Factors of Team Performance in Video Game Development: Team Efficacy, Emotional Intelligence, and Emergent Leadership

Abstract

This empirical study focuses on examining factors of team performance on video game development teams with the intent of providing insight to project managers and leaders in the video game industry for improving the effectiveness of their cross-disciplinary teams. Researchers developed a model examining team performance as the dependent variable and proposed relationships between three independent variables related to teams (team efficacy, team emotional intelligence, and emergent leadership). Team performance data was collected from expert raters who reviewed progress at major team project milestone. Results showed that teams with high team efficacy were likely to have higher performance than team with low efficacy, and that teams with high team emotional intelligence were likely to have higher team efficacy than teams with low emotional intelligence. All other relationships were not significant.

Full text

Team Efficacy, Emotional Intelligence, Emergent
Leadership, and Team Performance
Gerald Milton, Guildhall, SMU
John Slocum, Guildhall, SMU
Elizabeth Stringer, Guildhall, SMU
Keywords
Video games, game development, team performance, team efficacy, emotional intelligence,
emergent leadership
Abstract
This empirical study focuses on examining factors of team performance on video game
development teams with the intent of providing insight to project managers and leaders in the
video game industry for improving the effectiveness of their cross-disciplinary teams.
Researchers developed a model examining team performance as the dependent variable and
proposed relationships between three independent variables related to teams (team efficacy, team
emotional intelligence, and emergent leadership). Results showed that teams with high team
efficacy were likely to have higher performance than team with low efficacy, and that teams with
high team emotional intelligence were likely to have higher team efficacy than teams with low
emotional intelligence. Emergent leadership was not related to team performance.
Introduction
When considered on a grand scale, the video game industry is relatively young. In 1972, video
gaming came to America in the form of arcade gaming consoles. As the video game industry
developed, video games moved from being hosted in arcades to being present in consumers’
homes on to mobile devices (Desjardins, 2017). In 2019, the video game industry reported
$152.1 billion in revenue worldwide, with $43.4 billion in the U.S. alone (Takahashi, 2019).
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Industry experts expect to see total industry revenue grow to $180.1 billion by 2021. In order to
manage this growth, video game companies look for ways to improve their products by
enhancing the effectiveness of their development teams. To this end, video game product
managers sometimes reference the existing bodies of research from other industries on building
more effective high performance teams (Cooper, Hellriegel, & Slocum 2018). Research indicates
that the organizational needs of the video game companies cannot be satisfied by adopting
practices from other industries (Bakker, 2010; Mayer, 2019).
Computer game companies have not yet coalesced around a single organizational form to
achieve high performance. Companies employ varied organizational structures to meet the needs
of each project. Electronic Arts, for example, employs interdisciplinary teams of varying sizes to
accomplish its organizational objectives; teams are organized by task rather than by discipline or
geography, whereas Value has adopted a non-hierarchical structure (Fuster-Parra, Garcia-Mas,
Ponseti, & Leo, 2015; Pausch, 2004) to produce games.
The current researchers consider how team dynamics, emergent leadership and team
efficacy influence the performance of development teams in the video game industry. A recent
study by Dalton, Nausha, Slocum, and Stringer (2018) researched the relationship between team
dynamics and team efficacy on video game development teams. They found a strong positive
correlation (r = .75, p < .002) between team efficacy and team performance in video game
development teams. They also reported a positive correlation between team dynamics and self-
efficacy(r=.96, p <001). The current study builds on this understanding by further exploring the
relationships between team efficacy, emergent leadership and team performance on video game
development teams.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Team Efficacy
Self-efficacy is the extent to which one believes they have the ability to perform at desired levels
of performance (Bandura, 1997). Self-efficacy has consistently been related to performance
(Gully, Incacaterra, Joshi, & Beaubien, 2002; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Collective efficacy,
otherwise known as team efficacy, is a group’s shared belief in their ability to function
cooperatively at a desired level of performance (Bandura, 1997). It is important to note, however
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that team efficacy is not equivalent to the sum or the average of the group’s individual self-
efficacies. Team efficacy is an emergent property that varies within a group over time as internal
group dynamics shift and change.
