Author: vpham30

Author: Hannah Ramil

A growing number of corporations are choosing to introduce sustainability efforts within the company. From plant-based, environmentally friendly laundry detergent to shoe brands that donate a pair for every pair purchased, more products are designed and marketed with sustainability in mind. Starbucks, for example touts fair-trade coffee beans, coffee sleeves made from recycled fibers, and are introducing strawless lids. This emerging pattern is known as corporate sustainability. Organizations invested over $8.7 trillion (more than twice the GDP of Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world) in corporate sustainability efforts in 2016 in the U.S. alone (USSIF, 2016). Nearly 12,000 organizations disclose their sustainability efforts through the Global Reporting Initiative, an international organization founded in 1997 to promote corporate sustainability.

WHAT IS CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY?

According to Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) corporate sustainability is an organization’s efforts to not only meet the needs of current stakeholders, but also meet needs of future stakeholders. Hahn and colleagues (2018) argue that corporations can meet these divergent and potentially competing goals by embracing paradox theory. In other words, corporations who embrace corporate sustainability must recognize that they will likely have to embrace competing demands (e.g., immediate profit, long-term environmental sustainability), without trying to resolve them into a unified goal. Organizations who embrace this paradox perspective may balance their actions and initiatives to meet the separate competing demands, being clear about which initiatives are tied to which goals.

The definition of corporate sustainability continues to be debated, mainly because it is related to other constructs, like corporate social responsibility, environmental management, and sustainable development (Landrum, 2017). Schwartz and Carroll (2008) observe that corporate sustainability and other related constructs have three main pillars: generation of value for the company and society, balance of financial and non-financial interests, and corporate accountability for actions.

Constructs	Definition
Corporate Sustainability	“Meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders (such as shareholders, employees, clients, pressure groups, communities, etc.), without compromising its ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders” (Dyllick & Hockerts, 2001, p. 131).
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)	“The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time” (Carroll, 1979, p. 500).
Environmental Management	“Encompasses all efforts to minimize the negative environmental impact of the firm’s products throughout their life cycle” (Klassen & McLaughlin, 1996, p. 1199).
Sustainable Development	‘‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’ (WCED, 1987, p. 43).

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Pressure on corporations to partake in corporate sustainability initiatives has increased in recent years. As a result, many corporations have attempted to incorporate these conscious practices in their business goals and strategies. Holding organizations accountable for the ways in which they conduct their business can yield potential lasting benefits for the wellbeing of the earth and societies within it.

Embracing corporate sustainability efforts can also benefit organizations. Eccles and colleagues (2014) examined the organizational characteristics and performance of 90 high sustainability companies and 90 low sustainability companies for a period of 18 years. In terms of organizational characteristics, they found that low sustainability companies are those that continue to operate under profit-maximization practices and view social and environmental responsibilities as externalities. In contrast, within high sustainability companies, the boards of directors are directly responsible for sustainability efforts, and leadership ties incentives to sustainability metrics. These companies also have deeper stakeholder engagements and are long-term oriented. Organizational performance outcomes differed. High sustainability companies significantly outperform low sustainability companies in terms of long-term performances in stock market and accounting.

Positive outcomes emerge within the organization from corporate sustainability efforts. Carmeli, Brammer, Gomes and Tarba (2017) conducted an empirical study on organizational Ethic of Care and employee involvement in sustainability-related behaviors at work. They found that an organizational culture based on compassion and care can motivate workers to partake in sustainability initiatives through workers’ affective reactions towards sustainability initiatives. The findings also imply that the Ethic of Care within the organization can lead to enhanced organizational identification. This enhanced organizational identification can amplify worker satisfaction and can drive sustainability-related behaviors.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Because of the variations of understanding in corporate sustainability, efforts remain inconsistent. This inconsistency makes the actual effectiveness of sustainability practices on reducing environmental damage is questionable. There is a lack of a unified understanding of corporate sustainability. To ensure that these sustainability efforts are truly meaningful, Landrum (2017) urges for a narrower conceptualization of corporate sustainability that does not prioritize profit maximization.

