The Team Interaction Process

The Origin of Team Interaction Process Theory

As social competition intensifies, the team becomes a fundamental unit of the enterprises. It has also become a hot topic in academic research. A team is a formal group of individuals who work together to achieve a goal. It makes rational use of the knowledge and skills of each member to work together to solve problems and achieve common goals. Robbins believed that all teams are groups, but only formal groups can become work teams.

Marschak first founded the team theory in 1955. He believed that the team is a group of people who make different decisions, but accept the joint results produced by the joint decision. The theory initially points out that the team's success depends not only on the joint decision between team members, but also on the uncontrollable factors outside. If each member knows the external information, then their decision will be better. However, the cost (information fee) is too large. In fact, each member does not need to know all the information about the team. Therefore, the question raised by team theory is: how to find the best information system and decision rules in order to maximize the team's expectations? His theory does not indicate how team members interact to produce joint decision-making.

Later, based on it, scholars developed a theory of team interaction process, focusing on the impact of team interaction on team performance. It holds that the effectiveness of interaction among team members is the key to team performance. The more effective team interactions happen, the higher the team's performance will be. Team interaction is different from general interpersonal interaction, and it involves more behaviors among team members in order to achieve common goals. Therefore, paying attention to the team interaction process, we can't simply analyze from the team division of labor, but should pay more attention to the communication, friction, conflict, trust and learning in the interaction process. We not only should focus on the generation and results of team interaction, but also should be concerned about how the team interaction produces these results.