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.
Group Potency
Group potency is one of the most frequently investigated emergent states and team processes associated with effective teamwork, and recent research suggests this trend is going to continue. Although it has been described in different forms previously, we adhere to its conventional definition as a team's generalized confidence in its ability to perform across a variety of situations. Potency differs from efficacy, in that "efficacy represents a shared, task-specific expectation that the team can accomplish its goals, whereas potency is a more generalized sense of competence". To date, two meta-analyses have investigated the relations between group potency and team performance, with both reporting that group potency is positively related to team performance, ρ = 0.35 and 0.29, respectively.
Nevertheless, these meta-analyses are based on research that has used static, cross-sectional approaches, which unfortunately may not adequately address the inherently dynamic nature of group potency. As such, the dynamic aspects of group potency, which we expand on subsequently, have been relatively ignored by past research. There are two potential reasons for this: (1) gathering longitudinal data with teams can be difficult because team membership and/or project assignments may change over time, and (2) the analytical approaches for investigating emergence and growth had not developed until recently. In this research, we address these methodological challenges and present a novel investigation into the dynamics of group potency over time.
Nevertheless, these meta-analyses are based on research that has used static, cross-sectional approaches, which unfortunately may not adequately address the inherently dynamic nature of group potency. As such, the dynamic aspects of group potency, which we expand on subsequently, have been relatively ignored by past research. There are two potential reasons for this: (1) gathering longitudinal data with teams can be difficult because team membership and/or project assignments may change over time, and (2) the analytical approaches for investigating emergence and growth had not developed until recently. In this research, we address these methodological challenges and present a novel investigation into the dynamics of group potency over time.