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Temporal Dynamics in Multiteam Systems: An Integrative Perspective for Future Research and Practice
Abstract
Purpose - Multiteam systems (MTSs) have been employed across numerous organizations and occupations (e.g., healthcare, emergency disaster response, business, and military) to achieve complex goals over time. As MTSs are inherently different than team level and organizational level theories, this chapter highlights the defining features of these dynamic systems through a temporal lens. Thus, the main purpose of our chapter is to address the challenges and issues concerning MTSs over time in order to provide a future agenda to guide researchers and practitioners. Methodology/approach - To explore temporality throughout this chapter, we leverage two key MTSs frameworks along with contributions from the literature to produce a review, which demonstrates the extent of MTS theoretical and practical findings. After reviewing the definitional components of MTSs, we highlight various compositional, linkage, and developmental attributes that operate within a system. We then expand upon these attributes to consider the structural features of the system that enhance boundaries between component teams (i.e., differentiation) and may disrupt the system over time (i.e., dynamism). Findings - After reviewing and integrating current MTS literature, we provide a new conceptual framework for MTSs and their temporal complexities. We offer several methodologies that managers and researchers can employ to assess these complex systems and suggest practical recommendations and areas for future research as we continue to study MTSs. Originality - Our original conceptual framework considers MTSs through a dynamic lens developing over time and suggests the need for future research to build upon this perspective.
Objective: The recurring phase model of team processes suggests the existence of a rhythm of team task accomplishment, which refers to a repeated sequence of transition and action phases over time. Drawing on this model, we provide the first empirical investigation of whether different types of teamwork rhythm emerge, whether the rhythm varies according to the type of task, and whether the rhythm is related to team performance. Method: We observed and videoed student teams (N = 48) working on two different tasks (a creative task and a construction task) in a laboratory setting. Team processes were coded and assigned to transition or action phases using a custom algorithm. The rhythm of teamwork for each team was determined using the four parameters of tempo, regularity of tempo, focus (transition vs. action), and variability of focus. Results: Latent profile analysis revealed three distinct rhythms of teamwork across both tasks: a slow and action-oriented rhythm, a fast and regular rhythm, and a changing-focus rhythm. The results also show that the majority of the teams (63.04%) changed rhythm type between the tasks. Moreover, for the creative task, a changing-focus rhythm was predictive of lower performance (g = 0.25–0.48), whereas for the construction task, no association was found between rhythm and performance. Conclusions: The study provides a methodological procedure for analyzing the rhythm of teamwork and offers some initial insights into the types of teamwork rhythms and their association with type of tasks and levels of performance.
Given the complexities of today’s workplace, organizations and agencies are progressively turning toward interdependent systems comprised of teams, or multiteam systems (MTSs), to accomplish multifaceted tasks in challenging environments. Subsequently, MTSs have grown in popularity in group and team research, spanning a breath of disciplines (psychology, organizational behavior, human factors, communication, and medicine). In this review, our goal is to highlight the existing research across a range of disciplines regarding MTSs that serves to answer the question, “What do we know about MTSs?” while also developing a future research agenda aimed at answering the question, “Where does our research need to go to better understand MTSs?” We specifically highlight the current trends, dynamics, and methodological issues in MTSs to further build the foundation for improving MTS effectiveness.
Multiteam systems are increasingly used by organizations, but are difficult to coordinate effectively. Building from theory on representational gaps, we explain why coordination between teams in multiteam systems can be hindered by inconsistencies that exist between them regarding the definition of shared problems. We argue that frame-ofreference training, an intervention that is theorized to reduce representational gaps, can facilitate coordination and subsequent performance in multiteam systems. We studied the effects of frame-of-reference training on multiteam system coordination and performance in 249 multiteam systems comprised of specialized teams. Supporting our expectations, we found that: (a) frame-of-reference training had a positive effect on multiteam system performance by enhancing between-team coordination; (b) withinteam coordination improved the relationship between frame-of-reference training and between-team coordination, ultimately improving multiteam system performance; and (c) the patterns by which within-team coordination leveraged our intervention depended on teams' specific functions. Our findings extend representational gaps theory, highlight the interdependencies between team-level and system-level coordination, and demonstrate the utility of frame-of-reference training in a new setting.
