning their efforts with those of others in an organization (Aritzeta, Swailes, & Senior, 2007; Stewart et al., 2005). Accordingly, both research and practice will benefit from a greater understanding of individual differences that are associated with team role fulfillment, and from tools to assess those differences.
Team Role Theories
Roles are often considered to be one of the fundamental and defining features of both organizations (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1991; Sluss, van Dick, & Thompson, 2011) and teams (Hackman, 1990). Aritzeta et al. (2007) noted that there are two heritages in the team role literature. One approach, which we could term role as position, equates roles with expected behavior associated with the particular position that a team member occupies (e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1978). Essentially, this view focuses on the characteristics and demands of jobs and how they give rise to certain expected role behaviors of occupants. A second approach, “role as person,” suggests that roles can be defined as a combination of the values, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals who occupy particular locations in a social network. From this perspective, roles emerge from a combination of members’ natural inclinations or preferences, as well as the social-psychological dynamics of the group (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1991). We adopt this latter approach because we are interested in developing indices of individual differences that may predispose people to fulfill particular roles in teams.
(Source: The Official Guide to Belbin Team Roles from Belbin HQ - What is Belbin? , 2014)
The interest in team roles gained momentum in the 1980s with the publication of Belbin’s (1981) work on successful management teams. Belbin’s (1981) theory advanced eight distinct team role types:
(a) idea generator,
(b) resource investigator,
(c) chairman,
(d) shaper,
(e) monitor evaluator,
(f) team worker,
(g) company worker, and
(h) completer–finisher.
(Source: Smartsheet Contributor Becky Simon August 7, 2017)
In later editions, he changed various names (i.e., chairman to coordinator, company worker to implementer) and introduced a new role called specialist. Belbin (1981, 1993) examined management teams playing executive simulations (e.g., computerized management and business exercises) during training courses where team performance was measured in terms of winning or losing.
In addition to the possible gender basis, the lack of consistent results across studies may be related to the type of team being assessed and the original sample and context. Belbin’s work focused extensively on management teams, and while certainly of interest, others have argued that top management teams are qualitatively different from other types of teams (Hollenbeck, Beersma, & Schouten, 2012).
Reference List
Aritzeta, A., Swailes, S., & Senior, B. (2007). Belbin’s team role model: Development, validity and applications for team building. Journal of Management Studies, 44, 96-118.
Belbin, R. M. (1981). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. London, England: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Belbin, R. M. (1993). Team roles at work. London, England: ButterworthHeinemann.
Bell, S. T. (2007). Deep-level composition variables as predictors of team performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 595-615.
Hackman, J. R. (1990). Groups that work and those that don’t. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hollenbeck, J. R., Beersma, B., & Schouten, M. E. (2012). Beyond team types and taxonomies: A dimensional scaling conceptualization for team description. Academy of Management Review, 37, 82-106.
Ilgen, D. R., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (1991). The structure of work: Job design and roles. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 165-208). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Ilgen, D. R., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M., & Jundt, D. (2005). Teams in organizations: From I-P-O models to IMOI models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 517-543.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley.
Klimoski, R. J., & Zukin, L. B. (1999). Selection and staffing for team effectiveness. In E. Sundstrom (Ed.), Supporting work team effectiveness (pp. 63-94). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science, 7, 77-124.
Mathieu, J. E., Maynard, M. T., Rapp, T., & Gilson, L. (2008). Team effectiveness 1997-2007: A review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future. Journal of Management, 34, 410-476.
Mathieu, J. E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Donsbach, J. S., & Alliger, G. M. (2014). A Review and Intergration of Team Composition Models: Moving Towards a Dynamic and Temporal Framework. Journal of Management, 40, 130-160.
Sluss, D. M., van Dick, R., & Thompson, B. S. (2011). Role theory in organizations: A relational perspective. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 505-534). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Stewart, G. L., Fulmer, I. S., & Barrick, M. R. (2005). An exploration of member roles as a multilevel linking mechanism for individual traits and team outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 58, 343-365.
Stewart, G. L., Manz, C. C., & Sims, H. P. J. (1999). Team work and group dynamics. New York, NY: Wiley.
The Official Guide to Belbin Team Roles from Belbin HQ - What is Belbin? (2014) [Video].Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFsA4wUf3I0 [Accessed on 04 December 2022].
.png)
Agreed Malshani,
ReplyDeleteA good orientation is the first step of a successful career of employees with their organization. This is one of the key roles of Human resource in the training and development of employees is to familiarize them to their jobs and provide them with competent initial job training. This training involves familiarizing employees with the company’s culture, goals as well as the company’s expectations from its employees and what employees expect from the company (Robbins, 2005).
Thanks Jeyarajasingam comment my post and adding furthermore, Organizations desire their employees to be fulfilled and become more fruitful and efficient therefore research is being conducted about different sizes of job like, work, salary, supervision, upgradation, coworkers and the demographic impacts on the overall satisfaction of the workers (Shah & Jalees, 2004).
DeleteHi Malshani, A very interesting article. However, the more general notion of a “role” is much more sociological and refers to an individual's social position and the expectations associated with it. According to this notion of a role, how people see themselves will depend, in part at least, on the social positions that they habitually adopt, and on what is expected of them in such positions. In this sense, the concept of a “team role” can be seen as a sub‐set of the wider concept of a role. Moreover, an individual's behaviour in such a role is also likely to depend on both the autonomy that they have in that role and their commitment to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Vidura commenting my post and adding further, Belbin’s team role model has been associated with both team behaviors and performance (for a recent review, see Aritzeta et al., 2007). Belbin and others have argued that successful teams that have all nine roles present, although individuals may display multiple roles, will be more balanced, which will result in higher levels of success.
DeleteAgreed on the content above. In addition to the above, it explains the fundamental principles, goals, regulations, politics, and processes of an organization during the orientation process beginning on the first day at the new destination (Bogatova, 2017). One of the most significant persons in the orientation process is a supervisor, he/she is the one who leads and supports the new employee (Bogatova, 2017). The main goal of the orientation is to make an employee to go through a socialization period very smoothly, and gain confidence and pride in him/herself and the company he/she works for. Any organization must realize that the first impression is the base for the future job satisfaction, competence, and company loyalty. Therefore, an orientation program must be carefully planned and conducted with a reasonable timetable. (Sarma 2008, 116.)
ReplyDeleteThanks Nishadi sharing valuable details and furthermore, People concerned with solving tasks were called ‘task leaders’ whereas those concerned with emotional needs were called ‘maintenance or socio-emotional leaders’. Similarly, Benne and Sheats (1948) proposed a role behavior classification describing 12 task roles and seven maintenance roles. Task-centered roles were concerned with the coordination of group problem solving activities, whereas maintenance roles were concerned with promoting group-centered behavior. Both role types were thought necessary for a team to perform well. These theoretical antecedents formed the pillars of the development of the team role model (Belbin, 1981) as its general framework and the names of some team roles connect to these and other theories (Fisher et al., 2001a).
DeleteGreat findings Malshani. Furthermore, Organizations may easily match their human resources with the plethora of shifting work requirements and competitive challenges thanks to team-based designs. Organizations can effectively obtain and preserve competitive advantage by improving team performance (Mathieu et al.,2008)
ReplyDeleteThanks Kandeepan and adding furthermore, Belbin’s team role model has been associated with both team behaviors and performance (for a recent review, see Aritzeta et al., 2007). Early research attempted to outline typologies of roles that team members take when interacting with others (e.g., Bales, 1950; Benne & Sheats, 1948).
Delete