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The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

Although existing research on cohesion provides a robust understanding of the emergent phenomenon in small groups and teams, our comprehension of cohesion at the multisystem (MTS) level is quite limited. The simultaneous within- and between-team functioning inherent in MTSs produces more intricate dynamics than those observed at the team level. This added layer of complexity requires that many familiar team constructs, including cohesion, be systematically re-conceptualized and empirically examined through the lens of MTS theory (DeChurch & Zaccaro, 2010; Hackman, 2003). The present research addresses this gap by extending the conceptualization of team cohesion to the interteam level, and empirically investigating how cohesion functions across levels in a collective network of teams. Results from preliminary research suggest that intrateam and interteam cohesion share a curvilinear relationship with one another, while simultaneously interacting to affect overall system-level outcomes. This research not only illuminates the complexities associated with emergent phenomena in MTSs, but also serves as a starting point for continued, systematic research of the multilevel cohesive bonds that characterize MTS functioning.

Multiteam systems (MTSs) have been employed across numerous organizations and occupations (e.g., healthcare, emergency disaster response, business, and military) to achieve complex goals over time. As MTSs are inherently different than team level and organizational level theories, this chapter highlights the defining features of these dynamic systems through a temporal lens. Thus, the main purpose of our chapter is to address the challenges and issues concerning MTSs over time in order to provide a future agenda to guide researchers and practitioners.

To explore temporality throughout this chapter, we leverage two key MTSs frameworks along with contributions from the literature to produce a review, which demonstrates the extent of MTS theoretical and practical findings. After reviewing the definitional components of MTSs, we highlight various compositional, linkage, and developmental attributes that operate within a system. We then expand upon these attributes to consider the structural features of the system that enhance boundaries between component teams (i.e., differentiation) and may disrupt the system over time (i.e., dynamism).

After reviewing and integrating current MTS literature, we provide a new conceptual framework for MTSs and their temporal complexities. We offer several methodologies that managers and researchers can employ to assess these complex systems and suggest practical recommendations and areas for future research as we continue to study MTSs.

Our original conceptual framework considers MTSs through a dynamic lens developing over time and suggests the need for future research to build upon this perspective.

Teams in organizations have weekly – or even daily – meetings to exchange information, generate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions. Yet, many team meetings are described as ineffective by the participants, due to either their design or dysfunctional communication practices within the meeting. To gain new insights into addressing these issues, this chapter goes back deep in history and discusses the origins and functions of group meetings. Building upon evolutionary theories of human behavior, the authors examine the evolutionary significance of meetings and the ways in which they were adaptive for our human ancestors. Drawing from this evolutionary perspective, we then compare meetings in ancestral times with their modern-day counterparts. Using evidence from (a) ethnographic studies of small-scale societies that model ancestral group life and (b) organizational and team science, we contrast the typical workplace meeting with its ancient counterpart. In this review of ancient and modern meetings, we identify meeting characteristics that have been maintained through time as well as those that are unique/new in the modern time. In doing so, we inspect to what extent meeting practices in ancestral environments are aligned or at odds with meeting practices in contemporary organizations (the notion of mismatch). From these similarities and differences, we derive novel theoretical insights for the study of workplace meetings as well as suggestions for improving contemporary meeting practice. We also include a series of testable propositions that can inform future research on team meetings in organizations.

Meetings can serve the important role of facilitating communication and coordination for systems of teams known as “multiteam systems” (MTSs) that work interdependently to achieve grand societal challenges. Given that MTSs often appear in complex, ambiguous, urgent, and multifaceted task contexts, the MTSs require effective, and efficient but thorough, communication within and between teams in order to achieve shared goals. However, the extant literature regarding the science of meetings has left much to be explored in regard to the inter- and intrateam influences and impacts. This chapter considers the significance of meetings and their practical value in facilitating MTS processes and performance by leveraging what is known thus far regarding MTS structural attributes, their value, their challenges, and opportunities, integrating this foundation with the broader science of meetings. Building on this rationale, the authors move toward empirically and theoretically derived considerations for how meetings may best be designed, facilitated and utilized for MTS effectiveness, as guided by our current understanding of critical MTS attributes.

