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Teamwork skills are essential in college and every profession. Students exposed to and trained in team dynamics and performance often had more successful careers. Conversely, students who performed poorly in a team developed resistance to peer and leadership evaluations. A student's performance was further lowered due to such resistance, preventing the student from becoming a contributing team member. The authors used multiple assessments and critical assignments to investigate factors in team dynamics, the correlation between individual performance metrics, and dismissal probabilities from the team in a strategic management business capstone course over a sixteen-week semester. Each group acted as a fictitious startup company, simulating contract relationships such as terms, expectations, and responsibilities. A low-performing team member may be terminated or fired based on a set of criteria on the simulating contract. The authors used mixed methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The data were collected and analyzed simultaneously to form triangulation and narrow down potential triggers for team member dismissal. The findings revealed essential skills and influential factors of team dynamics and performance. These include but are not limited to soft skills such as poor interpersonal skills, insufficient communication, negative feedback, and a lack of team cohesion. The study provided a way to give team members feedback before they were dismissed and improve each member's contribution and the overall organizational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading or even just participating in a project can reveal various issues regarding teamwork, communication and leadership styles, especially if the program has a global scope and the team members are located all over the world. In this cumbersome situation, team members often become frustrated and less effective in their daily work. Consequently, the project manager or team leader has to act and make the necessary measures to steer the team back to the right course. Our case study of a multinational company's global organisational transformational project attempted at finding a resolution of a set of issues of high complexity. The project team consisted of more than 20 experts, who were working on different pillars of the project, the largest teams being located in Budapest and in London (HQ). During the first 1.5 years of its operations, several issues surfaced pertaining to the project that concerned predominantly team dynamics, communication styles and project management approaches. As a constructive answer to these challenges, there were two workshops held for the project team to discuss and reveal the problems the team members were facing, trying to identify the root causes and find solutions to them. The outcome of these workshops was a consensually elaborated and agreed Team Charter, which aimed at identifying the right behaviours and ways of working together with issue resolution techniques to be adopted for use. The Team Charter was presented, discussed and welcomed by the project team. Our paper focuses on the focal points which were revealed to be persisting and recurring issues in such team set-ups only to show how the project under scrutiny of the case study aimed at resolving them. It also discusses what further steps and tasks are anticipated and what the limitations of these techniques are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that software engineering teams nowadays face numerous challenges that revolve around the well-being (happiness) of the developers. One way to address these challenges can be through Mob Programming (MP). Mob programming represents a novel software development practice where a whole team works together on the same coding problem, at the same time, in the same space and on the same computer. In this study, we investigate the impact of using MP on the well-being of software developers. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews and observations was applied for its ability to extract in-depth and valuable information. The participants selected for this study derived from four different development teams who worked at Fortnox AB in Växjö, where one of the four development teams used MP on a daily basis and the three other teams practise MP on an occasional basis. A total of 13 interviews were conducted at the company's offices. Thematic analysis is used to organize and create a structure regarding the information from the interviews. Two themes with specific sub-codes are created based on the thematic analysis: Team dynamics and Individual dynamics, which are derived from the interview questionnaire. The study found that the majority of software developers were impacted in a positive way regarding well-being while practising MP. Reduced stress and individual work pressure, and increased social interaction were two of some prominent factors that contributed to this result. However, stress was also found to have negative effects on some developers, which was associated with the constant attention and overlooking by others during the coding process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature regarding entrepreneurial teams has risen the last decade (Fayolle et al., 2014). Researchers study entrepreneurial teams as a part of a big company, even though an entrepreneurial team usually does not evolve under the context of a large and stable organization. It mostly works and flourish under circumstances of instability, lack of income, uncertainty, innovation, creativity, problem solving. A music band works under the same circumstances. Music bands already have been used as an example in researching how organizations can be more innovative and creative (Kamoche;2003) and some researchers claim that team dynamics of an early stage entrepreneurial team resembles the dynamics of a music band. Using a qualitative approach, entrepreneurial teams and music bands of 3-5 members, where interviewed in order to shed light on team dynamics and team