Further exploration on integrating corporate sustainability practices, and such integration’s effects on organizational culture constitute a key next direction in research. Linnenluecke and Griffiths (2010) suggest that the culture of a business is an important aspect to examine. Because an organization’s culture reflects organizational values, the integration of sustainability initiatives can fail if the culture is not conducive to such values. The study by Carmeli and colleagues (2017) presents a promising possibility for a type of organizational culture that is conducive to sustainability practices. However, further examination on the Ethic of Care and corporate sustainability is necessary to validate their methods. Along with Linnenlucke and Griffiths, they also suggest further examinations on different organizational cultures and how it affects sustainability efforts.

Similarly, Avota, McFadzean, and Peiseniece (2015) directed their attention to how the interplay of organizational values and personal values can influence behavior and sustainability initiatives. Their conceptual model suggests that the congruence or incongruence between organizational values and individual values influence behaviors at all levels, including individual, group, and structural behaviors, as well as management processes. The outcomes from these interplaying factors can lead to sustainability initiatives in the economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Further studies are necessary to validate their conceptual model in different organizational settings and within different cultures.Further Reading: 

Avota, S., McFadzean, E., & Peiseniece, L. (2015). Linking personal and organizational values and behavior to corporate sustainability: A conceptual model. Journal of Business Management, 10, 124-138.

Carmeli, A., Brammer, S., Gomes, E., & Tarba, S. Y. (2017). An organizational ethic of care and employee involvement in sustainability‐related behaviors: A social identity perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(9), 1380-1395.

Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497-505.

Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11(2), 130-141.

Eccles, R. G., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). The impact of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Management Science, 60(11), 2835-2857.

Hahn, T., Figge, F., Pinkse, J., & Preuss, L. (2018). A paradox perspective on corporate sustainability: Descriptive, instrumental, and normative aspects. Journal of Business Ethics, 148(2), 235-248.

Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., & O’Brien, G. (2005). Sustainable development: mapping different approaches. Sustainable Development, 13(1), 38-52.

Klassen, R. D., & McLaughlin, C. P. (1996). The impact of environmental management on firm performance. Management Science, 42(8), 1199-1214.

Landrum, N. E. (2017). Stages of corporate sustainability: Integrating the strong sustainability worldview. Organization & Environment, DOI: 10.1177/1086026617717456.

Linnenluecke, M. K., & Griffiths, A. (2010). Corporate sustainability and organizational culture. Journal of World Business, 45(4), 357-366.

Schwartz, C. A. B., & Carroll, A. B. (2003). Corporate social responsibility: A three-domain approach. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(4), 503-530.

USSIF Foundation. (2016). Report on US sustainable, responsible, and impact investing trends 2016.

Author: Sanjana Basker

Many studies show that open offices—spaces with primarily shared workspace and no division between individual workers’ spaces—have negative effects on productivity, worker satisfaction, and worker health (e.g., Brennan et al., 2002; Bodin Danielsson, Chungkham, Wulff, & Westerlund, 2014; Oldham & Brass 1979). Yet, companies continue to build or redesign their workspaces within this framework. Why? How did the open office become popular? Are there alternatives to this style?

History of Physical Workspace Studies

Stepping back to the rise of factories, which emerged in the 1800s alongside the Industrial Revolution, workspaces primarily served utilitarian purposes. Factories were often unattractive with dirty halls packed with underpaid and overworked laborers (Sundstrom & Sundstrom, 1986). During World War II, workforce shortages encouraged companies to create working environments that attracted, not just housed, employees.

Prior to the 1950s, there was some examination of the way that workspaces like the traditional office building communicated messages to others. In the British Civil Service, for example, the amount of space in one’s office was correlated to one’s rank or stature. The larger the office and the more lavish the furniture, the more important the individual in the office (Baldry, 1997). In the 1950s, literature on the psychology of motivation and productivity emerged, influencing the way people thought about workspaces. By the end of the 20th century, the understanding that workplace design impacts work performance became evident, and a field of study was born (Sundstrom & Sundstrom, 1986).

