Group Potency and Its Implications for Team Effectiveness
Over time, the people in a group assess the group's potential more realistically. This text demonstrates that the potency of the group changes over time. As you read, be attentive to the literature review and background of the study. Also, pay attention to the discussion of the findings, which surprisingly found that group potency decreases over time. You may want to take note of the limitations of the research.
Introduction
According to the input-process-outcome (IPO) framework and related models, emergent states are integral to understanding the effectiveness of teams. In this light, extensive research has been conducted in effort to improve our understanding of how emergent states influence team effectiveness. Marks et al. defined emergent states as, "constructs that characterize properties of the team that are typically dynamic in nature and vary as a function of team context, inputs, processes, and outcomes". Examples of emergent states include collective efficacy, group potency, and cohesion. Overall, meta-analyses have found that the previously mentioned emergent states are positively related to team effectiveness. Although these findings have been influential in building our understanding of team effectiveness, little research has investigated the temporal, dynamic aspects of emergent states. Ilgen et al. argued that time plays an important role in understanding the emergence of states in teams, and without more direct insight into the temporal nature of emergent team processes, theoretical advancements, and practical recommendations will be limited. To address this issue, the current investigation sought to examine: (1) how group potency, a critical emergent state, changes over time, (2) the relation between the dynamics of potency and team effectiveness, and (3) the mediating effect the dynamics of potency have on the relation between inputs (i.e., team-level personality) and team effectiveness.
In this research, data were gathered from student engineering project teams over multiple time points during an academic course. We then used latent growth and consensus emergence modeling to examine the dynamic nature and emergent properties of group potency. Throughout, we use the term dynamic to reflect the separate factors of the initial starting point of teams' potency, the rate of change in potency over time, and also the emergence of the construct. Further, we investigated the role of team-level input variables (i.e., team-level conscientiousness and extraversion) as predictors of the dynamicity of group potency. Additionally, we examined whether the dynamics of group potency mediated the relations for both conscientiousness and extraversion on team effectiveness.
In the following sections, we utilize conservation of resources (COR) theory to discuss the importance of group potency as a team-level resource that influences team effectiveness, in accordance within the broad IPO and IMOI frameworks. In addition, we invoke COR to support our theoretical rationale for how potency changes over time, and how this change predicts team effectiveness. Then, we theorize that specific personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness and extraversion) are both antecedents (i.e., inputs) and resources that contribute to the process of group potency dynamics and the prediction of team effectiveness.
In this research, data were gathered from student engineering project teams over multiple time points during an academic course. We then used latent growth and consensus emergence modeling to examine the dynamic nature and emergent properties of group potency. Throughout, we use the term dynamic to reflect the separate factors of the initial starting point of teams' potency, the rate of change in potency over time, and also the emergence of the construct. Further, we investigated the role of team-level input variables (i.e., team-level conscientiousness and extraversion) as predictors of the dynamicity of group potency. Additionally, we examined whether the dynamics of group potency mediated the relations for both conscientiousness and extraversion on team effectiveness.
In the following sections, we utilize conservation of resources (COR) theory to discuss the importance of group potency as a team-level resource that influences team effectiveness, in accordance within the broad IPO and IMOI frameworks. In addition, we invoke COR to support our theoretical rationale for how potency changes over time, and how this change predicts team effectiveness. Then, we theorize that specific personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness and extraversion) are both antecedents (i.e., inputs) and resources that contribute to the process of group potency dynamics and the prediction of team effectiveness.