spirit. This empirical research attempts to identify the differences between the two and point out positive aspects of music bands' team spirit. The results extract six variables, 'discussion with the team', 'give space to everyone', 'practice', 'perform as a unity', 'trust', 'everyone acts as a composer/leader' which seems to enhance band's cohesion and performance, as also can help entrepreneurial teams tackle their team dynamics in a way that provides a more efficient outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Southern African context, businesses, governments and community-based organizations have become reliant on teamwork to streamline processes, augment participation and improve performance. In this regard, the historically formalized, centralized and departmentalized mechanistic structures are being replaced by team-based structures. Research from the North, on team building, suggests that teams have 'a potential to give diversity in knowledge, attitudes, skills and experience, whose integration would make it possible to offer rapid, flexible and innovative responses to problems and challenges, promoting performance and improving the satisfaction of those making the team.' In South Africa, a state-owned entity launched a team-building initiative to improve team effectiveness and functioning within the water sector. This initiative was implemented contemporaneously with a climate and culture change management initiatives envisioned to usher in a new culture, to improve employee morale and, ultimately, to ensure a high performing organization. These initiatives sought to help articulate and cultivate leadership accord, create a common vision, as well as develop a consensus on a set of collective values that would become the bedrock of the organization. In the light of this background, this paper examines the effectiveness of the 'growing-our-teams' initiative, with the goal of lending insights into the strengths and weaknesses of strategies and processes deployed to implement and manage the initiative. In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the program, the underpinning research was conducted by reviewing and analyzing related articles and papers, as well as interrogating employee experiences relating to the program. How do state-owned entities learn and implement lessons distilled from their programs or initiatives to build capacity and improve efficiencies? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the digital age advances, it is perhaps not surprising that the growth rate for students corresponding electronically is increasing greatly. This includes students who are working on projects in their classes. However, team dynamics is always a significant issue for students when working on teams and continues to be an even bigger source of concern for them once they graduate and go out into the work force. In this paper, the authors talk about the process of initializing a study to study the functioning of partially distributed teams and developing a framework for incorporating projects into engineering courses where students are required to work on projects virtually (with student project members located at two or more universities) and hence be better prepared for 'real world work scenarios,' when they graduate and go into industry. This course curriculum design and research will include mapping engineering management courses between the Engineering Management Departments at Texas Tech University and California State University, Northridge and creating distributed project teams, by virtue of which the students would be compelled to work both traditionally (intra-university) and virtually (inter-university) and learn about managing partially distributed teams. Pedagogically, the researchers/professors will also be compiling information and lessons learned in coordination of this inter-university educational endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research paper is to develop a theoretical framework of leadership behaviours and attributes which could be applied to assess Higher education academic and administrative staff perception and level of endorsement of significant leadership behaviours at Higher Education industry. These behaviours include charismatic, visionary, communicative, team oriented and servant leadership. A theoretical model is established, clarifying the significance of selection of the abovementioned leadership behaviours. Planned Methodology, measurement, empirical testing and application of the theoretical model is investigated. A quantitative approach is employed to design a questionnaire survey to identify the appropriate conceptualisation of integrated leadership attributes and behaviour items. The competitive advantage of the theoretical model is characterised by the combination and integration of various characteristics and attributes of leadership which have some elements of contradiction and consistency. The model argues that in spite of the divergence between different leadership attributes, they transcend organisational boundaries. Cronbach alpha Reliability test shows very strong internal consistency and significance. Higher Education industry is investigated in this research study selecting a convenience sample from Higher Education institutions. Descriptive analysis shows high level of endorsement of perceived leadership dimensions among academic and administrative staff. The correlation analysis also shows strong and positive significance between variables. The research paper emphasizes the significance of leadership dimensions including vision, influence, transformation, charisma and service in higher education industry in Private and Public universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management simulations are designed to provide experiential learning bridging the gap between theory and practice. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that promote the effectiveness of computer based business simulations in management education. The study was conducted in a premier B-School based in Hyderabad. The knowledge component of the course is often delivered to the learners as participative classroom based lectures and business simulations for courses in operations research, strategy and marketing are offered to provide an effective immersive learning experience. This paper explores the effectiveness of simulations in management education in terms of: Learning assimilated from the simulation? Team dynamics observed? Ease of use of simulation? Realism in simulation. The paper reports findings of a survey administered to the students of an executive program offered for experienced working professionals at the B-School'sHyderabad campus in India. The paper also puts forth enhancement measures that can be taken up to make the learning process more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teams of software engineers working together in a collaborative manner to execute a software development process complete most software development work. Whilst there is much literature examining the software process and how to improve the software process, less attention has been paid to the issues of team working and specifically the impact of team dynamics on the software development process. Teamwork is more effective with the existence of positive team dynamic, as it encourages a better working environment with satisfied, fulfilled employees who will in turn be more productive. However, achieving and maintaining positive team dynamics in Very Small Entities (VSEs) is particularly challenging given the unique characteristics of VSE and limited resources in particular. This paper discusses the dynamics of software development teams (structure, process, communication, learning and sharing) and its impact on Software Process Improvement (SPI) in software VSEs based on empirical data collected in a groups of software VSEs. This paper shows that VSEs have a high level of team dynamics although their SPI initiatives are conducted on a small scale and in an informal and indirect manner. The results also indicated that this situation occurs due to the following factors in a team: working and social relationship, willingness to share, having a good interpersonal skill, and work closely with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Project-based learning in teams has been increasingly prevalent in engineering and design education, as it affords unique collaborative learning opportunities. Though many believe that diversity on a team allows for the richest learning experiences and perhaps the most innovative outcomes, this has been difficult to show experimentally, particularly when diversity is measured according to standard ethnographic factors (such as race, gender, etc.). We propose that a more meaningful measure of team diversity may be “cognitive diversity,” or the breadth of problem solving styles that is inherent to the team. These problem solving styles are determined by measuring the cognitive preferences of individual students with psychometric survey instruments. In this paper, we describe a method by which this individual psychometric data can be reconstructed as a measure of team cognitive diversity, and present our findings as applied to an international graduate-level engineering design course. Our findings include the positive result that there is substantial cognitive diversity even in populations with relatively little ethnographic diversity (e.g. a class of incoming Masters students with largely similar age, work experience and socioeconomic background). Furthermore, there is evidence that these cognitive characteristics can be linked to long-term team dynamics and performance. Understanding how cognition affects learning and collaboration will help us to craft more informed team learning experiences and to form better, more innovative design engineering teams in academia and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents abstracts on entrepreneurship topics which include the influence of tie-order on network emergence, a complexity science-based model for innovation and the formation of entrepreneurial enterprises, and fuzzy-set hierarchical classification of family businesses.

This section presents several management education and development conference paper abstracts. They include, "The Effect of Instructional Delivery Method on Student Achievement," regarding the educational value of undergraduate human resource management classes, "A Personal and Experimental Reflection on Teaching and Learning wtih the Consultant Learning Method," about an analysis of undergraduate and graduate management courses, and "What it Means to Supervise: A Phenomenographic Study of Doctorial Student Supervision," discussing what doctoral supervisors look for in their management students.

This section presents several conference paper abstracts on management education and development. The paper 'Film in Teaching: Copyright Issues' presents guidelines and observations for legal use in different situations, based on the Copyright Law of the United States. The paper 'Testing the Applicability of Learning Theories to Web-based MBA Courses' attempts to help address this literature gap by reporting on a study of objectivist, collaborative, and cognitive constructivist learning theories in a sample of courses conducted from Summer 2000 through Summer 2002. The results of this study indicate that while characteristics associated with objectivist and cognitive constructivist learning theory explain significant variance in perceived learning and delivery medium satisfaction, students reported significantly higher scores for those variables in courses where collaborative constructivist learning techniques were the dominant instruction mode. The paper 'Creating Critical Mass in Russian Management: Managers' Perceptions of What Remains to be Done' reports on the self-identified training and education needs of a select cadre of Russian managers. The paper also examines the challenges facing their firms, the skills needed to overcome them, and whether the methods identified by the managers for improving their skills will actually be able to deliver them.

