Exceeding the Ordinary: A Framework for Examining Teams Across the Extremeness Continuum and Its Impact on Future Research

Work teams increasingly face unprecedented challenges in volatile, uncertain, complex, and often ambiguous environments. In response, team researchers have begun to focus more on teams whose work revolves around mitigating risks in these dynamic environments. Some highly insightful contributions to team research and organizational studies have originated from investigating teams that face unconventional or extreme events. Despite this increased attention to extreme teams, however, a comprehensive theoretical framework is missing. We introduce such a framework that envisions team extremeness as a continuous, multidimensional variable consisting of environmental extremeness (i.e., external team context) and task extremeness (i.e., internal team context). The proposed framework allows every team to be placed on the team extremeness continuum, bridging the gap between literature on extreme and more traditional teams. Furthermore, we present six propositions addressing how team extremeness may interact with team processes, emergent states, and outcomes using core variables for team effectiveness and the well-established input-mediator-output-input model to structure our theorizing. Finally, we outline some potential directions for future research by elaborating on temporal considerations (i.e., patterns and trajectories), measurement approaches, and consideration of multilevel relationships involving team extremeness. We hope that our theoretical framework and theorizing can create a path forward, stimulating future research within the organizational team literature to further examine the impact of team extremeness on team dynamics and effectiveness

How Team Familiarity Mitigates Negative Consequences of Team Composition Disruptions: An Analysis of Premier League Teams

In today’s dynamic work environment, teams are increasingly confronted with disruptions. While there are different types of disruptions that teams face, we contend that team composition disruptions that occur during the completion of a team’s task can be especially challenging. We also argue that it is important to consider different types of team composition changes as they create different demands for team adaptation. Specifically, we assess the effects of loss of a team member and change in team membership resulting from injury substitution. We examine how these two types of team composition disruptions impact coordination and team outcomes (i.e., goals scored) by leveraging data from 2,280 soccer games in the English Premier League. We found that team member loss impaired both team coordination and outcomes while team member substitution only impacted team coordination. Moreover, we build upon and extend existing research that has examined team familiarity by distinguishing between familiarity that is built amongst members on the current team (i.e., current team familiarity) and familiarity that has developed as a result of members working together in prior teams (i.e., prior team familiarity). This distinction appears important as we did not find evidence of a main effect of prior team familiarity on coordination but found evidence of a reversing curvilinear effect of current team familiarity on coordination. Finally, the indirect effect of team member loss on team outcomes through team coordination was more pronounced when teams had low (compared to high) prior team familiarity

Self-efficacy, mental models and team adaptation: A first approach on football and futsal refereeing

Objective Within the football and futsal refereeing context, even though referees work within teams, there is very little research considering the implications of team dynamics. In response, this study starts to address this gap in the literature by investigating the moderating effect of mental models on the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and perceptions of team adaptation within the exciting context of professional and national football and futsal refereeing. Design We obtained online questionnaires from 339 active football and futsal referees within the National and Professional league at two distinct points (April and May) within the football season. Results Self-efficacy beliefs were positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation (only for football referees). Mental models were positively associated with team adaptation. Likewise, the moderation between mental models and self-efficacy beliefs was positively associated with perceptions of team adaptation. However, such an effect was only significant at the futsal referees’ level. Conclusion This study emphasises the importance of mental models for team adaptation and the importance of self-efficacy beliefs in predicting perceptions of team adaptation. We hope that this study represents the first step in a greater appreciation of the salience of team dynamics and their impact on football and futsal referees’ performance and that future research can build upon our work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Teamwork in Antarctica

This document regards the report of the research project "Team Adaptation during Antarctica Summer Campaigns", supported by the Portuguese Polar Program (PROPOLAR). It contains general findings about teamwork in Antarctica and recommendations for practice

SHARED TEAM EXPERIENCES AND TEAM EFFECTIVENESS: UNPACKING THE CONTINGENT EFFECTS OF ENTRAINED RHYTHMS AND TASK CHARACTERISTICS