The body of research on team efficacy and team performance indicates that there are
many different organizational constructs that work together to affect the relationship between
team efficacy and team performance. Rapp T. L., Bachrach, Rapp A. A., and Mullins (2014)
found that teams with higher levels of goal monitoring demonstrated a stronger relationship
between team efficacy and team performance than teams with lower levels of goal monitoring.
Additionally, in their meta-analysis, Gully et al. (2002) found that when task interdependence
was high, the relationship between team efficacy and performance was greater than when task
interdependence was low. Other research indicates that factors, such as leadership, inclusiveness,
and interdependence of team members impacts the relationship between team efficacy and
performance (Dalton et al., 2018; Fuster-Parra et al., 2015; Gully et al., 2002; Rapp et al., 2014).
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is an individually held attribute that is a combination of a person’s
intelligence and emotional awareness (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso
(2004) define it as the capacity to understand, manage, and express one’s emotions, and to handle
interpersonal relationships empathetically and effectively. In order to study emotional
intelligence, these researchers developed a framework for measuring individual emotional
intelligence constructs. In their framework, emotional intelligence has four components (e.g.
self-awareness, social empathy, self-motivation, and social skills) which taken together describe
the recognition and regulation of emotions of both self and others. An instrument for measuring
team emotional intelligence developed by Chang, Sy, and Choi (2011) uses the average
emotional intelligence of individual team members for its calculations. Research indicates that
the emotional intelligence of a group as a whole has a strong link to the group’s performance
(Cherniss & Goleman, 2001).
Cherniss and Goleman in their book, The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace, expose the
wide-ranging influence of emotional intelligence on an organization, prompting researchers to
continue to search out more of its effects (Cherniss & Goleman, 2001). Specifically, Chang et al.
(2011) found a positive link between team performance and emotional intelligence of the team.
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They noted that emotional intelligence was found to have positive benefits on team performance
as expected. A team receives the same benefit however from high team emotional intelligence as
it does from having a leader with high emotional intelligence. Teams with both attributes – high
average emotional intelligence and a leader with high emotional intelligence – did not receive an
additional increase in team performance. This link comes in the form of a classic substitution
effect wherein a behavior or responsibility normally held by an organizational leader may be
substituted by a team with high emotional intelligence (Kerr & Jermier, 1978).
Emergent Leadership
Leadership is the process of developing ideas and a vision for an organization,
influencing others to embrace these ideas and vision, and making decisions regarding human
resources and organizational needs (Cooper et al., 2018). Research shows that emergent
leadership is a substitute for traditional hierarchical leadership in short-lived interdependent
teams (Taggar, Hackett, & Saha, 1999). Kalish and Luria help provide an understanding of how
leadership emerges in short-lived teams (Kalish & Luria, 2016). They found that emergent
leaders in short-lived teams were likely to have personality and leadership competencies that
members identify with and hold as valuable. For example, if an individual identified problem
solving as an important leadership competency, they were more likely to identify someone who
is skilled at problem solving as the leader of their team than a person who lacks this competency.
Across many industries, such as consulting, software development, construction, companies
are increasingly relying on temporary specialized teams to solve problems (Bakker, 2010; Bock,
2015). These teams often function independently of a company’s hierarchy and are composed of
members with different specializations from varying areas of the company. Research has
demonstrated that emergent leadership, not hierarchical leadership, has a positive effect on team
performance (Taggar et al., 1999). The nature and magnitude of this impact is predicated on the
individual attributes of the emergent leader, as well as the internal dynamics, of the team. The
emergent leader has the greatest impact on team performance when members of the team agree
upon the emergent leader.
Hypothesis Development
Team Efficacy
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A previous study on video game development found a positive relationship between team
efficacy and team performance (Dalton et al., 2018). As a result, this study expects to confirm a
positive relationship between team performance and team efficacy on video game development
teams.
