Abstract As the need to tackle complex clinical and societal problems rises, researchers are increasingly taking on a translational approach. This approach, which seeks to integrate theories, methodologies, and frameworks from various disciplines across a team of researchers, places emphasis on translation of findings in order to offer practical solutions to real-world problems. While translational research leads to a number of positive outcomes, there are also a multitude of barriers to conducting effective team science, such as effective coordination and communication across the organizational, disciplinary, and even geographic boundaries of science teams. Given these barriers to success, there is a significant need to establish team interventions that increase science team effectiveness as translational research becomes the new face of science. This review is intended to provide translational scientists with an understanding of barriers to effective team science and equip them with the necessary tools to overcome such barriers. We provide an overview of translational science teams, discuss barriers to science team effectiveness, demonstrate the lacking state of current interventions, and present recommendations for improving interventions in science teams by applying best practices from the teams and groups literature across the four phases of transdisciplinary research.
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In Search of the Dream Team: Temporally Constrained Multi-Armed Bandits for Identifying Effective Team Structures
Team structures---roles, norms, and interaction patterns---define how teams work. HCI researchers have theorized ideal team structures and built systems nudging teams towards them, such as those increasing turn-taking, deliberation, and knowledge distribution. However, organizational behavior research argues against the existence of universally ideal structures. Teams are diverse and excel under different structures: while one team might flourish under hierarchical leadership and a critical culture, another will flounder. In this paper, we present DreamTeam: a system that explores a large space of possible team structures to identify effective structures for each team based on observable feedback. To avoid overwhelming teams with too many changes, DreamTeam introduces multi-armed bandits with temporal constraints: an algorithm that manages the timing of exploration--exploitation trade-offs across multiple bandits simultaneously. A field experiment demonstrated that DreamTeam teams outperformed self-managing teams by 38%, manager-led teams by 46%, and teams with unconstrained bandits by 41%. This research advances computation as a powerful partner in establishing effective teamwork.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1847091
- PAR ID:
- 10540534
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9781450356206
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 13
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Montreal QC Canada
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Driven by views of teams as dynamic systems with permeable boundaries, scholars are increasingly seeking to better understand how team membership changes (i.e., team members joining and/or leaving) shape the functioning and performance of organizational teams. However, empirical studies of team membership change appear to be progressing in three largely independent directions as researchers consider: (a) how newcomers impact and are impacted by the teams they join; (b) how teams adapt to member departures; or (c) how teams function under conditions of high membership fluidity, with little theoretical integration or consensus across these three areas. To accelerate an integrative stream of research on team membership change, we advance a conceptual framework which depicts each team membership change as a discrete team-level “event” which shapes team functioning to the extent to which it is “novel,” “disruptive,” and “critical” for the team. We use this framework to guide our review and synthesis of empirical studies of team membership change published over the past 20 years. Our review reveals numerous factors, across conceptual levels of the organization, that determine the strength (i.e., novelty, disruptiveness, criticality) of a team membership change event and, consequently, its impact on team functioning and performance. In closing, we provide propositions for future research that integrate a multilevel, event-based perspective of team membership change and demonstrate how team membership change events may impact organizational systems over time and across levels of observation.
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Commitment is a multi-dimensional construct that has been extensively researched in the context of organizations. Organizational and professional commitment have been positively associated with technical performance, client service, attention to detail, and degree of involvement with one’s job. However, there is a relative dearth of research in terms of team commitment, especially in educational settings. Teamwork is considered a 21stcentury skill and higher education institutions are focusing on helping students to develop teamwork skills by applied projects in the coursework. But studies have demonstrated that creating a team is not enough to help students build teamwork skills. Literature supports the use of team contracts to bolster commitment, among team members. However, the relationship between team contracts and team commitment has not been formally operationalized.This research category study presents a mixed-methods approach towards characterizing and operationalizing team commitment exhibited by students enrolled in a sophomore-level systems analysis and design course by analyzing team contracts and team retrospective reflections. The course covers concepts pertaining to information systems development and includes a semester-long team project where the students work together in four or five member teams to develop the project deliverables. The students have prior software development experiences through an introductory systems development course as well as multiple programming courses. The data for this study was collected through the team contracts signed by students belonging to one of the 23 teams of this course. The study aims to answer the following research question: How can team commitment be characterized in a sophomore-level system analysis and design course among the student teams?A rubric was developed to quantify the team commitment levels of students based on their responses on the team contracts. Students were classified as high or low commitment based on the rubric scores. The emergent themes of high and low commitment teams were also presented. The results indicated that the high commitment teams were focused on setting goals, effective communication, and having mechanisms in place for timely feedback and improvement. On the other hand, low commitment teams did not articulate the goals of the project, they demonstrated a lack of dedication for attending team meetings regularly, working as a team, and had a lack of proper coordination while working together.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173682