Basics of Workspace Design

Psychological studies of physical workspace typically focus on three components: physical stimuli, physical structure, and symbolic artifacts. Physical stimuli are the aspects of a workspace (e.g., sights, sounds, smells) that elicit a response from someone. For example, the ringing of a phone draws attention to a call, or a screen lighting up draws attention to the computer or phone. Physical stimuli can also be more passive, such as the lighting of a room. In an open office plan, the individuals are exposed to more physical stimuli than in a traditional office layout (Smith-Jackson & Klein, 2009). Physical structure refers to the actual orientation and size of the workspace, including for example floor plan and square footage. Symbolic artifacts refer to the qualities of workspace furniture and décor that communicate messages to employees or outsiders (Davis, 1984). Such artifacts can communicate professional image, task effectiveness, status, or aesthetic cues to participants in the environment. For example, Parisian office workers at Crozier interpreted their lackluster surroundings as a lack of attention paid to them by executives in their organization (Baldry, 1997). Open office plans may communicate organizational values of collaboration, equality, or cost-savings depending on the use of symbolic artifacts and the nature of the physical structure.

The Open Office

The open-plan workspace became popular in the 1960s. (Sundstrom & Sundstrom, 1986). This plan was initially favored most by managers who were able to more easily observe all subordinates, and by executives who were able to fit more employees into a space at a time and therefore maximize space utility. However, open-plan workspaces were often unwelcome by employees. Lost in a sea of coworkers, employees reported reduced ownership in their environment and a sense of their individual importance to the organization. Studies conducted in the 1980s on the impact of these open-plan workspaces found that, beyond the lack of ownership, open-plan workspaces could be distracting and stressful for employees. The repeated distraction, from employee conversations and other physical stimuli, could result in employees seeking to distance themselves from their environments and ultimately lead to some withdrawal from the workspace (Lee & Brand 2005).

As team-based work becomes increasingly common, these shared spaces with many distractions have often been viewed as beneficial for modern collaborative projects and face-to-face communication (Smith-Jackson & Klein, 2009). Yet, empirical studies suggest that in-person communication and productivity both decline in an open office (Bernstein & Turban, 2018) and the additional distractions lead to slower work completion and increased perceptions of workload (Smith-Jackson & Klein, 2009).

Teleworking Alternatives

Telework—working remotely using the internet—is a flexible work arrangement designed to provide employees with more autonomy over how they work. Many employees appreciate the flexibility associated with being able to work remotely, or being able to only come into a physical office when necessary (Bailey & Kurland, 2002). Meta-analytic results suggest that telework improves perceived autonomy, job satisfaction, and performance, while reducing stress and work-family conflict (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). High levels of telecommuting, however, were associated with reduced relationship quality with one’s coworkers. As such, it may still be important for remote workers to have a physical office to come to in order to interact with coworkers, supervisors, and clients.

Recently, many organizations are relying upon non-territorial workspaces to provide the amenities of a traditional office, while still cutting down on costs. The use of non-territorial workspaces also called hoteling or hot desking removes any individual ownership over a specific location within the office; workers simply use whatever location is available when they need it (Millward, Haslam, & Postmes, 2007). For teleworkers, non-territorial workspaces provide a central location to meet coworkers, supervisors, and clients when necessary. This arrangement may not have the same negative impact on satisfaction as traditional open office plans with assigned desks but may still pose problems in the form of an inability to find colleagues or an open desk (Kim, Candido, Thomas, & de Dear, 2016). On a psychological level, hot desking may be associated with a shift in employees’ identification, such that individuals who hot desk tend to identify with the organization more than with their work teams, unlike traditional employees who identify with their teams more than their organization (Millward et al., 2007).

Hotels, coffee shops, and a wide range of coworking spaces offer teleworkers or self-employed individuals opportunities to work in a third place (Moriset, 2014), a place where people congregate that is neither one’s home nor a traditional office. Coworking spaces may offer workers an opportunity to more easily network and collaborate with professionals outside of their own organization (Capdevila, 2013). Data suggest that a majority of coworking space users are freelancers or entrepreneurs (Waters-Lynch et al., 2016). About 14% of coworking space users between 2010 and 2012 were employed by organizations (Waters-Lynch et al., 2016). Third places, then, may still hold great potential for organizations who want to increase their teleworking population, while reducing or eliminating their physical office space. A recent literature review, however, suggests that employees must expend effort to plan where they will work in order to ensure the physical and social environments facilitate their work tasks (e.g., access to internet, limited distractions; Ng, 2016), thus returning to some of the same issues as open office concepts.