This study explores the conditions under which shared team task-specific (STTS) experiences in crew-based arrangements may negatively influence team effectiveness.We suggest that the entrained rhythms featured in social entrainment theory act as a dual-edged sword with the potential to generate complacency detriments in addition to the commonly cited synchronization benefits. We argue that the manifestation and influence of the countervailing forces (i.e., synchronization and complacency) on the STTS experience—team effectiveness relationship will depend on salient task characteristics (i.e., frequency and difficulty). More specifically, frequently performed tasks create conditions for complacency tomanifest (generating an inverted-U shaped relationship between STTS experience—team efficiency), whereas infrequently performed tasks do not (generating a positive, linear relationship). We further this distinction by layering on task difficulty that, we posit, acts to amplify the respective negative and positive consequences. Analyses of archival data from 8,236 surgeries performed over one year at a large hospital located in the southwestern region of the United States were consistent with our hypotheses and 30 semi-structured interviews with operating room personnel added richness and precision to our theory. Ancillary analyses on patient post-surgery recovery rate yielded additional insights. Implications and future directions are discussed

The effect of a concept mapping Intervention on shared cognition and adaptive team performance over time

Research has demonstrated the value of team adaptation for organizational teams. However, empirical work on interventions that teams can take to increase adaptive team performance is scarce. In response, this study proposes a concept mapping intervention as a way to increase teams’ ability to adapt following a task change. Particularly, this study examines the effect of a concept mapping intervention on team transition adaptation (the drop in performance after a change) and reacquisition adaptation (the slope of performance after the change) via its effect on task mental models and transactive memory systems. We conducted a longitudinal experimental study of 44 three-person teams working on an emergency management simulation. Findings suggest that the concept mapping intervention promotes reacquisition adaptation, task mental models, and transactive memory systems. Results also suggest that task mental models mediate the effect of the concept mapping intervention on reacquisition adaptation. A post hoc analysis suggests that the concept mapping intervention is only effective if it leads to high task mental model accuracy. Our study presents concept mapping as a practical intervention to promote shared cognition and reacquisition adaptation.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

SHARED TEAM EXPERIENCES AND TEAM EFFECTIVENESS: UNPACKING THE CONTINGENT EFFECTS OF ENTRAINED RHYTHMS AND TASK CHARACTERISTICS

This study explores the conditions under which shared team task-specific (STTS) experiences in crew-based arrangements may negatively influence team effectiveness.We suggest that the entrained rhythms featured in social entrainment theory act as a dual-edged sword with the potential to generate complacency detriments in addition to the commonly cited synchronization benefits. We argue that the manifestation and influence of the countervailing forces (i.e., synchronization and complacency) on the STTS experience—team effectiveness relationship will depend on salient task characteristics (i.e., frequency and difficulty). More specifically, frequently performed tasks create conditions for complacency tomanifest (generating an inverted-U shaped relationship between STTS experience—team efficiency), whereas infrequently performed tasks do not (generating a positive, linear relationship). We further this distinction by layering on task difficulty that, we posit, acts to amplify the respective negative and positive consequences. Analyses of archival data from 8,236 surgeries performed over one year at a large hospital located in the southwestern region of the United States were consistent with our hypotheses and 30 semi-structured interviews with operating room personnel added richness and precision to our theory. Ancillary analyses on patient post-surgery recovery rate yielded additional insights. Implications and future directions are discussed

Effect of Cyclic Heat Stress on Hypothalamic Oxygen Homeostasis and Inflammatory State in the Jungle Fowl and Three Broiler-Based Research Lines

