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This study aimed to analyse the performance of 5,518 collective observations of the Spanish LaLiga teams for eight consecutive seasons (from 2011–12 to 2018–19), considering the final league ranking. The teams were divided into four groups: Europe (from 1st to 6th), Upper-Middle (from 7th to 11th), Lower-Middle (from 12th to 17th) and Relegation (from 18th to 20th). The variables recorded were: Passes, Successful Passes, Crosses, Shots, Goals, Corners, Fouls, Width, Length, Height, distance from the goalkeeper to the nearest defender (GkDef), total distance covered (TD) and number of points accumulated. The main results were that: 1) Europe, being superior to the rest of the groups, showed lower values of Length from 2015–16, and lower values of GkDef from 2014–15; 2) Upper-Middle showed lower values of Length from 2015–16; 3) Lower-Middle showed fewer Shots from 2013–14, and lower values of Length, GkDef and TD from 2014–15; and, 4) Relegation barely showed significant differences between seasons in any variable. The study concludes that the teams of the Europe, Upper-Middle and Relegation groups showed quite stable performance, while the teams of the Lower-Middle group presented a worsening in different dimensions as the seasons progressed. The information provided in this study makes it possible to have reference values that have characterized the performance of the teams for each group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silence in management and organization studies has been predominantly understood as something negative. However, recent examples have highlighted silence as a positive element in learning and organizing. We contribute to prior literature on positive silence and multimodality by arguing silence can operate as a semiotic mode that mobilizes resources for meaning-making. Ten team meetings in a financial organization in Europe were investigated. Visual ethnography was mobilized to gather data through interviews, observations, and photographs. Our analysis identified two types of silence—transcendental and material—that both function through three mechanisms to resemiotize meaning. A framework is presented to situate silence in relation to verbal and visual modes. Three contributions are made to studies on silence and multimodality: extended conceptualizations of silence, silence as a semiotic mode in itself, and methodological pathways for studying silence. In addition, practical implications for team meetings and silence in the workplace are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the geographical composition of European Ryder Cup teams in the biennial golf match against the United States of America. It looks at the different nationalities that have been a part of Team Europe and considers what combination of players is most likely to contribute to European success. It was found that Europe is most successful when more countries are represented. A European team will be more likely to win a match staged in Europe and that the best chance of doing this is when the team comprises of 8 or 9 different nationalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the Champions League teams using the entropy-integrated Multi Attribute Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis (MAIRCA) and super-slack-based data envelopment analysis for the 2012–2022 period. Design/methodology/approach: This study consists of two sections. First, this study uses the entropy-integrated MAIRCA approach, which is a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique developed by Gigović, to measure the performance of Champions League clubs. Second, this study proceeds with the super-slack-based DEA to evaluate the efficiency of the Champions League clubs. Findings: As per the empirical results, Real Madrid is found to be the best-performing club over the past 10 years in terms of financial and sportive performance. Over the analyzed period, teams from the five Major Leagues of Europe perform better. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, performance measurement studies in football have focused on either DEA or MCDM. This study aims to present novelty for football literature by evaluating holistically both the sportive and financial dimensions. This paper also analyzes Champions League teams from the perspective of both MCDM and super-slack-based DEA methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the relationship between founding team knowledge diversity and firms' innovative performance. We posit that knowledge diversity entails two dimensions: a team dimension and an individual dimension. In particular, we argue that founding team knowledge diversity can derive both from the presence of founders with different knowledge backgrounds, and from the presence of similar jack-of-all-trades (JOTs). We suggest that knowledge diversity is positively associated with innovation, especially when diversity comes from founders with different knowledge backgrounds, instead of coming from many JOTs. Furthermore, it matters more for firms whose knowledge base is oriented towards technical and scientific applications, as opposed to firms with a generalist, business-oriented knowledge base. We provide support to these propositions relying on a study of 1,800 newly established firms in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to (i) compare the extent of home-court advantage (HA) and home win percentage (HW) between Spanish basketball leagues across different playing levels (i.e., leagues) and (ii) analyze the influence of team ability on HA and HW within each playing level. We gathered data for game locations and results from open online sources for all games in the First Division (ACB), Second Division (LEB Gold), and Third Division (LEB Silver) Spanish male basketball leagues between 2010–2023. The dataset included 12 seasons, 635 teams (215 First Division, 203, Second Division, and 217 Third Division), and 19,539 games (7075 First Division, 6344 Second Division, and 5520 Third Division). We calculated HA [(total home wins/total wins) * 100] and HW [(total home wins/total home games) * 100] for each team across each season. We performed Kruskal Wallis tests, calculated partial eta squared (ηp2), and performed Mann-Whitney U tests with rank biserial correlation (r b ) effect sizes and Dwass-Steel-Critchlow-Fligner pairwise comparisons to compare HA and HW between leagues and between team abilities (low, medium, and/or high) within each league. There was a significant effect for HA between leagues (p = .01) with post hoc comparisons revealing a higher HA for the First Division than for the Third Division (p = .01), but HW was not significantly different between leagues. In turn, variations in HA and HW between team abilities were consistent across playing levels, with HW significantly increasing in a progressive manner with higher team abilities (p < .001) and with HA significantly lower among high-level teams compared to lower-ability team clusters (p < .01). These findings emphasize the importance of considering playing level and team ability and interpreting HA and HW together to contextualize an apparent home advantage in Spanish basketball. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European football and its most prestigious series, the Champions League, have faced a number of challenges over the last few years. Two of the main criticisms of the series are that the matches are not exciting enough and the successful teams with the largest fanbases play only few times against each other. Thus, this study examines the attractiveness of the matches played in the series based on the intensity of the competition and the changes in the composition of the successful core teams over time. For the former, the Elo rating of the teams is studied, and for the latter network analysis is used. The results highlight that the probabilities of winning in 60 to 86 percent of the matches are not close to each other. Moreover, this ratio increases over time. In addition, the top 20 core teams only play 30 percent of all matches against each other. In parallel, the composition of the core teams has changed significantly over time, with some teams being among the best in Europe for just a few years. In conclusion, the popularity of the Champions League and thus the revenue of the teams can be increased by raising the number of close matches between the largest teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decades have seen a tremendous amount of research being devoted to effectively managing vehicle fleets and minimizing empty mileage. However, in contrast to, e.g., the air transport sector, the question of how to best assign crews to vehicles, has received very little attention in the road transport sector. The vast majority of road freight transport in Europe is conducted by single drivers and team driving is often only conducted if there are special circumstances, e.g., security concerns. While it is clear that transport companies want to avoid the costs related to additional drivers, vehicles manned by a single driver sit unused whenever the driver takes a mandatory break or rest. Team drivers, on the other hand, can travel a much greater distance in the same amount of time, because mandatory breaks and rests are required less frequently. This paper investigates under which conditions trucking companies should use single or team driving to maximize their profitability. We present a novel optimization approach for simultaneously optimizing routes and crewing decisions and provide experimental evidence that, for a wide range of cost factors, operating a fleet with a mix of team and single drivers can significantly reduce operational costs when compared to typical profit margins in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories about how Europe's clubs drive the global migration of football players argue that teams recruit in culturally similar and historically linked countries, in global value-added chains, or in their home country and abroad in far-flung countries. However, most of these theories on club behavior are empirically thin, because researchers have so far analyzed stocks of players in teams rather than flows of players between teams. To understand how teams drive the globalization of football's labor market, this study uses social network analysis to examine how teams from Europe's top eight leagues broker the global transfer network encompassing 1700 professional clubs in 82 countries. Results demonstrate that European elite teams do not scout globally, but rather recruit from rivals in European top leagues. Clubs one tier below the elite hire both in their home country and across European and Latin-American leagues. The majority of European teams focus their recruitment on their home country and occasionally hire from neighboring countries. How teams recruit in the global transfer market might thus be better understood through the interplay between the risky business of hiring players and the resources teams have at their disposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines where European professional teams recruit new players in order to shed light on the functioning of global value added chains in world football. Most studies either point to the increasing internationalization of football's labor force to argue that European clubs recruit from peripheral but culturally or historically related countries or turn to the experiences of players with domestic transfers to