Conclusions

Open-plan offices have waxed and waned in popularity and seem to be particularly popular in the modern economy. Telework, and subsequently non-territorial workspaces and coworking spaces offer alternatives for organizations and employees to the open office plan. Certainly, much more empirical research is needed regarding these newer alternative work arrangements to determine how best to maximize employee productivity and wellbeing.

Workspace Takeaways

1. Workspace design can communicate messages to external observers about status and success, but can also be designed to maximize productivity and community internally.
2. Workspaces are comprised of three components: physical stimuli, physical structure, and symbolic artifacts.
3. The open office plan has many drawbacks, yet continues to be popular among organizations. 
4. Non-territorial workspaces and coworking spaces offer ways to mitigate some of the drawbacks of telework.

Further Reading: 

Bailey, D. E., & Kurland, N. B. (2002). A review of telework research: Findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior, 23(4), 383-400.

Baldry, C. (1997). The social construction of office space. International Labour Review,136(3), 365-378.

Bernstein, E. S., & Turban, S. (2018). The impact of the ‘open’workspace on human collaboration. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, 373(1753), 20170239.

Bodin Danielsson, C., Chungkham, H. S., Wulff, C., & Westerlund, H. (2014). Office design’s impact on sick leave rates. Ergonomics, 57(2), 139-147.

Brennan, A., Chugh, J. S., & Kline, T. (2002). Traditional versus open office design: A longitudinal field study. Environment and Behavior, 34(3), 279-299.

Capdevila I (2013) Knowledge dynamics in localized communities: coworking spaces as microclusters. SSRN. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2414121

Davis, T. R. (1984). The Influence of the Physical Environment in Offices. The Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 271-283.  

Elsbach, K. D. (2003). Relating Physical Environment to Self-Categorizations: Identity Threat and Affirmation in a Non-Territorial Office Space. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(4), 622-654.  

Gajendran, R. S., & Harrison, D. A. (2007). The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: Meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(6), 1524-1541.

Haynes, B. P. (2008). The impact of office comfort on productivity. Journal of Facilities Management, 6(1), 37-51.

Kim, J., Candido, C., Thomas, L., & de Dear, R. (2016). Desk ownership in the workplace: The effect of non-territorial working on employee workplace satisfaction, perceived productivity and health. Building and Environment, 103, 203-214.

Lee, S. Y., & Brand, J. L. (2005). Effects of control over office workspace on perceptions of the work environment and work outcomes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3), 323-333.

Millward, L. J., Haslam, S. A., & Postmes, T. (2007). Putting employees in their place: The impact of hot desking on organizational and team identification. Organization Science, 18(4), 547-559.

Moriset, B. (2014). Building new places of the creative economy. The rise of coworking spaces. Paper Presented at the 2nd Geography of Innovation International Conference 2014. Utrecht.

Ng, C. F. (2016). Public spaces as workplace for mobile knowledge workers. Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 18(3), 209-223.

Oldham, G. R., & Brass, D. J. (1979). Employee reactions to an open-plan office: A naturally occurring quasi-experiment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 267-284.

Smith-Jackson, T. L., & Klein, K. W. (2009). Open-plan offices: Task performance and mental workload. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(2), 279-289.

Sundstrom, E. D., & Sundstrom, M. G. (1986). Work places: The psychology of the physical environment in offices and factories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vischer, J. C. (2007). The effects of the physical environment on job performance: Towards a theoretical model of workspace stress. Stress and Health, 23(3), 175-184.

Vischer, J. C. (2008). Towards a user-centred theory of the built environment. Building Research & Information,36(3), 231-240.

Vischer, J. C. (2008). Towards an Environmental Psychology of Workspace: How People are Affected by Environments for Work. Architectural Science Review, 51(2), 97-108.