The literature on small stand-alone teams has suggested that decentralization has
predominantly positive features. However, in multiteam systems, the presence of other
highly interdependent teams adds a level of complexity that may preclude generalizing
from teams to multiteam systems. We studied the effects of decentralized planning in
210 multiteam systems, each composed of three six-person, functionally specialized
component teams. As has previous research, we find that decentralized planning has
positive effects on multiteam system performance, attributable to enhanced proactivity
and aspiration levels. However, we also find that the positive effects associated with
decentralized planning are offset by the even stronger negative effects attributable to
excessive risk seeking and coordination failures. We discuss the implications for
theories of intrateam and interteam dynamics, along with the applied implications for
designing empowerment interventions in team and multiteam contexts.
Patients are safer and receive higher quality care when providers work as a highly effective team. Investment in optimising healthcare teamwork has swelled in the last 10 years. Consequently, evidence regarding the effectiveness for these interventions has also grown rapidly. We provide an updated review concerning the current state of team-training science and practice in acute care settings.
A PubMed search for review articles examining team-training interventions in acute care settings published between 2000 and 2012 was conducted. Following identification of relevant reviews with searches terminating in 2008 and 2010, PubMed and PSNet were searched for additional primary studies published in 2011 and 2012. Primary outcomes included patient outcomes and quality indices. Secondary outcomes included teamwork behaviours, knowledge and attitudes.
Both simulation and classroom-based team-training interventions can improve teamwork processes (eg, communication, coordination and cooperation), and implementation has been associated with improvements in patient safety outcomes. Thirteen studies published between 2011 and 2012 reported statistically significant changes in teamwork behaviours, processes or emergent states and 10 reported significant improvement in clinical care processes or patient outcomes, including mortality and morbidity. Effects were reported across a range of clinical contexts. Larger effect sizes were reported for bundled team-training interventions that included tools and organisational changes to support sustainment and transfer of teamwork competencies into daily practice.
Overall, moderate-to-high-quality evidence suggests team-training can positively impact healthcare team processes and patient outcomes. Additionally, toolkits are available to support intervention development and implementation. Evidence suggests bundled team-training interventions and implementation strategies that embed effective teamwork as a foundation for other improvement efforts may offer greatest impact on patient outcomes.
Organizations increasingly set up multiteam projects for the development of highly complex products. While team research has emphasized the importance of team-internal processes for smaller scale projects, we know little about collaborative processes (especially between teams) in such large-scale projects. This study utilizes a multi-informant longitudinal research design on a product development project (39 teams, 36 months) in the European automotive industry investigating collaboration between and within teams. The results of the study demonstrate that interteam coordination, project commitment, and teamwork quality as rated by the team members at Time 1 (Month 12; end of concept phase) are significantly correlated to project managers' ratings of overall team performance at Time 3 (Month 36; end of project). The process variables measured at Time 2 (Month 24; end of design phase) display generally weaker correlations with team performance at Time 3. Multiple regression analyses further detail the effects of collaborative processes within and between teams on different measures of team performance (i.e., overall performance, quality, budget, schedule). The results show that collaborative processes during the project have predictive properties in regard to later team performance and can serve as early warning indicators. Furthermore, the results of this study provide support for our hypotheses predicting positive relationships between interteam coordination, project commitment, and teamwork quality. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.
A topology of complex tasks is derived from four fundamental task attributes; and implications for both basic and applied research are examined.
A model of goal-setting processes was developed that depicted the influence of previous performance, normative information, and self-efficacy on personal goals and performance. Three levels of normative information were manipulated in a counter-balanced fashion across two trials. Norms were hypothesized to have a greater influence than self-efficacy on personal goals for the first trial, whereas efficacy was hypothesized to have a stronger influence than norms on Trial 2 goals. A sample of 135 undergraduates completed a practice and two performance trials of a word game, and the results were analyzed using LISREL structural modeling techniques. Although the general hypothesized model fit fairly well, the specific results concerning the relative impact of norms and self-efficacy were opposite of the expected direction. Potential explanations for these results, and recommendations for future research are offered.
