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Team cohesion and other team processes are inherently dynamic mechanisms that contribute to team effectiveness. Unfortunately, extant research has typically treated team cohesion and other processes as static, and failed to capture how these processes change over time and the implications of these changes. In this chapter, we discuss the characteristics of team process dynamics and highlight the importance of temporal considerations when measuring team cohesion. We introduce innovative research methods that can be applied to assess and monitor team cohesion and other process dynamics. Finally, we discuss future directions for the research and practical applications of these new methods to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of team cohesion and other processes.

In this chapter we highlight a neurodynamic approach that is showing promise as a quantitative measure of team performance.

During teamwork the rapid electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillations that emerge on the scalp were transformed into symbolic data streams which provided historical details at a second-by-second resolution of how the team perceived the evolving task and how they adjusted their dynamics to compensate for, and anticipate new task challenges. Key to this approach are the different strategies that can be used to reduce the data dimensionality, including compression, abstraction and taking advantage of the natural redundancy in biologic signals.

The framework emerging is that teams continually enter and leave organizational neurodynamic partnerships with each other, so-called metastable states, depending on the evolving task, with higher level dynamics arising from mechanisms that naturally integrate over faster microscopic dynamics.

The development of quantitative measures of the momentary dynamics of teams is anticipated to significantly influence how teams are assembled, trained, and supported. The availability of such measures will enable objective comparisons to be made across teams, training protocols, and training sites. They will lead to better understandings of how expertise is developed and how training can be modified to accelerate the path toward expertise.

The innovation of this study is the potential it raises for developing globally applicable quantitative models of team dynamics that will allow comparisons to be made across teams, tasks, and training protocols.

To better understand contributing factors and mediating mechanisms related to team dynamics in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) environments.

Literature review.

Our primary focus is on cohesion and adaptation – two critical aspects of team performance in ICE environments that have received increased attention in both the literature and funding initiatives. We begin by describing the conditions that define ICE environments and review relevant individual biological, neuropsychiatric, and environmental factors that interact with team dynamics. We then outline a unifying team cohesion framework for long-duration missions and discuss several environmental, operational, organizational, and psychosocial factors that can impact team dynamics. Finally, we end with a discussion of directions for future research and countermeasure development, emphasizing the importance of temporal dynamics, multidisciplinary integration, and novel conceptual frameworks for the inherently mixed work and social setting of long-duration missions in ICE environments.

A better understanding of team dynamics over time can contribute to success in a variety of organizational settings, including space exploration, defense and security, business, education, athletics, and social relationships.

We promote a multidisciplinary approach to team dynamics in ICE environments that incorporates dynamic biological, behavioral, psychological, and organizational factors over time.

The fundamental role of corporate boards is to monitor and advise top management on strategic issues. It is therefore of the utmost importance that corporate directors are effective as a decision-making group to ensure corporate performance (Zattoni et al., 2015; Minichilli et al., 2012). But, what do we know about what is really going on inside the boardroom? This study aims to shed light on this important question.

The authors undertake a targeted review of the literature to take account of all publications regarding board dynamics in relation to board effectiveness.

This study shows that we know very little about what is going on inside the “black box” of board dynamics and its relation to how effective directors are at doing their job, namely, monitoring and advising top management and establishing and expanding the firm’s network, to gain access to the resources it needs. The authors propose several avenues of research to better understand board dynamics.

In this study, the authors show how and why the present body of knowledge on team effectiveness should be harnessed to better understand corporate board dynamics in relation to board effectiveness.

In this paper, the authors extend their understanding of the internal dynamics of routines in contexts characterized by increased levels of virtuality. In particular, the authors focus on the role of routine artifacts in the internal dynamics of routines to answer the question: How does extensive reliance on information and communication technologies (ICTs) due to physical distance influence the internal dynamics of the new product development (NPD) routine (i.e. interactions between performative, ostensive and artifacts of routines) enacted by a virtual team?

This paper is based on an 18-month ethnographic study of the NPD routine performed by a virtual team. The authors relied predominantly on qualitative, ethnographic data collection and analysis methods, using semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and the collection of archival data and company documents (formal procedures, guidelines, application designs etc). Qualitative research offers a valuable means to investigate dynamic processes in organizations due to its sensitivity to the organizational context and potential to focus on activities as they unfold.

The findings highlight the central role of routine artifacts (ICTs) in the routine dynamics of the NPD routine performed by virtual team. In particular, the authors show that the use of the particular types of ICTs enabled team members to confidently and meaningfully relate to the overall routine activity and coordinate their actions in a context characterized by physical distance and extensive reliance on communication and collaboration technologies.

The paper sheds light into role of routine artifacts in the routine dynamics in a context characterized by a high degree of virtuality. This work contributes to the literature on routine dynamics by theorizing about the processes through which routine artifacts (ICTs) afforded routine participants the ability to act confidently and meaningfully to the present and dynamically coordinate their actions with their fellow routine participants.

