Without a doubt in this era of globalization and borderless world, working in teams leads towards higher output and productivity. However, in the context of higher education settings especially among researchers, it was found that the work culture is very much aligned towards individualism efforts. Thus, the main aim of the study is to determine the influence of task interdependence and task conflict on team effectiveness. This is a quantitative study and the data was collected from 181 respondents from a local research university in Malaysia. The study found that team interdependence and task conflict contributed 22% of the variances in team effectiveness. Some suggestions are put forward to improve team effectiveness in institutions of higher learning.
American Management Association (2014). Building a sense of team work among staff members. Available: http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/Building-a-Sense-of-Teamwork-Among-Staff-Members.aspx.
Arthur, W., Edwards, B. D., Bell, S. T., Villado, A. J., & Bennett, W. (2005). Team task analysis: Identifying tasks and jobs that are team based. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 47(3), 654–669.
Bai, Y., Lin, L. & Li, P.P. (2016). How to enable employee creativity in a team context: A cross-level mediating process of transformational leadership. Journal of Business Research, 69(9): 3240-3250.
Barnett, K. & McCormick, J. (2016). Perceptions of task interdependence and functional leadership in schools. Small Group Research, 47(3): 279-302.
Barrick, M. R., Stewart, G. L., Neubert, M. J., & Mount, M. K. (2007). Relating member ability and personality to work-team processes and team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(3), 377.
Couto, D. (2009). Why teams don’t work? Harvard Business Review. Available: https://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work
Colquitt, J., Lepine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2009). Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Cur?eu, P. L., & Pluut, H. (2013). Student groups as learning entities: The effect of group diversity and teamwork quality on groups’ cognitive complexity. Studies in Higher Education, 38(1), 87–103.
Gabelica, C., Van den Bossche, P., Segers, M., & Gijselaers, W. (2012). Feedback, a powerful lever in teams: a review. Educational Research Review, 7(2), 123–144.
Hogan, J., & Holland, B. (2003). Using theory to evaluate personality and job-performance relations: a socioanalytic perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), 100.
Jehn, K. A., & Bendersky, C. (2003). Intragroup conflict in organizations: A contingency perspective. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25, 189–244.
Troth, A. C. (2009). A model of team emotional intelligence, conflict, task complexity and decision making. International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 14(1), 26–40.
Van Der Vegt, G. S., Emans, B. J. M., & Van de Vliert, E. (2001). Patterns of interdependence in work teams: a two-level investigation of the relations with job and team satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 54(1), 51–69.
D’Silva, J. L., Samah, A. A., Ortega, A., & Sulaiman, A. H. (2017). Determinants of Team Effectiveness among Young Researchers in a Malaysian Public University. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(8), 566-571.
Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
