Team role behaviour and task environment. environment

Transcription

1 Team role task An exploratory study of five organizations and their managers Yuwei Shi and H. K. Tang Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Introduction There is a growing body of research on the factors underlying team role behaviour measured by the widely used Belbin Team Role Self-Perception Inventory (BTRSPI). Balderson and Broderick (1996) found in a sample of 185 people that gender and occupation significantly explain their team role preferences. Analysing 157 senior managers team role preferences, Arroba and Wedgwood-Oppenheim (1994) discovered that the differences are determined by whether the managers are in the public or private sector. With a historic perspective, Fisher and Macrosson (1995) brought in childhood family to interpret the different management team roles among 199 young adults. We believe this stream of studies is important not only for their theoretical contributions but also for the studies implications useful to practitioners using the Belbin instrument. The latter is even more significant, since BTRSPI is a widely used instrument by managers, management consultants and trainers in management selection, assessment, team building and management training (Furnham, 1993). Most outstanding empirical studies on team role behaviour, however, have used a ground-up theory development approach, building theories from the interpretations of the results of data observations. Despite their statistical significance, the findings support sporadic arguments on what determines team role behaviour. Besides calling for more research to integrate the findings on this issue, we believe much needed systemic theoretical frameworks may result from a top-down approach by empirically testing hypotheses derived from well-grounded theories. In this paper, we build our proposition and hypotheses based on Belbin s (1981; 1993) model of team role the organizational theories of task. We argue that managers team role preferences are determined by the task of organizations to which they belong, because the nature of organizational task sets the field constraints for organizational members, influences their values and motivations, frames their experiences and defines their role learning. Managers adjust to their Team role 85 Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 12 No. 2, 1997, pp MCB University Press,

2 Journal of Managerial Psychology 12,2 86 organizational their team role preferences, which may bear imprints of their personality, mental abilities and previous organizational. Background According to Belbin (1981), there are eight roles individuals play in a team. Each of the roles is associated with the characteristics that affect not only a team s overall performance, but also an individual s performance in the team. A high performance team should have a balanced mix of managers with different team role preferences, complementing each other s strengths and curtailing each other s weaknesses. The eight team roles and their respective characteristics as defined by Belbin are: (1) Plant (PL): Creative, imaginative, unorthodox; solves difficult problems. Preoccupation with ideas and neglect of practical matters; strong ownership of ideas. (2) Resource investigator (RI): Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative; explores opportunities; develops contacts. Loss of enthusiasm once initial excitement has passed. (3) Co-ordinator (CO): Mature, confident, a good chairperson; clarifies goals, promotes decision making; delegates well. Inclined to be lazy, taking credit for the effort of a team. (4) Shaper (SH): Challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure; has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles. A proneness to frustration, and irritation; inability to recover situation with good humour or apology. (5) Monitor evaluator (ME): Sober, strategic and discerning; sees all options; judges accurately. Scepticism with logic, cynicism without logic. (6) Teamworker (TW): Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic; listens, builds, averts friction, calms the waters. Indecision on crucial issues; avoiding situations that may entail pressure.

3 (7) Implementer (IM): Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient; turns ideas into practical actions. Adherence to the orthodox and proven; obstructing change. (8) Completer (CP): Painstaking, conscientious, anxious; searches out errors and omissions; delivers on time. Perfectionism; obsessional behaviour. Belbin claimed that he prefers a model of the factors which determine team-role behaviour (1993). There are six factors in this model. Personality refers to psycho-physiological factors, especially extroversion-introversion and high anxiety-low anxiety, which underlie behaviour. Mental abilities are high level thought that can override personality to generate exceptional behaviour. Current values and motivations can provide a particular set of behaviours. Field constraints refer to the immediate that behaviour can depend on. Experience includes personal experience and cultural factors that may serve to conventionalize behaviour. Role learning is learning to play a needed role that improves personal versatility. Most of these factors suggest a social embeddedness perspective to view team role behaviour. Although the personality and mental abilities may be shaped in the more distant past of a manager s personal history, the rest of the factors are affected by the immediate social context in which the manager lives. The most important aspect of this social context is the organizational, under which managers acquire values and experience, learn about norms and constraints and clarify motivations. Therefore, we can achieve a better understanding of management team role behaviour by examining the characteristics of organizational. Perhaps the most commonly held conception of the of organizations is that of the task as first proposed by Dill (1958). It is broadly defined as all aspects of the that are potentially relevant to goal setting and goal attainment. Scott (1981) summarized the dimensions of task which determines organizational behaviour. They are defined as follows: Heterogeneity: The extent of dissimilarity among the al entities to which the organization must relate. Variability: The extent to which the al entities are undergoing change. Threat: The extent to which the organization is vulnerable to its. Interconnectedness: The extent of linkages to the al entities. Team role 87

