Relating member ability and personality to work-team processes and team effectiveness.

Abstract

Six hundred fifty-two employees composing 51 work teams participated in a study exam-ining relationships among team composition (ability and personality), team process (social cohesion), and team outcomes (team viability and team performance). Mean, variance, minimum, and maximum were 4 scoring methods used to operationalize the team composition variables to capture the team members ' characteristics. With respect to composition variables, teams higher in general mental ability (GMA), conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team performance. Teams higher in GMA, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team viability. Results also show that extraversion and emotional stability were associated with team viability through social cohesion. Implica-tions and future research needs are discussed. The use of work teams has been described as pivotal to organizational transformation and renaissance (Goodman, Ravlin, & Schminke, 1987; Sundstrom, De Meuse, & Futrell, 1990). Yet, even with an increasing number of organizations structuring work through the use of teams, we know relatively tittle about how the individuals com-prising a team affect intragroup processes and outcomes. This lack of understanding suggests that contemporary work organizations may not be obtaining the maximal benefits from work teams. The dominant way of thinking about teams is the input-process-output model (Gladstein, 1984; Guzzo & Shea, 1992; Hackman, 1987; McGrath, 1964). The model posits that a variety of inputs combine to influence intragroup processes, which in turn affect team outputs. Inputs have been grouped into three categories (Hackman, 1987): in-dividual-level factors (e.g., team-member attributes),

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