Hypothesis 1: Video game development teams with high team efficacy have higher team
performance than teams with low team efficacy.
Emotional Intelligence
Research indicates that emotional intelligence has a clear impact on many aspects of team
effectiveness (Chang et al., 2011). This study expects to find a positive relationship between
team emotional intelligence and team performance on video game development teams.
Hypothesis 2: Video game development teams with high team emotional intelligence
have higher team performance than teams with low team emotional intelligence.
In the video game development industry, the interdependent nature of cross-discipline
game development teams requires a high degree of trust and communication to succeed
(Grietemeyer & Cox, 2013). If teams are small and members are reciprocally interdependent on
each other for task accomplishment, breakdowns in trust and communication are dysfunctional to
performance. Furthermore, these breakdowns in trust and communication have been found to
reduce the confidence of team members in their team’s collective ability to achieve its goals,
which reduces team efficacy (Lee, Chang, Jen-Wei, 2013). As a result, this study expects to find
a positive relationship between team emotional intelligence and team efficacy.
Hypothesis 3: Video game development teams with high team emotional intelligence
have higher team efficacy than teams with low team emotional intelligence.
Additionally, this study seeks to examine whether team emotional intelligence has a
moderating effect on the relationship between team efficacy and team performance.
Hypothesis 4: Team emotional intelligence will have a moderating effect on the
relationship between team efficacy and team performance such that teams with high team
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emotional intelligence will have a stronger relationship between team efficacy and team
performance than teams that have low team emotional intelligence.
Emergent Leadership
A common approach to video game development is the use of temporary, flexible, cross-
discipline teams that form to complete a task or solve a problem during development. The
organic nature of these temporary teams encourages researchers to study emergent leadership
rather than structural hierarchical leadership (Taggar et al., 1999). This study expects to find that
the presence of emergent leadership will result in an increase to team performance.
Hypothesis 5: Teams with an emergent leader have higher team performance than teams
with no emergent leader.
Research indicates that leadership has a positive impact on team efficacy (Dirks, 2000,
Fuster-Parra et al., 2015; Hogan et al., 1994). This study expects to find that the presence of a
recognized emergent leader in a team will increase confidence of team members that the team
can complete its objectives, positively affecting team efficacy.
Hypothesis 6: Teams with an emergent leader will have higher team efficacy than teams
with no emergent leader.
Finally, this study seeks to examine whether emergent leadership has a moderating effect
on the relationship between team efficacy and team performance.
Hypothesis 7: Emergent leadership will have a moderating effect on the relationship
between team efficacy and team performance such that teams that have an emergent leader will
demonstrate a stronger relationship between team efficacy and team performance than teams that
have no emergent leader.
Methodology
The data were gathered over course of three months in a graduate-level game development
program located in the southwestern part of the United States. Participants in the study were first
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year graduate students randomly assigned to one of 11 teams. Each team had 3-5 members and
were charged to create a mobile game during the 16-week academic semester. Every two weeks,
teams delivered a project milestone to expert faculty raters. These milestones were Proof of
Concept, Gameplay, Vertical Slice, Alpha, Beta, and Launch.
Study participants completed an individual emotional intelligence survey at the outset of
the project. Measures of team efficacy, emergent leadership, and team performance were taken at
four of the project milestones: Proof of Concept, Gameplay, Alpha, and Launch. Participants
completed confidential electronically distributed team efficacy and emergent leadership surveys,
while expert faculty raters submitted team performance ratings at each of the four selected
milestones.
Research Instruments
Team Efficacy
The measure for team efficacy was a ten-item survey adapted from Dalton et al. (2018). As
shown in Figure 1, each question was scored on a five-point Likert scale. An example item: “It is
easy for my team to stick to our plans and accomplish our goal.” Each individual team member
completed the team efficacy survey. Cumulative team efficacy was calculated by averaging the
responses of individual team members for each of the four milestones.