4 Journal of Managerial Psychology 12,2 88 Resource scarcity: The extent to which resources required by the organization are unavailable. Resource dispersion: The extent to which the resources required by the organization are evenly spread throughout the. Co-ordination: The extent to which the organization confronts a set of al entities whose actions are orchestrated or structured. Our proposition is that organizational task influences management team role preferences. Based on this proposition, we develop a number of testable hypotheses. Hypotheses Conceding the enormous difficulty in unravelling the process whereby Belbin s underlying factors (1993) lead to a stable pattern of management team role behaviour, our focus in developing the hypotheses is simply on why task is likely to modify team role preferences based on personality propensity and personal thought process. The logic is that of an enculturing and enacting organization. Organizations possess a stable set of values and norms determined by the organizational. They enculture their individual members. Harrison s simulation results illustrated the powerful organizational enculturation, even with the presence of fluid organizational memberships (Harrison, 1991). Weick s idea of organizational enactment explains why different members of an organization perceive its with striking similarity (Weick, 1979). Based on this logic, we argue that the task of an organization differentiates its members personal value, motivation, constraints perception and experience from those of organizational members under different task. These differences allow managers of different organizations to modify differently their team role preferences. Under a heterogeneous task, organizational members must relate to a diverse group of resource providers. The organization must value its members for their abilities to develop contacts, explore opportunities and take challenges under pressure. A changing would give impetus for creative, unorthodox ideas, but at the same time require from an organization clarified visions and quick decision making. On the other hand, dissimilar and changing does not allow proven implementation details or time to perfect decisions or actions. Neither does an with scarce resources. However, lack of resources, often being or causing an organization s most difficult problems, may force its members to become solution driven. An organization under scrutiny of its al entities tends to be more discerning and sober, and to thrive on pressure, although it may have to tax its members creativity and enthusiasm. Organizations more capable of coordinating and accommodating handle more successfully their entities whose resource provisions are dispersed and whose actions need to be orchestrated and structured. These strengths, however, may shun much imagination or consideration for all options. In addition, al

5 diversity does not give disciplined and orthodox guidelines for efficient decision implementation. Table I illustrates the above arguments in a hypothesized format. We conjecture for each of the seven task al dimensions two team roles which have most significant positive association with the dimension, and two other team roles that have most significant negative association with the dimension. The remaining four roles are considered somewhat neutrally influenced by that particular task al dimension. Because of the exploratory nature of this study, the associations between the task al dimensions and team role preferences, as established above, have to be construed in a relative sense. Team role 89 Task IM CO SH PL RI ME TW CP Heterogeneity + + Variability + + Threat + + Interconnectedness + + Resource scarcity + + Resource dispersion + + Co-ordination + + Table I. Hypothesized association between team role organizational task Methods For the past year or so we have worked with managers from a number of companies through seminars and workshops. The topics of the seminars and workshops ranged from strategic management to technology and innovation management. Nevertheless, we managed to collect the data for this study by using the BTRSPI. The sample size and breakdown are stated in Table II. What interests us is how these groups are different, more specifically about their task s and how the differences will explain any observable variations in the managers team role preferences across the groups. To ascertain the different task s of the groups, we independently ranked the five groups on a 1 to 5 scale in terms of the seven task al dimensions. After comparing the ranks, we discovered that they are consistent to a great extent. We resolved the minor differences in the ranks by averaging them. We then picked for each dimension the two groups with the highest ranks and the other two with the lowest ranks. The results are reported in Table III. This method of characterizing the companies task s is not prone to bias towards supporting our hypotheses, because the team role preference survey and its analyses were totally independent of the ranking exercise. Conducting a separate survey on task among the managers was not feasible, since such survey instruments were not readily available. Besides, there was no chance of interaction among the managers across the different

