Fluid and stable: Dynamics of team action patterns

The current study draws on work in the areas of team adaptation, team compilation, and small groups as complex systems to predict and test relationships between time, taskwork team mental models, team action patterns, and team effectiveness. Three‐person teams performed 9 scenarios of a firefighting simulation distributed over 3 days with discontinuous task changes introduced in the fourth and seventh scenarios (N = 41 teams; 123 individuals). We applied pattern detection algorithm software to the behavioral data to identify emergent performative patterns in the team members' task‐oriented actions. We also used discontinuous growth modeling to track the development of these team action patterns and their dynamic relation to team effectiveness. The results indicate that pattern emergence increased over time. This was particularly true for teams with similar taskwork mental models, and these teams also showed a more acute decrease in action patterns after a task change. In addition, team action patterns became increasingly positively related to team effectiveness over time, but this effect was reset after the occurrence of a task change. Overall, our research provides practical guidance to managers by illustrating the value of teams having highly shared taskwork team mental models and of enhancing the effects of teams' action patterns on team adaptive outcomes.

本研究基于团队适应、团队编译及小群体作为复杂系统等领域的研究成果，旨在预测并检验时间、任务型团队心智模型（taskwork team mental models）、团队行动模式（team action patterns）与团队有效性（team effectiveness）之间的关系。三人团队在三天内完成了9个消防模拟场景任务，其中第四和第七场景引入了不连续的任务变化（样本量为41个团队，共123人）。我们应用模式检测算法软件对行为数据进行分析，以识别团队成员任务导向行动中涌现的表现模式；同时采用不连续增长模型（discontinuous growth modeling）追踪这些团队行动模式的发展及其与团队有效性的动态关联。研究结果表明，模式涌现随时间推移而增加，这一趋势在任务型团队心智模型相似的团队中尤为显著，且此类团队在任务变化后行动模式的下降幅度更为明显。此外，团队行动模式与团队有效性之间的正相关关系随时间逐渐增强，但该效应在任务变化发生后会被重置。总体而言，本研究通过阐明团队拥有高度共享的任务型团队心智模型的价值，以及增强团队行动模式对团队适应结果的影响，为管理者提供了切实可行的实践指导。