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Figure 1: Individual Team Efficacy survey used in this study
Emotional Intelligence
Individual emotional intelligence was assessed using a 32-item four-point Likert scale adapted
from Schutte et al.’s research (Schutte et al., 1998; Cooper et al., 2018). As shown in Figure 2,
each item asked a participant to rate their agreement or disagreement with a given statement on a
four-point Likert scale. An example statement: “When I am faced with obstacles, I remember
times I faced similar obstacles and overcame them.” Responses were summed to find an
individual’s emotional intelligence score. Team emotional intelligence was then calculated by
averaging the emotional intelligence scores of the current members on each team for each
milestone.
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Figure 2: Emotional Intelligence survey used in study. Taken from (Cooper et al., 2018).
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Emergent Leadership
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The researchers adopted a method utilized by Kalish and Luria (2016) to measure emergent
leadership in teams with a single question: “Who on your team, if anyone, do you consider to be
the leader?” They could choose the name of any member of the team including themselves, or
choose “Does Not Apply/None of the above” to indicate that they did not consider any member
of the team to be the leader. Emergent leadership values for each team were calculated by
tallying the votes of individual team members and determining the degree to which they agreed
on the identity of the team’s leader.
To analyze emergent leadership at the team level, researchers operationalized emergent
leadership for each team using following steps:
1. Votes were tallied for each individual on a team.
2. Each vote was given a value of one.
3. Votes were totaled to give each individual a score.
4. For each team the highest individual score was identified (irrespective of ties).
5. Scores of all other team members were subtracted from the identified highest
value.
6. The result of this operation was the team’s emergent leadership value.
For example, if a team with five members had a member receive three votes and two
other members receive one vote each, researchers would take the value of three and subtract the
values of the other team members; the resulting value in this case would be one (3 – 1 – 1 = 1).
Team emergent leadership values were negative in the cases that no member of the team received
a majority of votes cast. This method of operationalizing emergent leadership provided
researchers with a numeric measure of the extent to which team members agreed and unified
around a single emergent leader.
Team Performance
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The measure of team performance was rated on a five-point Likert scale developed by the
faculty experts. The three raters had more than ten-years of video game experience and were not
responsible for assigning student’s academic grades. As shown in Figure 3, this scale measured
team performance by rating the quality of the project in relation to the definition of the expected
milestone deliverables. The options on the scale were: one for “Milestone cannot be efficiently
reworked and does not fulfill stated requirements. Thus, milestone requires significant
redirection.” two for “Milestone requires major rework based on requirements and does not
fulfill stated requirements.” three for “Milestone requires rework based on requirements and
fulfills over half the stated requirements.” four for “Milestone requires minor rework and fulfills
stated requirements.”, and five for “Milestone requires minor rework, fulfills stated
requirements, and exceeds expectations.” The final value for team performance was calculated
by averaging the responses of the independent faculty raters.
Figure 3: example of team performance survey filled out by expert faculty raters
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Results and Analysis
Measures
Team Efficacy Survey Reliability
The internal consistency reliability of the team efficacy scale was assessed using Cronbach’s
alpha. The reliability of the scale was found to be α = .94. The team efficacy survey is considered
a reliable tool.
Emotional Intelligence Survey Reliability
The internal consistency reliability of the emotional intelligence scale was assessed using
Cronbach’s alpha. The reliability of the scale was found to be α = .89. The emotional intelligence
survey is considered a reliable tool.
Team Performance Inter-Rater Reliability
Inter-rater reliability of the team performance scale was assessed using Kendall’s W to find the
coefficient of concordance among the expert faculty raters. Coefficient of concordance found the
scale to be reliable over the course of the study (W = .71). This indicates a high degree of rater
agreement.
Results
Hypothesis 1 - Accepted
Hypothesis 1 stated that teams with high team efficacy have higher team performance than teams
with low team efficacy. Analysis revealed that the relationship between team efficacy and team
performance was significant, X2 (1, N=29) = 2.89, p < .10. Teams with high team efficacy were
more likely to have high performance than teams with low team efficacy.