Waters-Lynch, J., Potts, J., Butcher, T., Dodson, J., & Hurley, J. (2016). Coworking: A transdisciplinary overview (Working Paper). Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id52712217

Author: Keaton A. Fletcher

Introduction

Teams are ubiquitous in modern organizations; they are used to accomplish production, deliver healthcare, develop new products, provide customer service, execute military operations, and explore space. Increasingly, individuals are working in teams that are embedded in a more complex, networked, multiteam system. The prevalence of teams and multiteam systems in the modern workplace has spurred extensive research on the conditions, characteristics, and processes that contribute to high levels of team and multiteam system performance. In this short note, I describe key findings and their implications for building and developing effective teams.

Team Basics

Although definitions vary, work teams are typically defined as groups of two or more individuals who work together for the purpose of completing a task or organizational objective. Multi-team systems refer to teams of teams that work in coordinated fashion to accomplish complex organizational goals.

The voluminous research on teams can be usefully organized using a dynamic Input-Mediator-Outcome framework (e.g., Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005). Inputs refer to the team member attributes (e.g., personality, skills, knowledge, preferences, etc.), task demands, available resources, and characteristics of the environment or context (e.g., supportive organization, isolated confined environment) available to the team. These inputs in turn affect the conditions in which team processes develop and unfold. During the process phase, teams develop shared knowledge and thoughts, experience different affect and motivational states, and develop strategies for accomplishing the task and managing their environment. Together, these processes and emergent states, collectively referred to as mediators, convert team inputs to outputs. Outputs include literal task outputs, like widgets, marketing campaigns, or research ideas; but can also include attitudinal and cognitive outcomes such as job and team satisfaction or learning. Moving into the next performance cycle, then, these outputs act as inputs, determining the new starting conditions for the team.

Team Inputs

In the modern workplace, two inputs have received the greatest research attention: Who is in the team, and what is the context in which the team works? In a review paper, Goodwin and colleagues (2018) highlight findings that confirm the value of well-staffed teams: such teams perform better than would have been expected by simply adding together the individual’s contributions. This finding runs contrary to previous work (e.g., Bedwell et al, 2012) suggesting that teams lose productivity due to the additional coordination and communication demands, thus emphasizing the value of starting with the right people. One important aspect of team inputs concerns team member diversity. Although diversity is often thought of in terms of surface-level characteristics, such as sex, age, or race, findings by Bell and colleagues (2018) indicate that such characteristics have a less powerful impact on team performance than diversity of deep-level characteristics, such as values, experiences, and personality. In a related vein, teams often need members who bring different knowledge or competencies to the table, ensuring that the team can complete complex and dynamic tasks (Mathieu, Wolfson, & Park, 2018). Recognizing this, for example, a project sponsored by the U.S. Army developed a team optimal profiling system, to match individual abilities and traits to teams where the individual is most needed and would best fit (Donsbach et al., 2009).

The context in which a team works represents a second major input to team function and effectiveness. Context is a broad term that refers to the physical, psychological, social, and task factors that make up the environment in which the team works. In the healthcare setting for example, work teams in intensive care units tend to change membership frequently and often operate in stressful environments that are not physically conducive to strong teamwork (Ervin, Kahn, Cohen, & Weingart, 2018). However, primary care teams are typically characterized by relatively stable membership, routinized teamwork, and (compared to ICU teams) less exposure to death and dying (Fiscell & McDaniel, 2018). Yet both ICU teams and primary care teams, are typically comprised of individuals from a variety of disciplines and professions within medicine and healthcare. Further, the team context may also differ as a function of industry or task. For example, research teams who need to innovate and collaborate, often across great distances (Hall et al., 2018), differ greatly from astronaut teams who must work in isolated confined environments (e.g., Landon, Slack, & Barrett, 2018), or disaster response teams who need to coordinate with multiple other interprofessional teams in rapidly changing and often ambiguous settings (e.g., Power, 2018). Identifying the key resources and constraints of the context in which the team operates in tandem with team composition to affect team effectiveness and performance.

