The Context of Military Environments An Agenda for Basic Research on Social and Organizational Factors Relevant to Small Units (2014) / Chapter Skim
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6 Multiteam Systems as the Context for Individuals and Teams
6 Multiteam Systems as the Context for Individuals and Teams
Pages 101-120
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From page 101... ...
First, teams enable individuals to scale up effort in order to accomplish enormous tasks by pooling their effort. Second, teams enable military work by facilitating the specialization of labor.
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From page 102... ...
What conditions foster the emergence of desirable affective properties and mitigate the emergence of undesirable ones? • How do shared mental models and transactive memory systems (cognitive properties that describe knowledge held in common or distributed among team members)
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From page 103... ...
3. Interactions between teams in the MTS are driven by various degrees of task interdependencies among component teams.
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First, the committee details the essential elements of the MTS as an organizational form and summarizes current evidence as it relates to the committee's charge to understand the context of military environments. Second, we describe a potential research strategy to advance fundamental understanding of the context of military behavior from the MTS perspective, which culminates in the committee's recommendation for basic research on MTSs as one element of the proposed research agenda.
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From page 105... ...
One of the most valuable aspects of the MTS perspective is that it enables context to be understood as arising from entities that are not located within the same embedded organization. Because the scope of many military operations puts small units in direct contact with foreign and nonmilitary units, these entities serve as an important part of the context of military environments.
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From page 106... ...
Linkage Attributes Linkage attributes refer to the "linking mechanisms that connect component teams" (Zaccaro et al., 2012, p.
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From page 107... ...
Other research on MTS leadership suggests that these between-team processes need to be enacted by formal leader teams, not by the teams themselves (Davison et al., 2012)
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From page 108... ...
Decentralized planning among component teams increased individuals' proactivity and aspiration levels, both of which benefit MTS performance. However, decentralized planning also increased the teams' affinity for risk, which ultimately harmed MTS performance.
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From page 109... ...
For example, research is needed to uncover the effects on between-team processes and properties of membership churn within MTS component teams versus teams that remain intact. Given the practical importance of understanding development for military staffing practices, the committee suggests that the study of MTS development, particularly examination of team rotation and fluidity within MTSs, be a priority in future research.
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From page 110... ...
Team and Multiteam Properties A second set of intervening mechanisms through which MTS attributes relate to individual, team, and system outcomes are MTS properties. Research on small teams supports the distinction between team processes and properties (Cronin et al., 2011; Marks et al., 2001)
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From page 111... ...
. Some cognitive properties describe the knowledge that must be held in common or understood similarly by all team members; such knowledge is also referred to as "shared mental models" (Mathieu et al., 2000)
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From page 112... ...
. MTS properties suggest one valuable way to leverage research on MTSs toward understanding social and organizational factors in the context of military environments.
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From page 113... ...
To assist ARI to answer these questions, the committee outlines below five potential phases of research, leveraging multiple methodologies, that ARI may find useful in developing a research program to answer these questions. Phase 1: Primary Data Collection The first step of this potential research program is to gather a large sample of data on MTSs that include information about MTS compositional attributes (e.g., diversity of component teams, degree to which individuals and teams have prior relationships)
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From page 114... ...
The conceptual work would use existing research to detail the generative mechanisms through which individuals' actions and interactions ultimately give rise to MTS properties. To inform this phase, the committee suggests using prior research on team emergence (Kozlowski and Chao, 2012; Kozlowski et al., 2013; Klein and Kozlowski, 2000)
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From page 115... ...
For example, the desired patterns of MTS properties identified in phase 3 could be used as criteria in the virtual experiments. In each of a series of model runs, the researchers adjust initial conditions of the MTS compositional attributes and then run the agentbased model under those conditions for thousands of MTSs, watching the development of MTS properties at different levels.
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From page 116... ...
Phase 5: Causally Shaping MTS Properties As the final phase of this exemplar MTS research program, the committee suggests ARI could use the outputs of phase 4 to design experimental manipulations of MTS design features (i.e., compositional attributes) to test in an "MTS laboratory." In this carefully monitored but real-world setting, relevantly similar MTSs would be randomly assigned to operate under different conditions so that effects on MTS properties can be measured in real human groups, ultimately with real soldiers in actual military environments (to include training environments)
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From page 117... ...
Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1)
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From page 118... ...
. System breakdown: The role of mental models and transactive memory in the relationship between acute stress and team performance.
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From page 119... ...
. Transactive memory sys tem links work team characteristics and performance.
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