Teams and Tasks

Abstract

Researchers have studied interpersonal interventions as a means of increasing the performance of work teams. However, for short-term teams working on contrived tasks of short duration—a combination common in research studies—interpersonal interventions do not seem to affect team performance as much as task interventions. Yet, for short-term teams working on real tasks of longer duration and for ongoing teams, the effects of interpersonal interventions on team performance are more positive. This article presents a temporal framework of teams and tasks that predicts the expectation of benefit, which in turn mediates the effectiveness of interpersonal interventions on team performance.