Team Processes and Emergent States

Team inputs alone rarely univocally determine team performance. Teams operate over space and time, allowing for the development of processes and emergent psychological states that mediate the input-outcome relationship. Teams engage in two types of behaviors: taskwork and teamwork. Taskwork is any behavior that focuses on the task itself (e.g., goal setting, performance, situation analysis) while teamwork is any behavior that focuses on the interpersonal relationships within the team (e.g., emotion and motivation management, conflict management; Marks et al., 2001). Although teamwork occurs at all points in a team’s life, taskwork is further differentiated into transition and action periods. Specifically, taskwork often occurs in cycles that begin with transition periods—times in which the team evaluates past performance and plans for future performance—and then shift into action periods—times in which the team executes their plans.

Researchers and practitioners must also move beyond understanding what teams do to begin understanding what team members think and feel. These emergent states arise within the team due to interpersonal interactions (Kozlowski & Chao, 2018). For example, as team members work together they develop a shared understanding of the task and environment, as well as a working understanding of who knows what within the team. These two cognitive emergent states, known as shared mental models and transactive memory systems, respectively, capture the development of common knowledge across team members over time. Shared mental models and transactive memory develop in a continuous fashion and change as the team continues to interact, and degrade when the team disbands. Another example of an emergent state is psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999)—a team climate in which individual members feel comfortable expressing their opinions and dissent without fear of ridicule or repercussions. In modern organizations which are increasingly flatter, and increasingly global (meaning team members may come from cultures with different levels of comfort with conflict and power distance), understanding how to create a strong sense of psychological safety is particularly important. Research findings suggest that higher levels of transformational leadership, interdependence among team members, role clarity, and support from peers can improve levels of psychological safety within teams (Frazier et al., 2017), further implying that interventions designed to highlight each individual’s unique role and how it fits within the team, while also selecting and training team members and leaders to improve levels of social support, can improve psychological safety, and ultimately team outcomes.

Team Outcomes

The most salient team outcome is team performance on some organizationally-valued criterion (e.g., number of homes sold, patients served, etc.). However, because teams operate over time and produce outcomes repeatedly over the life of the team, we must move beyond team performance to consider how teams affect the knowledge/beliefs, affective states, and health outcomes of team members. Much work has been done examining how teams can better learn from their experiences and performance episodes, through interventions like debriefing (Lacerenza, Marlow, Tannenbaum, & Salas, 2018). It is also important that team members experience a sense of satisfaction with, and commitment to their teammates, the team as a whole, and the organization (e.g., Kirkman & Shapiro, 2001). Although evidence is beginning to accumulate on how teams influence affect and work attitudes, relatively less is known about how team processes influence worker health outcomes (e.g., cardiovascular disease, stress, sleep). In the modern, increasingly health-conscious, world, it is imperative that researchers begin to understand these connections.

Looking Forward

The ubiquity of teams is changing the human experience of work. Multi-team systems, in which work is accomplished by teams of teams organized in a variety of structures, places new demands on employees charged with coordinating their work within a team with progress made in other teams. In many cases, individuals may also belong to multiple teams. These developments are challenging scientists and practitioners to think differently about teams, and to address new questions related to the structures and processes that promote communication and coordination between teams while at the same time sustaining a strong culture of psychological safety, inter-team collaboration, and productivity.

The costs of failure to understand and identify the processes and obstacles involved in multi-team systems is vividly exemplified by experience of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Astronautics that sought to launch a $125-million orbiter to Mars. One team provided all calculations in metric units, while the other provided all calculations in the English system, resulting in a miscalculation that led to the disintegration of the probe in the atmosphere of Mars in 1998. Had either of these teams been working in isolation, this communication error would not have been an issue, but the project likely could not have succeeded. Had the multi-team system been better designed with a stronger culture, or understanding of the inputs, processes, and outcomes between and within the teams, perhaps this issue would have been mitigated. As the Mars orbiter example demonstrates, research to aid the design and identification of key processes in the development of effective multi-team systems has practical implications for the individual, the organization, and society.