This article identifies four factors for consideration in norms-based research to enhance the predictive ability of theoretical models. First, it makes the distinction between perceived and collective norms and between descriptive and injunctive norms. Second, the article addresses the role of important moderators in the relationship between descriptive norms and behaviors, including outcome expectations, group identity, and ego involvement. Third, it discusses the role of both interpersonal and mass communication in normative influences. Lastly, it outlines behavioral attributes that determine susceptibility to normative influences, including behavioral ambiguity and the public or private nature of the behavior.
Four minimal group experiments tested the prediction that judgments of groups and their members reflect evaluations made simultaneously but independently at the within-group and intergroup levels. On the basis of self-categorization theory and social identity theory, it was predicted that group members seek both intergroup distinctiveness and legitimization of in-group norms. In Experiments 1-3, membership (in-group, out-group), status of group members (modal, deviant), and either accountability to in-group or to out-group or salience of group norms were varied. Accountability and norm salience increased derogation of out-group normative (in-group deviant, out-group modal) and upgrading of in-group normative (in-group modal, out-group deviant) members. In Experiment 4, within-group differentiation reinforced in-group identification. These findings suggest that subjective group dynamics operate to bolster social identity when people judge modal and deviant in-group and out-group members.
In this study we examine a moderated model of group faultlines, team identification, and group performance outcomes. We extend research on faultlines by showing how different faultline bases (social category and information-based faultlines) may have differential effects on the performance of groups. In addition to faultline strength (the extent of demographic alignment across members within a group), we examine the distance between faultline-based subgroups (e.g., two members of age 20 are closer in age to two members of an opposing subgroup of age 25 than of two members of age 50). We test our model using an archival field methodology and multiple-source data (qualitative and quantitative) from 76 workgroups in a Fortune 500 information-processing company. Our results revealed that groups with social category faultlines had low team discretionary awards. Faultline distance further exacerbated the negative effects of strength in groups with social category faultlines and produced similarly negative effects in groups with information-based faultlines. Team identification served as a moderator enhancing performance of groups with information-based faultlines.
This study investigated coordinated action in multiteam systems employing 233 correspondent systems, comprising 3 highly specialized 6-person teams, that were engaged in an exercise that was simultaneously "laboratory-like" and "field-like." It enriches multiteam system theory through the combination of theoretical perspectives from the team and the large organization literatures, underscores the differential impact of large size and modular organization by specialization, and demonstrates that conventional wisdom regarding effective coordination in traditional teams and large organizations does not always transfer to multiteam systems. We empirically show that coordination enacted across team boundaries at the component team level can be detrimental to performance and that coordinated actions enacted by component team boundary spanners and system leadership positively impact system performance only when these actions are centered around the component team most critical to addressing the demands of the task environment.
We link the problem of complex sociotechnical systems to a new unit-of-analysis and fruitful developing area of applied research, the multiteam system.
Teams are the dominant entity and theoretical lens being applied to understanding the performance of complex sociotechnical systems. We submit that such problems cannot be solved through the teams lens because complex sociotechnical systems exhibit features such as mixed-motive goal structures and complex, layered social identities that do not meet the definitional requirements of a team.
We present key findings from multiteam systems research and review the studies contained in the special issue on the basis of the focal constructs and unit of analysis.
Although progress is being made on understanding key constructs essential to understanding complex sociotechnical systems, the unit of analysis needs to be shifted upward from the team level to the system level.
Progress on understanding the inner workings and leverage points for the success of complex sociotechnical systems requires a fundamental shift in the unit of analysis toward understanding the macrodynamics of larger systems of teams.
The multiteam system perspective offers a useful theoretical lens for future research on and tool development (e.g., training, information technology) for improving the functioning of complex sociotechnical systems.
