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To better understand the effects of demographic diversity on teams, we conducted a meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between team demographic diversity and team processes. Drawing from the categorization-elaboration model, we hypothesized that team demographic diversity elicits opposing effects on team performance via information elaboration and social categorization processes. We also explored several team-level and contextual moderators on these relationships. In our meta-analysis of 406 effects from 38,304 teams, we found that team demographic diversity is related to increased social categorization processes, but we did not find support for a relationship between team demographic diversity and information elaboration. In addition, we identified team education level and occupational and industry context as moderators of these relationships, finding stronger support for moderators of the relationship between diversity and social categorization than the relationship between diversity and information elaboration. We discuss implications of our findings for research and practice.

 

Background Certain leadership behaviours are particularly helpful for healthcare teams remain effective through crisis situations, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper summarizes evidence-based insights based on their importance and prevalence in the crisis leadership literature to provide recommendations that apply to medical team leaders broadly construed. We recommend that leaders adopt these behaviours in conditions of intense difficulty, uncertainty, as well as physical and psychological peril. Results We draw from research on workplace resilience, as well as leadership literature (ie, team leadership, transformational leadership, shared leadership, and crisis leadership) to provide six key insights along with evidence and practical guidance for healthcare leaders to help their teams in the midst of a crisis: (1) remain optimistic when communicating a vision, (2) adapt to the changing situation by deferring to team members’ expertise, (3) support organizational resilience by providing relational resources, (4) be present to signal commitment, (5) be empathetic to help prevent burnout, and (6) be transparent in order to remain trustworthy. 

Anders Ericsson’s seminal research on expert performance spurred a number of streams of research across psychological disciplines. Though his work was primarily focused on expert individual performance, there has been increasing interest over the past several decades on the factors underlying expert teamwork. This paper advances eight principles of expert team performance based on decades of team science research: shared mental models, learning and adaptation, role clarity, shared vision, dynamic leadership, psychological safety, cooperation and coordination, and resilience. In addition, we review a number of team development interventions aimed at building team expertise including team training, simulation, coaching, and debriefing. Accordingly, this paper is divided into three sections addressing (1) how expert teams perform, (2) interventions to develop expert team performance, and (3) a reflection on the role Anders Ericsson’s work has played in team science, including a personal reflection from Eduardo Salas on deliberate and guided practice. 

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.