Group norms and performance: A general model of work team performance using Jackson's return potential model of group norms.

摘要

The primary aim of this research was to increase understanding how team process and structural elements interrelate in predicting team performance. Other important aims were to increase understanding of performance norms using Jackson's return potential model (RPM) and to integrate it with expectancy theory. Models of norm agreement and team performance were developed using the RPM as the central element in both models. Other variables included person-team fit, group cohesiveness, group goals, social perception, and various team-structure and demographic variables. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 784 participants in over 100 Navy, Federal Civil Service, and private-sector work teams.; Most hypotheses were either unsupported or only partially supported, and many findings were tentative because they were not hypothesized, but several findings appear to provide major insights. There was strong evidence of fundamental differences in the way blue-collar and white-collar teams operate. Greater white-collar team effectiveness was associated with operating more independently and greater blue-collar team effectiveness associated with working more closely together. Norm wording appeared to be more valid than did expectancy theory's instrumentality wording by more strongly predicting team performance. A revised method of aggregating the RPM attributes was developed to eliminate bias introduced using Jackson's method. Jackson's construct of normative power was found to provide no explanatory power beyond its two components crystallization and intensity.; Other measures in the study demonstrated their usefulness. Contrary to prediction, a difference-score measure of person-team (P-T) fit was a more valid and reliable predictor of performance than was a preference measure. Goal setting was an important predictor of team performance. Although goal level was an ineffective predictor, goal thought and goal commitment predicted team performance. Congruence between goals for self and team also predicted team performance. Goal setting measures were more useful as predictors of team performance than as moderators. Perspective taking, a component of social perception, reliably predicted most team process variables. Private self-consciousness provided tentative evidence of being an indicator of response bias.; Based on the data, revised path and exploratory models of both norm agreement and team performance were developed to guide future research.