Campbell Lauren N P, Torres Elisa M, Zaccaro Stephen J, Zhou Steven, Hedrick Katelyn N, Wallace David M, Luning Celeste Raver, Zakzewski Joanna E
Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, United States.
Department of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, United States.
Front Psychol. 2022 Mar 10;13:813624. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.813624. eCollection 2022.
Multiteam systems (MTSs) are complex organizational forms comprising interdependent teams that work towards their own proximal goals within and across teams to also accomplish a shared superordinate goal. MTSs operate within high-stakes, dangerous contexts with high consequences for suboptimal performance. We answer calls for nuanced exploration and cross-context comparison of MTSs "in the wild" by leveraging the MTS action sub-phase behavioral taxonomy to determine where and how MTS failures occur. To our knowledge, this is the first study to also examine how key MTS attributes (boundary status, goal type) influence MTS processes and performance. We conducted historiometric analysis on 40 cases of failed MTS performance across various contexts (e.g., emergency response, commercial transportation, military, and business) to uncover patterns of within- and between-team behaviors of failing MTSs, resulting in four themes. First, component teams of failing MTSs over-engaged in within-team alignment behaviors (vs. between-team behaviors) by enacting acting, monitoring, and recalibrating behaviors more often within than between teams. Second, failing MTSs over-focused on acting behaviors (vs. monitoring or recalibrating) and tended to not fully enact the action sub-phase cycle. Third and fourth, boundary status and goal type exacerbated these behavioral patterns, as external and physical MTSs were less likely to enact sufficient between-team behaviors or fully enact the action sub-phase cycle compared to internal and intellectual MTSs. We propose entrainment as a mechanism for facilitating MTS performance wherein specific, cyclical behavioral patterns enacted by teams align to facilitate goal achievement three multilevel behavioral cycles (i.e., acting-focused, alignment-focused, and adjustment-focused). We argue that the degree to which these cycles are aligned both between teams and with the overarching MTS goal determines whether and how an MTS fails. Our findings add nuance beyond single-context MTS studies by showing that the identified behavioral patterns hold both across contexts and almost all types of MTS action-phase behaviors. We show that these patterns vary by MTS boundary status and goal type. Our findings inform MTS training best practices, which should be structured to integrate all component teams and tailored to both MTS attributes (i.e., boundary status, goal type) and situation type (e.g., contingency planning).
多团队系统（MTSs）是一种复杂的组织形式，由相互依存的团队组成，这些团队在团队内部以及跨团队朝着各自的近期目标努力，以实现共同的上级目标。多团队系统在高风险、危险的环境中运作，次优绩效会带来严重后果。我们通过利用多团队系统行动子阶段行为分类法来回应关于对“实际中的”多团队系统进行细致探索和跨情境比较的呼吁，以确定多团队系统失败发生的地点和方式。据我们所知，这是第一项同时研究关键多团队系统属性（边界状态、目标类型）如何影响多团队系统流程和绩效的研究。我们对40个不同情境（如应急响应、商业运输、军事和商业）下多团队系统绩效失败的案例进行了历史计量分析，以揭示失败的多团队系统在团队内部和团队之间的行为模式，得出了四个主题。第一，失败的多团队系统的组成团队过度参与团队内部的协调行为（相对于团队间行为），在团队内部比在团队之间更频繁地进行行动、监控和重新校准行为。第二，失败的多团队系统过度关注行动行为（相对于监控或重新校准），并且往往没有充分执行行动子阶段循环。第三和第四，边界状态和目标类型加剧了这些行为模式，与内部和智力型多团队系统相比，外部和实物型多团队系统不太可能充分执行足够的团队间行为或完全执行行动子阶段循环。我们提出同步作为促进多团队系统绩效的一种机制，其中团队执行的特定周期性行为模式相互协调以促进目标实现——三个多层次行为循环（即专注于行动、专注于协调和专注于调整）。我们认为，这些循环在团队之间以及与总体多团队系统目标的协调程度决定了多团队系统是否以及如何失败。我们的研究结果通过表明所识别的行为模式在各种情境以及几乎所有类型的多团队系统行动阶段行为中都成立，为单情境多团队系统研究增添了细微差别。我们表明，这些模式因多团队系统边界状态和目标类型而异。我们的研究结果为多团队系统培训最佳实践提供了参考，培训应构建为整合所有组成团队，并根据多团队系统属性（即边界状态、目标类型）和情境类型（如应急计划）进行定制。
