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Multiple team membership is common in today's team-based organizations, but little is known about its relationship with collective effectiveness across teams. We adopted a microfoundations framework utilizing existing individual- and team-level research to develop a higher-level perspective on multiple team membership's relationship with performance of entire units of teams. We tested our predictions with data collected from 849 primary care units of the Veterans Health Administration serving over 4.2 million patients. In this context, we found multiple team membership is negatively associated with unit performance, and this negative relationship is exacerbated by task complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective performance indicators have low test-retest reliability, particularly in complex jobs. Yet, little is actually known about the reasons why objective performance indicators lack temporal stability. The authors address this issue by using data from a sample of 106 professional football players to explore how the actions of other people influence intraindividual variation in performance. Results suggest that weekly measures of performance outcome exhibit substantial variability within individuals. A significant portion of this within-person variance is explained by environmental fluctuation created by the constraining actions of other people. Individuals with highly fluctuating past performance exhibit stronger relationships between the actions of competitors and subsequent performance outcomes. The intraindividual relationship between fluctuating constraints and performance outcomes is also stronger for individuals in more complex jobs.

Research shows consistent relations between personality and job performance. In this study the authors develop and test a model of job performance that examines the mediating effects of cognitive-motivational work orientations on the relationships between personality traits and performance in a sales job (N = 164). Covariance structural analyses revealed proximal motivational variables to be influential mechanisms through which distal personality traits affect job performance. Specifically, striving for status and accomplishment mediate the effects of Extraversion and Conscientiousness on ratings of sales performance. Although Agreeableness was related to striving for communion, neither Agreeableness nor communion striving was related to success in this sales job. The importance of the proposed motivational orientations model is discussed.

This study examined relationships with job performance at different stages of employee tenure for a broad personality measure (conscientiousness) and 2 more narrow subtraits (order and achievement). Conscientiousness exhibited a consistent relationship with performance for employees in both the transition stage (newly hired employees) and the maintenance stage (veteran employees). In contrast, the more narrow subtraits exhibited differential relationships. Order correlated more strongly with performance in the transition stage, whereas achievement correlated more strongly in the maintenance stage. In the respective samples, order and achievement also provided incremental validity beyond conscientiousness.

Six hundred fifty-two employees composing 51 work teams participated in a study examining 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 operationaliz e 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. Implications and future research needs are discussed.

Using the five factor model with an emphasis on extraversion and conscientiousness, the authors investigated how personality is related to small group processes and outcomes. Graduate students (N = 289) assigned to 4- and 5-person teams in 61 groups engaged in a series of creative problem-solving tasks over a period of several weeks. Extraversion was associated with group processes and outcomes at both individual and group levels of analysis. At the individual level, extraverts were perceived by others as having greater effect than introverts on group outcomes. Covariance structure modeling suggested that extraverts induce these perceptions through the provision of both socioemotional and task-related inputs. At the group level, the proportion of relatively extraverted members was related curvilinearly to task focus and group performance. Contrary to expectations, Conscientiousness was unrelated to processes and outcomes at either the individual or group level.

The proposition that the relationship between extraversion and sales performance is moderated by reward structure was investigated. Specific hypotheses were tested with data obtained from 152 sales representatives. One group of sales representatives was rewarded primarily for obtaining new sales and another primarily for retaining customers. Data pooled across the 2 groups showed that extraversion did not correlate significantly with either new sales or customer retention. However, moderator analysis revealed that extraversion was positively associated with the dimension of performance that was explicitly rewarded but not with the nonrewarded dimension. A significant correlation between conscientiousness and new sales, but not between conscientiousness and customer retention, was found with the pooled data. As expected, relationships between conscientiousness and sales performance were not moderated by reward structure.