ABSTRACT
The composition of a team sets the stage for effective teamwork and ensures that team members can use their capabilities to carry out the teamwork. We will learn about characteristics of individual team members and qualities of the whole team that impact teamwork. Besides team members’ personality (the big five personality factors), interpersonal and self-management KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities) are crucial for team performance, among others, social skills to get along with each other and team regulation skills, such as goal setting, performance management and coordination. Depending on the team task other factors such as adaptability and cognitive ability are important as well. Moreover, team members’ attitudes and motivation such as collectivism, team orientation and learning goal orientation affect the quality of teamwork.
Teams are composed of several individuals who can be more or less alike - so different kinds of diversity (task related, surface and deep-level diversity) and their impact on team performance play an important role in this chapter as well. Moreover, we have a look at the organizational context comprising factors such as team size, team structure (e.g. skill differentiation) and team task that set the frame for team composition. In the solution part of the chapter, we consider that it makes a difference, if a new team is being formed - and adequate personnel selection instruments are needed - or if there is an existing team whose composition has negative implications for the teams’ work processes and interventions as individual feedback, team training and team building are appropriate.