In this chapter, we view team cohesion from a more generalized perspective of team dynamics, and focus on four leadership models for understanding these dynamics in teams in the context of the Mars Mission. Given the long duration of the mission with periods of no or intermittent communication and support, isolation and confinement, and the risk of great physical and psychological harm, having tailored leadership models for this unique team dynamics context is critical. And yet, many of these same dangerous conditions occur in other contexts such as for first responders, crisis management teams, Special Forces operations, and scientific exploration teams in extreme environments. As such, building from a model of leadership and team dynamics for dangerous contexts, for a long-duration space mission involving both Mission Control and the Astronaut Crew, these models of leadership and team dynamics include a collective-level approach for scientists and engineers, a primarily crew-based socioemotional approach, a leader-level crisis/emergency approach, and a dyadic or sortie-level approach. Implications of these models for effective leadership in building and maintaining team dynamics and cohesion for the Mars Mission and across a variety of other dangerous and extreme contexts are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to broaden previous work on organizational learning and the factors that influence learning in organizational settings.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods that included in‐depth interviews and questionnaire distribution were used. Data gathered were analyzed using qualitative analysis along with statistical Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis.

Research results indicate that individual motivation to learn, team dynamics, and organization culture practices all have a significant level of influence on organization learning sustainability in non‐profit organizations.

This study provides a better understanding of what influences learning in organizations. The study adds on to existing definitions, theories and concepts and enables another depth of understanding to be explored. A major limitation of this study is its focus on the non‐profit sector and a selected number of organizations thereby limiting its applicability and ability to be generalized.

The findings of the study can help differentiate the learning phenomenon that takes place in organizations. Moreover, non‐profit organizations as well as managers and leaders would be able to better appreciate the learning that takes place in their organizations and create interventions that would enable them to motivate employees to learn effectively, enhance team dynamics, and shape their organization culture to promote their overall learning performance.

More empirical research is needed to better understand the nature of learning in organizations. This research adds to other empirical studies on organization learning while providing a basis for studying the factors that influence an organization's ability to sustain its learning in the long run.

This article presents a nucleus of organizational levels which attempts to articulate an OD framework which acknowledges how large system change is a systemic interlevel process. This framework describes four levels in terms of a task at each level—bonding at the individual level, creating working, functioning team at the team level, coordination at the interdepartmental group level and adaptation at the organizational level—and attempts to articulate the dynamic interrelationship between the individual's bonding to the organization, the team's functioning, the interdepartmental group's coordination and the organization's adaptation, particularly in a change situation. This focus on interlevel dynamics is not common in the OD literature, yet is at the heart of many consulting experiences. The article describes this framework, positions it in relation to other OD levels approaches, and argues for the notion of organizational levels to be understood in dynamic systemic terms and that interlevel dynamics be constructed into OD theory and practice.

Effective internal dynamics of new venture teams is seen as a key contributor to venture success. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which new venture teams consisting of nascent entrepreneurs initiate trust and control during venture emergence.

Dimensions of trust and control are developed into an analytical framework applied to documented team norms. Coding detects frequency of trust and control dimensions. Supplementary data triangulate findings and explore follow-on effects in team dynamics and venture emergence.

Frequency of coded dimensions generates a venture team profile. Teams prime their dynamics through use of trust and/or control language in documented norms. Priming is seen to influence entrepreneurial perseverance during venture emergence, stemming either directly from team dynamics, or indirectly from key shareholder relationships or environmental conditions.

Data are bounded to a specific contextual setting representing incubation and education, where the nascent entrepreneurs are simultaneously students. The complexity of venture emergence means that multiple factors influencing new venture teams may influence trust and control in ways currently unaccounted for.

Exploration of trust and control during venture emergence emphasizes soft-skills critical to entrepreneurial perseverance and venture success. Team norms can be designed to prime toward trust or control, and can be indicative of teams’ sensitivity to external factors, enabling evidence for intervention.

The paper illustrates ways in which trust and control influence team dynamics during venture emergence.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of work group diversity dynamics as a novel approach for studying diverse work groups. The authors profile the dynamic processes within diverse work-groups and provide an overview of main objectives.

The paper draws on years of accumulated diversity research to cast a temporal and dynamic lens on the processes taking place within diverse work groups. After outlining the state of the art in work group diversity research, the definition, overall framework and profile of work group diversity dynamics is offered.

The paper argues that by adopting a temporal and dynamic perspective for studying diverse work groups, one can shift focus from the traditional perspective of “what is diversity” to “what happens within diverse work groups”. The paper disentangles the activities taking place within diverse work groups, defines the actual team processes and finally highlights how these processes might be affected by time and dynamism.

After almost 30 years of diversity research the mechanisms and processes through which diversity is translated into individual and organizational outcomes are not yet sufficiently understood and studied. This paper highlights a temporal and dynamic perspective for studying work group diversity, a view that is yet uncharted in diversity literature.