6 Journal of Managerial Psychology 12,2 90 Table II. The sample Group Description N A A recently corporatized research institute in the aerospace industry in China; most of the seminar participants were middle level managers with science and engineering backgrounds 23 B The participants were the middle level managers from multinational companies (MNCs) subsidiaries across the countries in the Asia-Pacific region; the MNC supplies industrial gases and related products and services 23 C The subsidiary of the above mentioned MNC in China; the participants were the middle to senior managers from the various regions in China 18 D Most participants were middle to senior managers from a number of 23 technology companies in South Africa E Senior managers from a large utility company recently corporatized from a government agency 21 Total 100 Task A B C D E Table III. The task of the groups Heterogeneity + + Variability + + Threat + + Interconnectedness + + Resource scarcity + + Resource dispersion + + Co-ordination + + groups in the sample, so it was unfeasible to ask them to rank their task relative to the others. An alternative would be to ask an expert panel to rank the five groups, but none except us were involved with all the five groups during the past year or so. We compared the mean scores on each team role preference across the groups. Although the data for two of the eight team roles do not present a normal distribution, the sample size is sufficiently large to justify using the t-test non-parametrically. We aim to use these comparisons to test our hypotheses, based on which we summarize our predictions of the group team role preferences. Table IV is an outcome of applying our hypotheses illustrated in Table I to the different group task s depicted in Table III. We cross-tabulated for each group the predicted sign of the effect of a task al dimension on the team roles. Then we ranked the net effect of the seven task al dimensions on a team role. Table IV shows for each team role the two groups with the most positive signs and the other two groups with the most negative signs.

7 Task role preference A B C D E Implementer + + Co-ordinator + + Shaper + Plant + + Resource investigator + + Monitor evaluator + + Teamworker + Completer + + Team role 91 Table IV. Predicted team role preferences across groups Results and findings Table V reports the mean scores and standard deviations of the team role preferences across the groups. At first glance, the groups stood out for the obvious differences in their preferences. Group D did not prefer implementer, completer or teamworker but favoured plant. Group E made a positive difference in monitor evaluator. Group C differentiated itself with a high score on teamworker. Groups A and B stood tall for implementer and completer. To a great extent, these results agreed with our predictions: managers in Groups A and B preferred more than the others the role of implementer and completer, Group C of teamworker, and Group E of monitor evaluator; managers in Group D preferred most the role of Plant, but disfavoured more than the others the role of implementer and completer. Where it does not converge, the prediction does not apparently contradict with the result, except for Group A in Plant. We discuss this problem later in this section. Table VI reports the results of the comparisons in the team role preferences between any two of the five groups. Only the significant differences are listed in the table. We observed that Groups A, B and C were quite homogeneous. The differences between these groups had at most low statistical significance levels (the highest being for RI between A and B). Group D was significantly different from the rest four groups in many team roles. The more common differences were in plant, implementer and completer. Group E differentiated itself significantly from most of the rest in monitor evaluator. Other significant differences were observed between A, C and D in teamworker, between B, D and E in resource investigator. In order to get a clearer picture whether these results significantly support our hypotheses, we report in Table VII the observed team role preferences across the groups. First, we used the results reported in Table VI to pick the groups that made a difference from most other groups in a particular dimension. For example, Group D was significantly different from any other group in implementer. Second, we picked the groups on the other extreme of that dimension. In the above example, Groups A, B and E were picked. Third, if

8 Journal of Managerial Psychology 12,2 92 Table V. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) A B C D E Task role preference (N = 23) (N = 23) (N = 18) (N = 15) (N = 21) Implementer (4.09) (4.28) (4.93) (3.85) (3.20) Co-ordinator (1.90) (3.53) (4.08) (3.27) (3.72) Shaper (4.76) (4.45) (3.46) (4.81) (3.58) Plant (2.79) (2.80) (3.53) (5.85) (2.38) Resource investigator (3.16) (3.47) (3.64) (4.50) (2.84) Monitor evaluator (2.96) (3.41) (3.09) (5.10) (2.67) Teamworker (4.87) (4.37) (2.85) (2.53) (3.43) Completer (3.51) (3.33) (5.08) (3.48) (3.56) there is no significant difference between these groups picked in the second step, we further pick a maximum of two groups for their extreme mean scores and dropped the rest. Again in the above example, Groups A and B were picked, and Group E was dropped. We then labelled the groups picked accordingly in Table VII. When there were fewer than two groups picked during the first two steps, fewer or even no cells would appear marked with either a positive or Group A B C D Table VI. Significant differences in team role preferences (2-tail significance in parentheses) A B RI (0.079) C IM (0.092) TW (0.098) D IM (0.005) IM (0.003) PL (0.003) PL (0.001) PL (0.003) TW (0.000) CP (0.006) CP (0.005) TW (0.043) E ME (0.041) ME (0.003) ME (0.032) IM (0.10) RI (0.034) PL (0.001) CP (0.014) RI (0.032)

