Machiavellianism in Belbin team roles

Abstract

In the description of his team model, Belbin describes certain “allowable” weaknesses in the roles, the true‐life experience of teamworking, however, sometimes reveals behaviour among colleagues which is far from “allowable”. The Belbin model is silent on such behaviour, so an investigation of Machiavellianism within each of the Belbin team roles was undertaken to explore this darker side of team behaviour. The instrument chosen for the investigation was the Christie and Geis Machiavellianism IV scale. Sizeable correlations in the experimental data were obtained which were readily interpreted within the framework of the Belbin theory. Suggestions regarding aspects of team management were made based on the experimental findings.

Citation

Macrosson, W.D.K. and Hemphill, D.J. (2001), "Machiavellianism in Belbin team roles", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 355-364. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005524