Team Takeaways

1. Team composition is more than skin deep. Surface level characteristics (e.g., gender) are generally not as important as deeper characteristics (e.g., attitudes) in effective teams.
2. Context matters. There is no single most effective team structure; effective teams are those which can respond and adapt to the demands of their environment.
3. Teams are more than the sum of their parts. Effective teams transform inputs to valued work outcomes through different processes and emergent psychological states that occur during action.
4. Team membership is an experience that provides individuals with a lens through which events, interactions, and behaviors are understood. Team membership affects what team members know and how team members think (attitudes), feel (affect), and behave. These features work in unison to influence team performance.
5. Teams change over time as a function of the events, interactions, and competencies that develop and occur within and across teams.

Further Reading: 

Bedwell, W. L., Wildman, J. L., DiazGranados, D., Salazar, M., Kramer, W. S., & Salas, E. (2012). Collaboration at work: An integrative multilevel conceptualization. Human Resource Management Review, 22(2), 128-145.

Bell, S. T., Brown, S. G., Colaneri, A., & Outland, N. (2018). Team composition and the abcs of teamwork. American Psychologist, 73(4), 349-362.

Donsbach, J. S., Tannenbaum, S. I,. Mathieu, J. E., Salas, E., Goodwin, G. F., & Metcalf, K. A. (2009). Team composition optimization: The team optimal profile system (TOPS; Tech. Rep. No. 1249). Arlington, VA: U. S. Army Research Institute.

Driskell, J. E., Salas, E., & Driskell, T. (2018). Foundations of teamwork and collaboration. American Psychologist, 73(4), 334-348.

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.

Ervin, J. N., Kahn, J. M., Cohen, T. R., & Weingart, L. R. (2018). Teamwork in the intensive care unit. American Psychologist, 73(4), 468-477.

Fiscella, K., & McDaniel, S. H. (2018). The complexity, diversity, and science of primary care teams. American Psychologist, 73(4), 451-467.

Frazier, M. L., Fainschmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70, 113-165.

Goodwin, G. F., Blacksmith, N., & Coats, M. R. (2018). The science of teams in the military: Contributions from over 60 years of research. American Psychologist, 73(4), 322-333.

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (2005). A theory of team coaching. The Academy of Management Review, 30(2), 269-287.

Hall, K. L., Vogel, A. L., Huang, G. C., … Fiore, S. M. (2018). The science of team science: A review of the empirical evidence and research gaps on collaboration in science. American Psychologist, 73(4), 532-548.

Ilgen, D. R., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M., & Jundt, D. (2005). Teams in organizations: From input-process-output models to IMOI models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 517-543.

Kaplan, M., Dollar, B., Melian, V., Van Durme, Y., & Wong, J. (2016). Human capital trends 2016 survey. Oakland, CA: Deloitte University Press. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends.html.

Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. (2001). The impact of cultural values on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in self-managing work teams: The mediating role of employee resistance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(3), 557-569.

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Chao, G. T. (2018). Unpacking team process dynamics and emergent phenomena: Challenges, conceptual advances, and innovative methods. American Psychologist,73(4), 576-592.

Lacerenza, C. N., Marlow, S. L., Tannenbaum, S. L., & Salas, E. (2018). Team development interventions: Evidence-based approaches for improving teamwork. American Psychologist, 73(4), 517-531.

Landon, L. B., Slack, K. J., & Barrett, J.D. (2018). Teamwork and collaboration in long-duration space missions: Going to extremes. American Psychologist, 73(4), 563-575.

Marks, M. A., Mathieu, J. E., & Zaccaro, S. J. (2001). A temporally based framework and taxonomy of team processes. Academy of Management Review, 26(3), 356-376.

Mathieu, J. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., van Knippenberg, D., & Ilgen, D. R. (2017). A century of work teams in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 452-467.

Mathieu, J. E., Wolfson, M. A., & Park, S. (2018). The evolution of work team research since hawthorne. American Psychologist, 73(4), 308-321 Power, N. (2018). Extreme teams: Toward a greater understanding of multiagency teamwork during major emergencies and disasters. American Psychologist, 73(4), 478-490. 

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