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Hypothesis 2 - Rejected
Hypothesis 2 stated that teams with high team emotional intelligence would have higher team
performance than teams with low team emotional intelligence. Analysis showed that the
relationship between team emotional intelligence and team performance was not significant, X2
(1, N=29) = .32, p >.50. Teams with high team emotional intelligence were no more likely to
have high team performance than video game development teams with low team emotional
intelligence.
Hypothesis 3 - Accepted
Hypothesis 3 stated that teams with high team emotional intelligence would have higher team
efficacy than teams with low team emotional intelligence. Analysis showed that the relationship
between team efficacy and team emotional intelligence was significant, X2 (1, N=29) = 5.99, p
< .05. Teams with high team emotional intelligence were more likely to have high team efficacy
than teams with low team emotional intelligence.
Hypothesis 5 - Rejected
Hypothesis 5 stated that video game development teams with high emergent leadership have
higher team performance than teams with low emergent leadership. Analysis showed that the
relationship between emergent leadership and team performance was not significant, X2 (1,
N=29) = .83, p >.10. Teams with high emergent leadership were no more likely to have high
team performance than video game development teams with low emergent leadership. Members
agreeing whom their leader was were no more productive than teams that could not agree on a
single person as their leader.
Hypothesis 6 - Rejected
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Hypothesis 6 stated that teams with an emergent leadership would be more likely to have high
team efficacy than teams without an emergent leadership. Analysis showed that the relationship
between emergent leadership and team efficacy was not significant, X2 (1, N=29) = 1.09, p >.10.
Teams with AN emergent leader were no more likely to have high team efficacy teams without
an emergent leader.
The two remaining hypotheses (H4 and H7) were analyzed by comparing partial correlations to
zero-order correlations to test the presence of a moderating effect.
Hypothesis 4 - Rejected
Hypothesis 4 and 7 were tested by comparing partial correlations to zero-order correlations to
test for the presence of a moderator. Hypothesis 4 stated that team emotional intelligence would
have a moderating effect on the relationship between team efficacy and team performance such
that teams with high emotional intelligence will have a stronger relationship between team
efficacy and team performance than teams with low emotional intelligence. There was a
significant positive partial correlation between team efficacy and team performance when
controlling for team emotional intelligence (r=.377, p<.05). Zero-order correlations were
examined to understand the relationship between team efficacy and team performance in the
absence of any control variables. These correlations showed that there was a statistically
significant positive correlation between team efficacy and team performance (r = .362, p < .05).
The partial correlation (r=.377, p<.05) and the zero-order correlation (r = .362, p < .05)
have similar values. Researchers used Fisher’s r-to-z transformation to test if there was a
significant difference between the two correlations. The resulting z score of Hypothesis 4 (z =
±.06, p = .95) indicated that team emotional intelligence did not have a significant moderating
effect on the relationship between team efficacy and team performance.
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Hypothesis 7 - Rejected
Hypothesis 7 stated that emergent leadership will have a moderating effect on the relationship
between team efficacy and team performance such teams that have an emergent leaders will
demonstrate a stronger relationship between team efficacy and team performance than teams
cannot agree on who is their emergent leader. There was a moderate, positive partial correlation
between team efficacy and team performance when controlling for team emergent leadership,
(r=.311, p < .10). Zero-order correlations were examined to understand the relationship between
team efficacy and team performance in the absence of any control variables. These correlations
showed that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between team efficacy and
team performance (r = .362, p < .05). The partial correlation (r=.311, p<.05) and the zero-order
correlation (r = .362, p < .05) have similar values. Researchers used Fisher’s r-to-z
transformation to test if there was a significant difference between the two correlations. The
resulting z score of Hypothesis 7 (z = ±.21, p = .83) indicates that team emergent leadership does
not have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between team efficacy and team
performance.
