Team

    Research summary of Team capability beliefs over time:  Distinguishing between team potency team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy by Catherine G Collins and Shannon K Parker

 Introduction

There are many studies on the importance of team work.  Therefore, in order for psychologists to better understand  what elements increase team effectiveness they need to analyze   all of the different aspects that make team work possible and learn what makes teams good or  more effective . As a result psychologists will gain greater knowledge and understanding about team cohesion, so they can find out what characteristics make one team better than others in the first place. There are many characteristics that make team more effective and unique than  others Thus, Catherine G Collins and Shannon K Parker start their study by describing what characteristics of team Such as how team composition team work processes team organizational systems team potency and team efficacy play a powerful role in the overall effectiveness of teams.  Many researchers have defined team potency and team efficacy in different ways because of the growing research on the importance of team work. In the 1990s, research expanded from studying just team work to also analyzing the influence of specific types of team capability beliefs, such as team efficacy and team potency. Team efficacy is defined by (Bandura, 1997) as the specific role of teams to develop a unique type of capability that includes two aspects: a collective belief that any team has the ability of working together to achieve tasks and this belief is also domain specific. This means the belief of team efficacy  has two domains team have the potential to focus on a specific task, to achieve that goal or team can focuses on accomplishing a set of specific tasks),it is referred to as team efficacy team efficacy Is an Individual team capability belief. On other hand, team potency is the same belief of teams working together to achieve tasks but this time achieving the tasks Is a global evaluation of team capability not an Individual single one Furthermore, team potency uses many domains. Whereas team efficacy only use one domain it is referred to as team potency (Guzzo, Yost,Campbe ll, & Shea, 1993). The authors highlighted the fact that Team efficacy and team potency are predicted to increase performance because teams with a strong belief in their capabilities set higher goals, develop strategies to achieve their goals, and persist in the face of setbacks.

 Although  there have been many studies on team efficacy  and team potency previous research on team efficacy  and team potency has only analyzed  either team efficacy or team potency individually, however  the present study shows the effects of both team efficacy and team potency  on team effectiveness at the same time. Therefore, this study has two goals; the first goal is not only  identify and investigate different types of team capability beliefs and explore which type of change is appropriate to understand their influence on team effectiveness using social cognitive theory. The second goal  is further analyzing the team efficacy by distinguishing team efficacy into two types team outcome efficacy and team process efficacy after the authors distinguish team efficacy from team potency which previous studies have not done .  The authors defined team efficacy as the belief that teams have the confidence to complete specific tasks or set of tasks in a single domain on the other hand team potency is a team having initial confidence in itself in many different domains  the authors defined team outcome efficacy a team’s unified belief that they can achieve their own best performance. In addition , they believe that team outcome efficacy plays a crucial role In understanding why the team is working together; to perform the team task. However they defined team  process efficacy as the processes that individual team members unite and bond with each other to create interdependent connections needed for teams to achieve their team outcomes there are five hypotheses in this study the first hypothesis is that the three variables of Team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy are distinct team-level constructs.  the second hypothesis is that Team outcome efficacy, team potency, and team process efficacy will positively predict team performance, with team outcome efficacy accounting for more variance in team performance. the third hypothesis is: Team process efficacy and team potency will positively predict team citizenship behavior; the former will account for more variance in citizenship than the latter.

Method

there were Two samples in this study   The participants in this study were full time executives who were also  completing their final year of a part-time executive MBA in Australia In addition ,each sample was independent as  participants were drawn from different student class standing furthermore the participants worked in teams that ranged between four and six members; the average team size was 5. Faculty assisted students to select their teams on the criteria of functional and gender diversity. These teams completed six case study assignments together across the year, which composed  40% of the course assessment. the first sample consisted of 213 managers in 41 study teams, with a 100% response rate. These participants completed two the second Sample 2 used data collected from 500 managers in 98 study teams, collected data across 2 years. Data were collected from the teams at four times. Each survey

was administered just prior to, or during, the teams’ four residential study blocks,which were major transition points for the teams. After completing eachsurvey, all teams received feedback from a coach on ways to enhance team performance and citizenship. The coaching intervention differed across the 2 years; we controlled forthis with a dummy variable since it is not the focus of the paper. Team demographics were similar in each sample. The average age within each

