SMALL GROUP RESEARCH June 1999Salas et al. TEAM BUILDING.docx

SMALL GROUP RESEARCH / June 1999Salas et al. / TEAM
BUILDING
THE EFFECT OF TEAM BUILDING
ON PERFORMANCE
An Integration
EDUARDO SALAS
Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division
DREW ROZELL
BRIAN MULLEN
Syracuse University
JAMES E. DRISKELL
Florida Maxima Corporation
In this article, meta-analytic integration of research examining
the effects of team building
on performance is reported. Overall, there was no significant
effect of team building on per-
formance. However, the effects of team building varied as a
function of the type of operation-
alization of performance: On objective measures of
performance, there was a nonsignificant
tendency for team building to decrease performance, whereas on
subjective measures of per-
formance, there was a significant, albeit small, tendency for
team building to increase per-
formance. Examination of the specific components of team

building revealed that interven-
tions emphasizing role clarification were more likely to increase
performance, whereas
interventions that emphasized goal setting, problem solving, or
interpersonal relations were
no more likely to render an increase or decrease in performance.
Finally, the effects of team
building decreased as a function of the size of the team. The
discussion considers implica-
tions of these effects of team building on performance.
Harry, you weren’t kidding when you said this Florida trip
would be
no vacation! Building a group like us into a high-performing
team
takes really hard work! But I wouldn’t have missed it for
worlds!
—Jack, a participant in a team-building intervention
(Shandler & Egan, 1996)
Team building, also called team development or group develop-
ment, is an extremely popular and common intervention. In fact,
SMALL GROUP RESEARCH, Vol. 30 No. 3, June 1999 309-
329
© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.
309
310 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH / June 1999
Porras and Berg (1978) observed that team building was one of
the

most frequently used organization development interventions.
Enthusiastic reports can be found for the application of team
build-
ing to such diverse settings as hotel management organizations
(e.g., Beckhard, 1966), microwave cooking manufacturers
(George, 1977), metropolitan rapid transit authorities (Golem-
biewski & Kiepper, 1976), medical rehabilitation teams
(Halstead
et al., 1986), and nursing teams (Robinson-Kurpius & Keim,
1994).
A recent special issue of a scholarly journal was devoted to
applica-
tions of team building to sports teams (Hardy & Crace, 1997).
Also,
as conveyed in the epigram above, team-building interventions
are
evidently believed to lead to a substantive increase in team per-
formance. Shandler and Egan (1996) claim that by applying
princi-
ples of team building, “any group can transform itself . . . into
a
high-performing team” (p. x).
In spite of this popularity of the concept of team building, how-
ever, several reviewers (e.g., Buller, 1986; Woodman &
Sherwood,
1980) have observed that there is no conclusive evidence that
team
building renders an increase in team performance. Druckman
and
Bjork (1994) noted that the enthusiasm for these approaches
among
practitioners “is not matched by strong empirical support for
their
effect on team performance” (p. 125). Similar to this, Smither,
Houston, and McIntire (1996) concluded that “Research

findings
on the effectiveness of team building provide a complex mix of
results that make drawing firm conclusions difficult” (p. 324).
More than 20 years after Beer (1976) attempted to formalize the
notion of team building, some of the most fundamental
questions
about the effects of team building remain: Does team building
enhance performance? Why? Under what conditions? This
article
reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of previous
research examining the effects of team building on performance.
Several issues need to be addressed in examining the effect
of team building on performance. First, the significance and
AUTHORS’NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those
of the authors and do not re-
flect the official position of their organizations. Correspondence
concerning this article
should be addressed to Eduardo Salas, Naval Air Warfare
Center Training Systems Division,
Code 4961, 12350 Research Parkway, Orlando, FL 32826-3275.
Salas et al. / TEAM BUILDING 311
magnitude—indeed, the very existence—of an effect of team
build-
ing on performance needs to be established. Second, differences
between objective and subjective indices of performance have
been
delineated in other domains, but there is no a priori
determination
of the extent to which team building would differentially affect
these two different ways of operationalizing performance.

Third,
the degree to which a given team-building intervention engages
dif-
ferent components of team-building might influence the
effective-
ness of the team-building intervention. Fourth, the effect of
team
size needs to be specified, particularly in light of recent
findings in
cognate areas indicating that group size exerts a considerable
effect
on other group phenomena. Finally, the effect of the duration of
team-building interventions on their effectiveness is of
consider-
able practical significance. Each of these considerations is
addressed in turn.
THE EXISTENCE OF A TEAM-BUILDING EFFECT
Team building has at its core the central notion that enlisting
the
participation of a group in planning and implementing change
will
be more effective than simply imposing change on the group
from
outside. The process by which the members of the team become
able to effectively participate in the targeted change requires
that
the team acquire new skills and perceptions. The various defini-
tions of team building that have been proposed in the research
lit-
erature resonate to these elements of participation and
acquisition
of new skills and perceptions. For example, Buller (1986)
defined
team building as a planned intervention facilitated by a third-