Discussion
Team Efficacy and Team Performance
This study contributes to the body of knowledge specific to video game development teams with
regard to the relationship between team efficacy and team performance. Our results found that
teams with high team efficacy demonstrate high team performance and teams with low team
efficacy demonstrate low team performance. In order to increase a video game team’s
performance, managers in the video game industry should attend to team efficacy because highly
efficacious teams have been shown to be confident in the ability of the team to complete its
defined goals. This confidence was based on an understanding of the capabilities of the team as a
whole, as well as the abilities and competencies of individual team members (Dalton et al.,
2018). In practice, highly efficacious teams set ambitious goals, work together to solve problems
by implementing creative solutions, visualize and plan for success, and learn from their past
successes and failures (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). By contrast, teams with low team efficacy
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avoid difficult tasks, have little ambition, use lack of ability or bad luck as excuses for failing,
and give up on achieving their goals.
Another important facet of team efficacy is how team efficacy is associated with team
performance over time. This study affirms the positive relationship between team efficacy and
team performance over time. Video game development team managers should use this covariant
relationship to their advantage by generating a reinforcement feedback cycle in which
performance outcomes drive a team’s belief in their ability to succeed, and a team’s belief in
their ability to succeed drives future performance outcomes.
This study affirms past research demonstrating that team efficacy has the greatest
predictive effect on team performance outcomes when teams are small and their tasks are
interdependent (Gully et al., 2002). This makes team efficacy considerations especially important
in game companies employing small interdisciplinary teams. To maximize these outcomes,
companies should organize small, interdependent teams to solve problems and complete tasks
within the larger project (Murphy-Hill et al., 2014).
Team Emotional Intelligence
This study provides new insight into the effects of emotional intelligence in video game
development teams. While the researchers did not find team emotional intelligence had a direct
impact on team performance, this study did find a positive link between emotional intelligence
and team efficacy. The data demonstrated that teams with high team emotional intelligence were
more likely to have high team efficacy, while teams with low team emotional intelligence were
more likely to have low team efficacy. Managers can increase the efficacy of their teams by
recruiting emotionally intelligent employees.
Evidence showing that emotional intelligence is a teachable competency provides reason
for video game companies to employ these findings. In prior research, training focused on
improving emotional intelligence was found to increase significantly participants’ abilities to
identify and manage their emotions (Nelis, Quoidbach, Mikolajczak & Hansenne, 2009). In
their, training sessions were performed in small groups and focused on educating participants in
emotional intelligence by working through practical examples and activities that modeled
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emotionally intelligent recognition and management of emotions. Over the course of the project,
emotional intelligence scores of participants who received the training increased while members
of a control group who did not receive the training stayed constant. The increase in emotional
intelligence was still present when retested six months after the training concluded. Therefore,
video game hiring managers looking to improve team performance should consider dedicating
time and resources to training and mentoring employees in emotional intelligence. Video game
companies can also take advantage of the substitution effect demonstrated in Change et al.’s
research by organizing teams around emotionally intelligent leaders (Change et al., 2011; Kerr &
Jermier, 1978).
Emergent Leadership
Emergent leadership was selected as a variable based on prior research in other industries that
found that emergent leadership effected team performance (Taggar et al., 1999; Bakker, 2010). In
the present study, researchers found no link between emergent leadership and team performance.
Additionally, chi-square analysis of emergent leadership and team efficacy indicated that there
was no statistically significant relationship between emergent leadership and high team efficacy.
To understand further these unexpected findings, researchers conducted a Spearman
correlation between team emergent leadership and team efficacy. It was discovered that the two
variables were significantly correlated ( = .427, p <.05). This is possible because Chi-square ƿ
tests for a directional relationship between the variables, while Spearman’s correlation tests for
the presence of an association between them. The Spearman correlation finding indicates that
there is indeed a significant relationship between team emergent leadership and team efficacy.