As work demands have become increasingly complex, organizations and agencies are progressively turning toward larger systems comprised of teams, or multiteam systems (MTSs), to accomplish multifaceted tasks in challenging environments. Today, many organizations require these complex systems in order to achieve the dynamic goals that are required of our ever-changing world. Subsequently, MTSs have become a growing area of interest in organizational research, primarily due to their increasing prominence in organizational settings.

In this introductory chapter, our goal is to highlight a selection of existing research regarding MTSs that serves to answer the question, “What do we know about MTSs?” while also setting up the question that serves as a recurrent theme throughout this volume, “Where does our research need to go in order to better serve MTSs in practice?”

While there has been a great advancement in the area of MTSs in recent years, there is still much to be explored in terms of the challenges and opportunities that MTSs afford in practice.

It is the goal of this chapter that we will set the stage for readers interested in identifying the current trends, dynamics, and issues in MTSs in the real world for the purposes of both expanding our research and theory on MTSs as well as further building the foundation for improving their development, implementation, and effectiveness “in the wild.”

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the critical multiteam system (MTS) issues that are faced in healthcare by utilizing case studies that illustrate the transition of a patient through the healthcare system and suggest a possible approach to studying these issues.

The approach taken by the authors is a case study approach, which is used to illustrate the transition of a patient through several venues in a healthcare system. This approach elucidates the MTS nature of healthcare. Moreover, a methodological explanation, social network analysis (SNA), for exploring the description and analysis of MTSs in healthcare is provided.

The case study approach provides concrete examples of the complex relationship between providers caring for a single patient. The case study describes the range of shared practice in healthcare, from collaborative care within each setting to the less obvious interdependence between teams across settings. This interdependence is necessary to deliver complex care but is also a source of potential errors during care. SNA is one tool to quantify these relationships, link them to outcomes, and establish areas for future research and quality improvement efforts.

This chapter offers a unique holistic view of the transition of a patient through a healthcare system and the interdependency of care necessary to deliver care. The authors show a methodology for assessing MTSs with a discussion of utilizing SNA. This foundation may offer promise to better understand care delivery and shape programs that can lead to improvement in care.

Although the practice of multiteam systems (MTSs) has been around for decades, the science of these systems has only just begun. Within the past decade and a half, although much remains to be investigated, substantial progress has been made in breaking the surface of this research. The current volume provides a review of MTS case studies and the current chapter provides a synopsis of this research. The goal of this chapter is to identify how MTSs are operating under real-world conditions in order to bridge MTS science and practice.

In this chapter, the authors provide a case analysis of the presented MTSs in the current volume in order to identify issues innate to MTSs. An approach based on the SWOT analysis technique was utilized to identify strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the identified MTSs. In addition, six lessons learned were extracted from a content analysis of the successes and failures of these MTSs.

Although MTSs may be unique to the environment in which they operate, there are several features which seem to be inherent to all. Strengths include possessing the ability to manage complex tasks and unexpected events, being flexible in nature, and integrating communication across levels. In opposition, weaknesses include the use of nontraditional communication patterns, challenges stemming from unit diversity and resources, and the lack of common training. Lessons learned from identified MTSs include (1) utilize effective communication; (2) establish shared mental models; (3) identify roles and responsibilities; (4) convey accountability and ownership; (5) consider the ramp-up period; and (6) train individuals in an MTS at multiple levels. Opportunities and threats to MTSs are also discussed in this chapter.

This chapter offers several contributions to the state of the field in regard to MTSs. The current chapter provides a detailed content analysis of several real-world MTSs. Characteristics inherent to MTSs are identified and discussed, and lessons learned are extracted. Traditionally, science and practice has focused on the presentation of lab-based MTSs; the current volume breaks new ground by identifying how MTSs operate “in the wild.” This chapter provides a summation of this volume and offers lessons learned for MTS researchers and those working within MTSs.