9 negative sign. This procedure was to ensure the differences reported in Table VII were no greater than those reported in Tables V and VI, resulting in possibly fewer matches between the observed and predicted associations of the team role preferences and task al dimensions, thus imposing a more rigorous test for our hypotheses. Team role preference A B C D E Team role 93 Implementer + + Co-ordinator Shaper Plant + Resource investigator + + Monitor evaluator + Teamworker + Completer + + Table VII. Observed team role preferences across groups Comparing Table VII with Table IV, we see significant convergence between the two. Exactly, 19 of the 40 identically structured cells match in positive, negative or no sign. Where they do not match, they do not bear opposite signs, except for Group A s plant. In that case, the predicted high preference turned out to be rather low. We speculated a macro-cultural explanation for this obvious mismatch. Group A was a large state-run research institute located in the capital city of China, where its disciplined and conservative atmosphere might override the desirable effect of a procreativity task. In general, the results reiterate what we have stated earlier when we discussed the mean scores and standard deviations. Conclusions and discussion This study explored the explanatory power of organizational task on management team role behaviour. The results of the study show significant support for our hypothesized linkages between the task al dimensions well established in organizational theories and Belbin s team role preferences. Where the task is heterogeneous, variable or scarce in resources, the managers are more likely to prefer the team role of resource investigator or plant, but to relieve themselves the role of Implementer or completer. On the other hand, a homogeneous, stable or munificent task is likely to cultivate implementer or completer, but to abate plant or resource investigator. Managers perceiving threatening task tend to be sober, discerning and to judge more accurately and comprehensively their options. An organization constantly confronting the task through orchestrating and structuring its constituents is more likely to find the managers with a preference to teamworker.

10 Journal of Managerial Psychology 12,2 94 We view our contributions to the growing body of research on the team role behaviour in two aspects. One is that we take a more theory-driven approach to the issue, developing our hypotheses from established theories, then testing the hypotheses using real-life data. We believe this approach complements the alternative approach of primarily data interpretation and is more conducive to developing systemic, well-grounded and empirically tested theoretical framework. Another contribution is that we introduce the ideas of macro organizational theory to developing explanations for micro organizational behaviour. We bring in the immediate social context, i.e. organizational task, to interpret the behavioural differences. By doing so, we add to explanations that may be under or over-socialized (Granovetter, 1985). For instance, using national cultural differences to interpret the team role preferences of managers across countries may render over-socialized explanations, since managers from the same country may vary in their preferences. On the other hand, using payment for a team role to determine whether it is preferred may render an under-socialized explanation to the issue. There are several limitations to this study. In the theoretical development, we do not focus on how task dimensions affect team role behaviour. Nor do we on other aspects of organizational, such as organizational institutional. If we were to use parametric analysis to study the matter, we would need a comprehensive theoretical framework in order to derive a fully specified model, which is no doubt a preferable alternative. Additionally, we used the less conventional method to operationalize the task of the five organizations involved in this study. Although reasonable, this method may seem to be less objective. In future, we intend to develop a survey instrument on respondents organizational task. References Arroba, T. and Wedgwood-Oppenheim, F. (1994), Do senior managers differ in the public and private sector?, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 9 No. 1, 1994, pp Balderson, S.J. and Broderick, A.J. (1996), Behaviour in teams: exploring occupational and gender differences, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp Belbin, R.M. (1981), Management Teams, Heinemann, London. Belbin, R.M. (1993), Team Roles at Work, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Dill, W.R. (1958), Environment as an influence on managerial autonomy, Administrative Science Quarterly, March, pp Fisher, S.G. and Macrosson, W.D.K. (1995), Early influences on management team roles, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 10 No. 7, pp Furnham, A. (1993), A psychometric assessment of the Belbin Team Role Self-Perception Inventory, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, Vol. 66, pp Granovetter, M.S. (1985), Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 91, pp Harrison, J.R. (1991), Keeping the faith: a mode of cultural transmission in formal organizations, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp Scott, W.R. (1981), Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood-Cliffs,NJ. Weick, K.E. (1979), The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.