To understand better why and how emergent leadership could affect team efficacy, video
game team managers should look to other industries research findings in this area. Specifically,
background research indicated that when teams formed without hierarchical leadership leaders
emerged organically to provide structure to the team (Taggar et al., 1999) through creating a
unified vision (Cooper et al., 2018). In the visioning process, teams naturally developed team
identity, direction, and goals. Furthermore, goal setting itself has been identified as a task related
to team efficacy that contributed to a team’s confidence in their ability to achieve their goals
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(Latham, Seijts, & Slocum, 2016). The rapidly evolving circumstances typical of a video game
development project combined with the interdependent nature of video game development teams
creates an environment where emergent leadership is an important construct for managers in the
video game development industry to understand and facilitate.
Summary and Conclusions
The goal of this study was to provide additional understanding of three factors that affect team
performance on video game development teams. Findings indicated that one main factor, team
efficacy, was highly related to team performance. In addition, the data indicated that team
emotional intelligence had a positive effect on team efficacy. Finally, upon further examination,
the third factor, emergent leadership, can also be understood to have a tertiary relationship to
team efficacy.
These results led researchers to make the following recommendations:
1. Project managers in the video game development industry should prioritize
building team efficacy by providing structure, vision, and clear, attainable goals
for their teams.
2. Organizations could benefit from implementing structured emotional intelligence
training to increase emotional awareness and increase the capability of individuals
to manage emotions effectively, thereby increasing team emotional intelligence.
3. Organizational leaders should be aware of the impact emergent leadership can
have on their teams, and should monitor the development of emergent leaders
over time.
Limitations and Future Research
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One limitation of the current study is the similarities in the participant population. All
teams in the study were comprised of first year graduate students. In general, this means that
most participants were novices in video game development. This relative inexperience could
have had impact on the results of the research. For example, the relationship between team
efficacy and team performance in this study’s teams was lower than would be expected with a
more experienced video game development team. A possible explanation is that experience has a
moderating effect on the relationship between team efficacy and team performance, such that
teams comprised of members with more experience would have a stronger positive relationship
between team efficacy and team performance.
Future researchers could also expand the scope of the studies of team efficacy and team
performance by introducing different measures of an “experience” factor. One examining
experience would be to measure professional experience within the video game development
industry; this experience could be measured by years of experience, projects shipped, units sold,
or a number of other metrics. Another way to examine experience would be measuring the
familiarity of team members with each other; this could be measured by the number of projects
completed as a team or by time-spent working together at the company.
Another limitation of this study is the lack of connection real world performance
outcomes. Because the games developed by participating student development teams were not
released commercially, it could not include product success in real world markets as a measure of
team performance. If future researchers can obtain additional performance measures of products
in the marketplace, they can provide additional value by drawing connections between internal
team factors and external market factors. Market factors researchers could measure include
product sales, number of product downloads, and/or user ratings of the product.
Additionally, conclusions that can be drawn regarding emergent leadership in this study
are limited. Researchers operationalized emergent leadership to consider agreement of team
members on the identity of the team’s emergent leader, but did not capture attributes of the
emergent leader themselves. When considering bases of power for leadership, it is likely this
study’s method of operationalization only captured two of the four bases of a leader’s power:
charismatic and expert power. This means that the other bases of a leader’s power, legitimate,
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coercive and reward bases were excluded from our consideration. Future research should
consider all the bases of power as a vehicle for understanding the impact emergent leadership has
on teams (Cooper et al., 2018). Additionally, comparable industry research indicates that
personal attributes of a team leader, such as leadership style, personality, emotional stability, etc.
can affect team performance (Taggar et al., 1999; Chang et al., 2011; Wayne et al., 1997). Future
studies should collect qualitative data on emergent leadership by considering the identity of
individual emergent leaders and the way they interact with and function within the team in
pursuit of the team’s objectives.
In the future, researchers should continue to test research findings from other industries in
the field of video game development to increase the overall body of knowledge. Industry trends
and common practices in the video game development industry have the potential to challenge
accepted norms from other industries. By examining research from other industries and applying
similar research methodologies to the video game development industry researchers can better
understand if, how, and to what extent the video game development industry differs from other
established industries
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Appendices
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