suggest that most teams recruit within their country. This study directly examines the recruitment activities of teams active in the highest two leagues of Europe's top seven countries between the 2003/2004 season and the 2011/2012 season. Results indicate that even though Europe's football labor force looks internationalized at first sight, many international players hold dual nationality and might be more aptly characterized as domestic players who are members of the large immigrant communities who came to Europe after the de-colonization of former colonies or as part of the stream of labor migrants in the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, for most teams, domestic mobility forms the backbone of their recruitment activities, but some teams, especially in Portugal, buy football talent from teams in the global South and sell their best players to larger European teams. These results urge researchers to reconsider teams as more myopic and geographically bounded actors in global value added chains, incorporate domestic mobility into global value added chains, reconsider what counts as the core and the (semi-)periphery connected through the chains, and be wary of approaches taking countries or even leagues as the basic unit of analysis in global value added chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tense communication and disruptive behaviors during surgery have often been attributed to surgeons' personality or hierarchies, while situational triggers for tense communication were neglected. Goals of this study were to assess situational triggers of tense communication in the operating room and to assess its impact on collaboration quality within the surgical team. Methods and findings: The prospective observational study was performed in two university hospitals in Europe. Trained external observers assessed communication in 137 elective abdominal operations led by 30 different main surgeons. Objective observations were related to perceived collaboration quality by all members of the surgical team. A total of 340 tense communication episodes were observed (= 0.57 per hour); mean tensions in surgeries with tensions was 1.21 per hour. Individual surgeons accounted for 24% of the variation in tensions, while situational aspects accounted for 76% of variation. A total of 72% of tensions were triggered by coordination problems; 21.2% by task-related problems and 9.1% by other issues. More tensions were related to lower perceived teamwork quality for all team members except main surgeons. Coordination-triggered tensions significantly lowered teamwork quality for second surgeons, scrub technicians and circulators. Conclusions: Although individual surgeons differ in their tense communication, situational aspects during the operation had a much more important influence on the occurrence of tensions, mostly triggered by coordination problems. Because tensions negatively impact team collaboration, surgical teams may profit from improving collaboration, for instance through training, or through reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-world events like the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires in Australia, Europe, and America remind us that the demands of complex operational settings are met by multiple, distributed teams interwoven with a large array of artefacts and networked technologies, including automation. Yet, current models of human-automation interaction, including those intended for human-machine teaming or collaboration, tend to be dyadic in nature, assuming individual humans interacting with individual machines. Given the opportunities and challenges of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, and the growing interest of many organisations in utilising these technologies in complex operations, we suggest turning to contemporary perspectives of sociotechnical systems for a way forward. We show how ideas of distributed cognition, joint cognitive systems, and self-organisation lead to specific concepts for designing human-AI systems, and propose that design frameworks informed by contemporary views of complex work performance are needed. We discuss cognitive work analysis as an example.

This article investigates the influence of local market size on playing success in professional Spanish football. In order to examine this relationship, several regressions were run for linear, beta and fractional logit models, using various proxies of local market size as explanatory variables. The evidence emerging from our analysis suggests that the advantage of big-market teams results in substantial dominance by a very small group of clubs. Nevertheless, this advantage does not actually prevent teams that are located in areas with a small market size from having at least regular opportunities for success. Furthermore, the econometric modelling and the evidence obtained provide a rational basis for supporting the idea of promoting the creation of a cross-national league in Europe (the European Superleague). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Virtual Intercultural Team Tool (VITT), a virtual platform that can assist European project teams in improving intercultural communication and in building cultural diversity for the effectiveness of its implementation. It states that VITT has three main tools namely, Kick-off Tool, Monitoring Tool, and Evaluation Tool. It mentions that the main output of the Kick-off Tool is the list of ground rules and can be used online. It says that the Monitoring Tool starts with answering a seven-question questionnaire and the output will consist in a set of joint management decisions. It tells that the output of the Evaluation Tool is the summary of main lessons learned which are discussed by the whole team.