The authors examined how networks of teams integrate their efforts to succeed collectively. They proposed that integration processes used to align efforts among multiple teams are important predictors of multiteam performance. The authors used a multiteam system (MTS) simulation to assess how both cross-team and within-team processes relate to MTS performance over multiple performance episodes that differed in terms of required interdependence levels. They found that cross-team processes predicted MTS performance beyond that accounted for by within-team processes. Further, cross-team processes were more important for MTS effectiveness when there were high cross-team interdependence demands as compared with situations in which teams could work more independently. Results are discussed in terms of extending theory and applications from teams to multiteam systems.
This study examined 2 leader functions likely to be instrumental in synchronizing large systems of teams (i.e., multiteam systems [MTSs]). Leader strategizing and coordinating were manipulated through training, and effects on functional leadership, interteam coordination, and MTS performance were examined. Three hundred eighty-four undergraduate students participated in a laboratory simulation modeling a 3-team MTS performing an F-22 battle simulation task (N = 64 MTSs). Results indicate that both leader training manipulations improved functional leadership and interteam coordination and that functional leader behavior was positively related to MTS-level performance. Functional leadership mediated the effects of both types of training on interteam coordination, and interteam coordination fully mediated the effect of MTS leadership on MTS performance.
This endeavor provides a multidisciplinary, multilevel, and multiphasic conceptualization of team adaptation with theoretical roots in the cognitive, human factors, and industrial-organizational psychology literature. Team adaptation and the emergent nature of adaptive team performance are defined from a multilevel, theoretical standpoint. An input-throughput-output model is advanced to illustrate a series of phases unfolding over time that constitute the core processes and emergent states underlying adaptive team performance and contributing to team adaptation. The cross-level mixed-determinants model highlights team adaptation in a nomological network of lawful relations. Testable propositions, practical implications, and directions for further research in this area are also advanced.
PurposeSpaceflight presents a unique environment in which multiteam coordination is often required for mission success. This chapter will explore the topic of multiteam systems (MTSs) and their functioning in this environment.
ApproachThis chapter describes the MTS case of human spaceflight in terms of a specific subset of the system involved in current human spaceflight missions: NASA Mission Control and the NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station. In addition to describing the system itself, this chapter describes notable advantages and disadvantages of this particular MTS, along with potential future issues in human spaceflight and research directions for use of MTSs in spaceflight.
FindingsMore than 40 years of successful human spaceflight missions have demonstrated many of the benefits and drawbacks of MTSs across some of the most challenging environments faced by any teams attempting coordination. These environmental challenges include extreme distances, limited modes of communication, complex systems, novel problems, and coordination between teams from multiple countries with differing goals and priorities. The specific advantages and drawbacks of MTSs in this environment, and the impacts of the aforementioned environmental challenges, are discussed.
OriginalityThis chapter examines a known operational and successful MTS that operates in an environment in which many of the standard assumptions regarding teams and MTSs may not apply.
PurposeThis chapter describes the complexity of large-scale disaster recovery programs in the United States, the challenges faced by these programs, and the importance of multiteam systems in overcoming these challenges.
Design/methodology/approachThis chapter is a case study based on the experience of the authors in hurricane recovery programs.
FindingsMultiteam systems provide the range of expertise and experience needed to implement complex large-scale disaster recovery programs. For such disasters, responsibility for recovery work needs to be divided among specialized teams with unique expertise, some of which act as checks and balances for others. Challenges facing these teams include ensuring compliance with multiple Federal and state requirements, providing sufficient training to program staff, modifying procedures in response to changing program policies, and communicating changes for all pressure to move quickly, while at the same time facing intense pressure to process applications for assistance as rapidly as possible.
Originality/valueThis chapter provides organizations responsible for disaster recovery important information about the scope of work and challenges they are likely to face following a large-scale disaster.
PurposeMultiteam systems (MTSs) comprise much of the financial corporate landscape. However, little is known about these MTSs regarding formation, goal setting, daily operation, and maintenance. In order to learn more about the ways in which these MTSs might operate and the tasks they may be charged with, the authors interviewed professionals from the financial industry.
MethodologyThe current chapter presents a case study analysis based on information gathered from these interviews and proposes directions for future research efforts.