In the current research we introduce the team CARE model for supporting team development during post-secondary education. Team CARE is part of a larger suite of assessments at itpmetrics.com. Team CARE is a free online survey-based assessment that allows team members to rate their team's health and functioning in four key domains (Communicate, Adapt, Relate, and Educate), as well as provide written feedback about the team's functioning to add nuance and supplemental context to the numeric scores. We report that the team CARE scales were found to have acceptable reliability and were associated with team performance outcomes. Students' perceptions of the tool were also examined and the findings suggest that team CARE feedback is perceived to be valuable, useful, and easy to use. Recommendations for practice are detailed, including sample assessment schedules for teams with differing life spans. Implications for future research and implementation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary care redesign efforts promote team-based care as critical for improving health care quality and patient outcomes. Better team dynamics may also improve clinical work satisfaction and enhance patient care coordination between primary care providers (PCPs). Despite considerable research about the effects of team-based care on outcomes that directly concern patients, few studies have examined how team dynamics relate to outcomes concerning health care providers. This study examines relationships among team dynamics, clinical work satisfaction, and patient care coordination between PCPs in 18 Harvard-affiliated primary care practices participating in the Academic Innovations Collaborative. We administered a cross-sectional survey to all 548 PCPs (267 attending clinicians, 281 resident physicians) working at participating practices; 65% responded. We also collected semi-structured interview data to explain our findings and illuminate relationships among our variables of interest. Better team dynamics were positively associated with clinical work satisfaction and quality of patient care coordination between PCPs. Coordination partially mediated the relationship between team dynamics and satisfaction for attending clinicians, suggesting higher satisfaction depends in part on better teamwork yielding more coordinated patient care. We found no mediation for resident physicians, suggesting they derive satisfaction from positive team dynamics for other reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presentations in this symposium examine various aspects of global team dynamics. Across four presentations, we explore participation patterns in global teams (Gibbs, Gibson, and Grushina), the benefits that accrue to individuals from managing cultural differences (Jang), how language asymmetries influence team dynamics (Zellmer- Bruhn, Yu, Maloney, and Bresman), and the role of agents in transferring practices across cultural divides (Thomason, Hinds, Varlander, and Pearce). Together, the presentations address pressing issues in global teams, advancing our theoretical understanding of global team dynamics, as well as providing practical implications for managing and leading global teams. Understanding Global Team Participation. Presenter: Jennifer Gibbs; Rutgers U. Presenter: Cristina Gibson; U. of Western Australia. Presenter: Yana Grushina; U. of Western Australia. Cultural Brokerage and Creativity in Multicultural Teams. Presenter: Sujin Jang; INSEAD. The Role of Agents in Global Practice Transfer. Presenter: Bobbi Thomason; Stanford U. Presenter: Pamela Hinds; Stanford U. Presenter: Sara Varlander; Stockholm U. Presenter: Brandi Pearce; U. of California, Berkeley. Language and Knowledge Processes in Multi-Cultural Teams. Presenter: Mary Zellmer-Bruhn; U. of Minnesota. Presenter: Lingtao Yu; U. of Minnesota. Presenter: Mary M. Maloney; U. of St. Thomas. Presenter: Henrik Bresman; INSEAD [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that collective efficacy, defined as a group's shared perception of its ability to successfully perform a task, positively influences team outcomes. And yet, we know relatively little about the factors and conditions that shape this important emergent state. Our goal was to build a comprehensive model of the factors that influence collective efficacy. And because it is team members who must process, accumulate, and make sense of information that can influence collective efficacy perceptions, we used a qualitative approach in which we asked informants to provide examples of situations where they felt more or less confident about their team's capability and to elaborate on the surrounding cues. This process resulted in a concept map containing 91 cues, from which we generated 5 higher-order clusters of antecedents. We labeled these clusters as follows: 1) team dynamics, 2) leadership, 3) work process, 4) team members, and 5) team performance. In the discussion section we focus on the unique contributions the study adds to the literature on the emergence of collective efficacy in teams and highlight new avenues for research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Board performance research focused on individual director's economically-motivated behaviors and outcomes has generated inconsistent and disappointing results. Most research does not consider the board as a team, despite recent calls for a focus on collective board processes and behaviors. As 90% of directors rate their individual performance at very effective but only 30% rate overall board performance at an equivalent level, it is obvious that this gap needs to be addressed. The discrepancy between individual and team performance effectiveness was the focus of this research, based on original data from 182 directors and their assessment of their board's dynamic, team task performance efficacy, team potency and the impact of their activities as a board on firm profitability. Our findings show that director experience, social network and cultural intelligence as well as their ability to achieve high levels of team interaction, thereby lowering information asymmetry, have a significant impact on profitability. We found that this dynamic as well as team potency had a positive impact on profitability, while the focus on task performance compliance quality had a significantly negative effect on profitability. The insights of this study should help boards and their advisors better focus their efforts to improve team dynamic, optimize board interactions and refocus their attention on value-creating activities. We also believe improving board team dynamics will have an unintended consequence of bring a level of individual and team satisfaction back to the boardroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]