Heat stress (HS) is devastating to poultry production sustainability due its detrimental effects on performance, welfare, meat quality, and profitability. One of the most known negative effects of HS is feed intake depression, which is more pronounced in modern high-performing broilers compared to their ancestor unselected birds, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are not fully defined. The present study aimed, therefore, to determine the hypothalamic expression of a newly involved pathway, hypoxia/oxygen homeostasis, in heat-stressed broiler-based research lines and jungle fowl. Three populations of broilers (slow growing ACRB developed in 1956, moderate growing 95RB from broilers available in 1995, and modern fast growing MRB from 2015) and unselected Jungle fowl birds were exposed to cyclic heat stress (36 degrees C, 9 h/day for 4 weeks) in a 2 x 4 factorial experimental design. Total RNAs and proteins were extracted from the hypothalamic tissues and the expression of target genes and proteins was determined by real-time quantitative PCR and Western blot, respectively. It has been previously shown that HS increased core body temperature and decreased feed intake in 95RB and MRB, but not in ACRB or JF. HS exposure did not affect the hypothalamic expression of HIF complex, however there was a line effect for HIF-1 alpha (P = 0.02) with higher expression in JF under heat stress. HS significantly up regulated the hypothalamic expression of hemoglobin subunits (HBA1, HBBR, HBE, HBZ), and HJV in ACRB, HBA1 and HJV in 95RB and MRB, and HJV in JF, but it down regulated FPN1 in JF. Additionally, HS altered the hypothalamic expression of oxygen homeostasis- up and down-stream signaling cascades. Phospho-AMPK(Thr172) was activated by HS in JF hypothalamus, but it decreased in that of the broiler-based research lines. Under thermoneutral conditions, p-AMPK(Thr172) was higher in broiler-based research lines compared to JF. Ribosomal protein S6K1, however, was significantly upregulated in 95RB and MRB under both environmental conditions. HS significantly upregulated the hypothalamic expression of NF-kappa B2 in MRB, RelB, and TNF alpha in ACRB, abut it down regulated RelA in 95RB. The regulation of HSPs by HS seems to be family- and line-dependent. HS upregulated the hypothalamic expression of HSP60 in ACRB and 95RB, down regulated HSP90 in JF only, and decreased HSP70 in all studied lines. Taken together, this is the first report showing that HS modulated the hypothalamic expression of hypoxia- and oxygen homeostasis-associated genes as well as their up- and down-stream mediators in chickens, and suggests that hypoxia, thermotolerance, and feed intake are interconnected, which merit further in-depth investigations

Change and Aging Senescence as an adaptation

Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will propose a model for aging based on assumptions that are compatible with evolutionary theory: i) competition is between individuals; ii) there is some degree of locality, so quite often competition will between parents and their progeny; iii) optimal conditions are not stationary, mutation helps each species to keep competitive. When conditions change, a senescent species can drive immortal competitors to extinction. This counter-intuitive result arises from the pruning caused by the death of elder individuals. When there is change and mutation, each generation is slightly better adapted to the new conditions, but some older individuals survive by random chance. Senescence can eliminate those from the genetic pool. Even though individual selection forces always win over group selection ones, it is not exactly the individual that is selected, but its lineage. While senescence damages the individuals and has an evolutionary cost, it has a benefit of its own. It allows each lineage to adapt faster to changing conditions. We age because the world changes.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Dendritic cell subsets in the intestinal lamina propria: ontogeny and function

The intestinal mucosa is exposed to large amounts of foreign antigen (Ag) derived from commensal bacteria, dietary Ags, and intestinal pathogens. Dendritic cells (DCs) are believed to be involved in the induction of tolerance to harmless Ags and in mounting protective immune responses to pathogens and, as such, to play key roles in regulating intestinal immune homeostasis. The characterization of classical DCs (cDCs) in the intestinal lamina propria has been under intense investigation in recent years but the use of markers (including CD11c, CD11b, MHC class II), which are also expressed by intestinal MΦs, has led to some controversy regarding their definition. Here we review recent studies that help to distinguish cDCs subsets from monocyte-derived cells in the intestinal mucosa. We address the phenotype and ontogeny of these cDC subsets and highlight recent findings indicating that these subsets play distinct roles in the regulation of mucosal immune responses in vivo