FindingsThe information gathered suggests that there is much opportunity for MTS research in the corporate sector, particularly in the financial services industry. Information from the case study also suggests that individual differences can hinder group process and organizational change.
Originality/valueThis chapter contributes to the literature on MTSs by discussing multiteam situations as they relate to executive management, higher-level leadership, and organizational change in a particular financial services company.
In this study, we investigate how multiteam system ( MTS ) and component team identification influence interteam conflict and MTS performance. On the basis of resource allocation theory and social identity theory, we build a model to examine dual identification and its effects in MTS s. We use a real‐time computer simulation to test our hypotheses and measure our focal constructs in three consecutive performance episodes. Using random coefficient modelling, we find that MTS identification is associated positively with MTS performance, and interteam task and relationship conflict mediate this relationship. Team identification influenced interteam conflict at the start of the study, but this influence decreased over time. Although the effect of MTS identification appears to be more prominent than the effect of team identification, our results point at the importance of investigating the identification with the MTS relative to that of the team. We discuss implications for MTS theory and practice.
Practitioner points
Although organizations increasingly rely on multiteam systems to accomplish work, the drivers of multiteam system performance remain understudied.
This study establishes multiteam system identification as the principal determinant of interteam conflict and multiteam system performance.
For multiteam system members, it is critical to engage in practices that make them quickly identify with the multiteam system.
PurposeAlthough adverse events are less studied in the prehospital setting, the evidence is beginning to paint an alarming picture. Consequently, improvements in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) demand a paradigm shift regarding the way care is conceptualized. The chapter aims to (1) support the dialogue on near-misses and adverse events as a learning opportunity and (2) to provide insights on applications of multiteam systems (MTSs).
ApproachTo offer discussion on near-misses and adverse events and knowledge on how MTSs are applicable to emergency medical care, we review and dissect a complex patient case.
FindingsThroughout this case discussion, we uncover seven pertinent issues specific to this particular MTS: (1) misunderstanding with number of patients and their locations, (2a) lack of context to build a mental model, (2b) no time or resources to think, (3) expertise-facilitated diagnosis, (4) lack of communication contributing to a medication error, (5) treatment plan selection, (6) extended time on scene, and (7) organizational culture impacting treatment plan decisions.
Originality/valueBy dissecting a patient case within the prehospital setting, we can highlight the value in engaging in dialogue regarding near-misses and adverse events. Further, we can demonstrate the need to expand the focus from simply teams to MTSs.
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the critical multiteam system (MTS) issues that are faced in healthcare by utilizing case studies that illustrate the transition of a patient through the healthcare system and suggest a possible approach to studying these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach taken by the authors is a case study approach, which is used to illustrate the transition of a patient through several venues in a healthcare system. This approach elucidates the MTS nature of healthcare. Moreover, a methodological explanation, social network analysis (SNA), for exploring the description and analysis of MTSs in healthcare is provided.
Findings
The case study approach provides concrete examples of the complex relationship between providers caring for a single patient. The case study describes the range of shared practice in healthcare, from collaborative care within each setting to the less obvious interdependence between teams across settings. This interdependence is necessary to deliver complex care but is also a source of potential errors during care. SNA is one tool to quantify these relationships, link them to outcomes, and establish areas for future research and quality improvement efforts.
Originality/value
This chapter offers a unique holistic view of the transition of a patient through a healthcare system and the interdependency of care necessary to deliver care. The authors show a methodology for assessing MTSs with a discussion of utilizing SNA. This foundation may offer promise to better understand care delivery and shape programs that can lead to improvement in care.
We articulate the role of norms within the social identity perspective as a basis for theorizing a number of manifestly communicative phenomena. We describe how group norms are cognitively represented as context-dependent prototypes that capture the distinctive properties of groups. The same process that governs the psychological salience of different prototypes, and thus generates group normative behavior, can be used to understand the formation, perception, and diffusion of norms, and also how some group members, for example, leaders, have more normative influence than others. life illustrate this process across a number of phenomena and make suggestions for future interfaces between the social identity perspective and communication research. We believe that the social identity approach represents a truly integrative force for the communication discipline.
- Zaccaro S. J.