Article:Turner, et al. (2020) MTS Effectiveness Model

• Type:: Article
• Authors:: John Turner Rose Baker Ali Zain Nigel Thurlow
• Journal:: Systems
• Reading Status:: QuickerRead
• DTlink:: link
• Date:: 2020
• Tags:: article MTS performance
• Related::
• Full citation:: Turner, J., Baker, R., Ali, Z., & Thurlow, N. (2020). A New Multiteam System (MTS) Effectiveness Model. Systems, 8(2), 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems8020012
• Found From/Recommended By:: fromSteve
• Abstract highlights:
  • Develop a new framework for MTS effectiveness, using a "narrative-based method for theorizing" to build on a review of team effectiveness frameworks and models.
  • Understanding is that teams manage their own teamwork and taskwork activities, and that leaders coordinate those activities within and between teams.
  • Teamwork = "interpersonal, effective, motivational, cognitive" activities
  • Taskwork = "strategy, goal setting, project management" activities
  • Formula includes team and MTS level components
• Other points:
  • Article really built around the understanding of MTSs as appointed, rather than emergent. Has some odd assumptions and weird ways of seeing things - like that each team has a distal goal that can be the same or different than other teams, and that its proximal goals are how they will reach that; that proximal goals are reached through shared leadership, and distal goals by functional leaders (which is said to be about leader-team rather than leader-follower interactions) or boundary spanners, which would result in a totally different goal hierarchy than we would build.
• Reading Notes
  • Intro
    • Team performance and team effectiveness are not the same thing
      • Team effectiveness is when "team's processes align with external task demands" (pg. 1), and are optimized when reach goal. It's not just a function of performance outcome - it's about things like design factors of the task/group/organization, about internal and external processes, about psychosocial traits and environmental factors. It's about coordination, cooperation, and communication. It's about the competencies of team members, about "regulation, performance dynamics, and adaptation."
      • Team performance is about what the team does. Behaviors and outcomes that are judged by others. Performance is compared to a predetermined standard, measured by something like productivity, quality, quantity, time.
        • Q: Why is productivity an outcome measure of performance rather than effectiveness?
      • Team effectiveness includes team performance as part of its metric - it's the outcome, and the processes used to reached it.
    • Teams are complex and multilevel, and have been research calls for understanding them as such.
  • Review method:
    • Pulled reviews of team effectiveness; and articles with team effectiveness and multiteam
    • Researchers selected articles to synthesize into common framework: 8 on team effectiveness, 12 on team process models and emergence, 6 on common team-based models
  • Team Effectiveness, overview
    • Team effectiveness, Process-type models (like IPO)
    • Emergent States
    • Common team-based models
      • Ilgen et al (2005)
      • Marlow et al. (2018), MTSs in healthcare
      • Magpili and Pazos, (2018), SMT
      • Zaccaro and Shuffler, MTS Effectiveness (from 2012 book chapter intro, and Shuffler et al.'s 2015 review - not the 2018 one)
      • Shuffler et al. (2015), MTS intra- and inter-team processes and outcomes
      • Marks et al. (2011) Taxonomy of Team Processes
  • MTS Team Effectiveness, overview
    • Team Effectiveness Formula
      • Measured at team level: Components of teamwork, taskwork, outcome/performance, and value to customer.
      • This model expands when you account for Marks et al.'s (2005) ttemporal processes - transition phase, action phase, interpersonal processes.
        • They actually show this as a mindmap, not just as a table. Much more effective!
  • MTS Effectiveness Model
    • To conceptualize MTS-level for this study, they look at functional leadership or boundary spanners. Interesting thought, not convinced yet assumption
      • (In differentiating functional leadership, say it's about leader-team rather than leader-follower interactions.) Interesting odd
    • Have leadership of team towards proximal goals as shared, and of MTS towards distal goals as boundary spanners or functional leadership. This is not a conceptualization I find useful. disagree

    • "The component team’s distal goals could be the same as other component teams, but they are often different, each contributing to the overall objective of the MTS." (pg. 10) odd

    • Transition processes - distal goal for team is set by boundary spanner (leader), then team goes through strategy formulation to figure out how to reach that - those are then their proximal goals (What would these proximal goals look like in a goal hierarchy?) odd
    • Action processes - boundary spanner is not involved in daily workings of component team, except for providing organizational resources. So this is on shared leadership. odd disagree
    • Interpersonal Processes - all are involved in this, leaders (boundary spanners) and team members
  • Final MTS Effectiveness multilevel formula (changed the notation from how they put it, to be more readable to me)
    • MTSeffectiveness = (component team to component team interactions) + (component team to boundary spanner interactions) + (MTS performance) + (MTS-level Customer Value) + (SUM ComponentTeamEffectiveness)
    • TeamEffectiveness = (TeamWorkWork + InterpersonalPhase) + TaskWork(TransitionPhase + ActionPhase) + Performance + CustomerValue
    •