team was 34.63 for sample 1 and 34.85 for 

Measures

Results  

There are five hypotheses in this study.  The first hypothesis is that the three variables of  Team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy are distinct team-level constructs.  the second hypothesis is that Team outcome efficacy, team potency, and team process efficacy will positively predict team performance, with team outcome efficacy accounting for more variance in team performance. The third hypothesis is: Team process efficacy and team potency will positively predict team citizenship behavior; the former will account for more variance in citizenship than the latter. Hypothesis 4: Team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy will be configurable invariant (i.e. they will not demonstrate gamma change). Hypothesis 5: Team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy will be factorial .invariant (i.e. they will not demonstrate beta change).  not exist. all five hypotheses were supported by the results This is why I believe the study is biased. I feel as if the author already knew that all this hypothesizes s are true the study was done . they wanted to expand research on team efficacy by distinguished two more categories of team efficacy  they are team outcome efficacy and team progress efficacy  

Before There are three main findings in this study the first finding is that team efficacy is a multi dismentiontial  construct this mean that this study highlights the fact team outcome efficacy, team process efficacy, and team potency are three empirically distinct and separate  dimensions. Therefore also due to the fact the authors used an longitudinal research design they emphasized that the predictive power of these three constructs differ for various team outcomes. as a result they point out the fact that  if these three dimensions are not accounted for in future studies on team efficacy than there will no value in studying team capability beliefs and they will be obscured. The second finding is that Team outcome efficacy is the strongest predictor of team performance,  however, Team outcome efficacy contributed little to team citizenship. On the hand Team process efficacy was the most important predictor of team citizenship, this finding is important because suggesting that, Team outcome efficacy is important team capability belief if teams are going to be able to work collectively on team outcomes in a collegial environment. However, the third finding is that team process efficacy was relatively unimportant for team performance, at least in the short term for team effectiveness.

The fourth finding is the authors point out is If psychologists  want to understand team motivation and likely effectiveness they need to assess both team outcome efficacy and team process efficacy. 

Although we have not focused on antecedents in the current paper, this is

also an avenue ripe for future research; it will deepen our knowledge about the structure

of the constructs.

 The final finding Is generalizability,  the authors highlight the fact the three team capability beliefs to emerge inall team situations. they  , although team outcome efficacy measures will need to be adapted so they are relevant for the context. The broader bandwidth of team potency may be most predictive when a team does not obtain realistic feedback. In this paper, bothteam performance and citizenship measures had a narrow bandwidth with realistic

feedback; perhaps this is why the global construct team potency contributed less

to the outcomes in this paper. Future exploration between team capability beliefs

and outcomes of various bandwidths is therefore needed.

Discussion

\there are many limitations  of this study one limitation is weaker external validity  than internal validly another limitation the study student sample . even though the study was suppoed to have good Internal validity, due to  a longitudinal research design that included objective

performance data. The external validity is weaker because the data were collected from

MBAs working on class-based projects. However, the teams in this paper should not be

equated with short-lived student samples working on time-limited tasks with little

consequence. The teams worked interdependently for 8 months on team assignments

which accounted for 40% of individual’s final grade; emerging relationships were also

important for alumni networking. Thus teams in this paper have parallels with

multidisciplinary teams working on multiple projects.

A related issue concerns the comprehensiveness of the three types of team capability

beliefs examined here. Teams in other contexts might have additional team efficacy

beliefs. It would be of interest to explore whether there are more than two specific team

efficacy constructs, and whether these are hierarchically related in some way. Structural

equation modelling could be used to explore whether these constructs are hierarchically

related to a generalized team efficacy factor (Lau, Yeung, Jin, & Low, 1999). Such analyses

would tease out if there is a higher order umbrella construct for the variety of specific

team efficacies, as well as how this higher-order construct relates to team potency.4

Conclusion

Our study suggests that in the future, researchers and practitioners should adopt a more

fine-grained approach to enhance the predictive power of team capability beliefs; an

approach that is currently lacking in the literature. Using a longitudinal design over

several months, we demonstrate that task performance arises through teams developing

confidence in achieving specific performance outcomes whereas citizenship

particularly arises through teams developing confidence in their processes. Our

findings also add to the growing evidence that specific rather than general constructs

enhance the predictive power of team models and diagnostic tools (e.g. conflict: Jehn,

1995; team satisfaction: Mason & Griffin, 2003; trust: McAllister, 1995; and

interdependence: Wageman & Baker, 1997). Finally, our study suggests that team

capability beliefs will develop over time in different ways.

Collins, C. G., & Parker, S. (2010). Team capability beliefs over time: Distinguishing between team potency, team outcome efficacy, and team process efficacy. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(4), 1003-1023. DOI: 10.1348/096317909X484271

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