party
consultant that develops the problem-solving capacity and
solves
major problems of an intact work group. Woodman and
Sherwood
(1980) proposed that team building was designed to enhance
organ-
izational effectiveness by improving team operation through
devel-
oping problem-solving procedures and skills and increasing role
clarity (cf. Beer, 1976, 1980; DeMeuse & Liebowitz, 1981;
Dyer,
1977).
The effects of team building are often described in extremely
sanguinary terms. For example, the epigram at the beginning of
this
report is extracted from a primer on team building, entitled
VROOM! Turbo-Charged Team Building (Shandler & Egan,
1996).
Therein, the president of a high-tech research and development
firm uses a team-building intervention to rescue his foundering
company, ensure his promotion in the corporate hierarchy, and
even
save his failing marriage. It would seem that any intervention
capa-
ble of such impressive effects would have generated an
imposing
body of evidence supporting its effectiveness.
Unfortunately, a clear summary of the effects of team building

on performance apparently cannot be formulated from narrative
readings of previous research. Indeed, several narrative
literature
reviews have been conducted in this domain within the past two
decades, and the judgments rendered by these previous review
efforts have been inconclusive. Woodman and Sherwood (1980)
reviewed 30 papers and concluded that there were generally
posi-
tive results for most of the studies but that there was no clear-
cut
evidence to suggest that team building can improve
performance.
DeMeuse and Liebowitz (1981) reviewed 36 previous reports
and
similarly concluded that there were generally positive
descriptions
of the team-building interventions but that there was a dearth of
evi-
dence for beneficial effects of team building on performance.
Bul-
ler (1986) reviewed 9 studies, Sundstrom, DeMeuse, and Futrell
(1990) reviewed 13 studies, and Tannenbaum, Beard, and Salas
(1992) reviewed 17 studies, and (like each of the previous
reviews)
each of these narrative reviews concluded that team building
was
described in encouraging ways by most of the studies reviewed,
but
there was a general lack of definitive, compelling evidence for
the
beneficial effects of team building on performance.
It is interesting to consider the nature of the body of studies
con-
sidered in many previous narrative reviews of the effects of
team

building. First, there was a remarkable lack of convergence
among
these reviews regarding which studies to include in a review of
team-building interventions. Of the 69 reports examined in at
least
one of these narrative reviews, on average only 4 studies (or
5.8%)
were included by both of any two reviews. The point is that
more
than 90% of the literature summarized in each of these narrative
reviews of team building was referred to in none of the other
narra-
tive reviews. This stunning lack of convergence on precisely
what
constitutes an includable study of team building is in part a
reflec-
tion of the complexity of the notion of team building (to be
eluci-
dated further).
It is useful to consider a few other intriguing facets of the
studies
considered in previous narrative reviews of the effects of team
building. The most common type of report examined in these
previ-
ous reviews was the case study (20 out of 69 studies or 29%),
describing the application of a team-building intervention in
some
organizational setting with no empirical examination of the
effec-
tiveness of the intervention (e.g., Beckhard, 1966; George,

1977).
These case studies, although interesting and illuminating in an
anecdotal way, can hardly be said to provide definitive,
conclusive
evidence in support of team building. The second most common
type of report examined in these previous reviews reported the
effects of team building on some affective, nonperformance out-
come measure (15 out of 69 studies or 22%). This tendency for
stud-
ies of team-building interventions to focus on affective
responses to
the intervention while excluding genuine performance results of
the intervention was recognized in some of the previous
narrative
reviews (notably Buller, 1986; DeMeuse & Liebowitz, 1981;
Woodman & Sherwood, 1980). Only 6 of the 69 studies
considered
in the previous narrative reviews provided a precise statistical
test
of the effects of a team-building intervention on performance.
In sum, we cannot determine whether there is a beneficial effect
of team building on performance based on previous narrative
perusals of this research domain. Part of the problem lies in the
ambiguity of what precisely is team building and what studies
should be included in an effort to integrate the effect of team
build-
ing on performance. Part of the problem is that the team-
building
literature includes a variety of case studies, nonempirical
reports,
and tests of various types of outcome measures. Therefore, the
first
goal of the present effort was to establish the empirical
significance
and the strength of the effects of team building on performance.

COMPONENTS OF TEAM BUILDING
Beer (1976, 1980), Dyer (1977), and Buller (1986) have dis-
cussed four current models of team building: Goal setting,
interper-
sonal relations, problem solving, and role clarification. Goal
set-
ting emphasizes the setting of objectives and the development
of
individual and team goals. Team members exposed to a goal-
setting team-building intervention are supposed to become
involved in action planning to identify ways to achieve those
goals.
Interpersonal relations emphasizes an increase in team work
skills,
such as mutual supportiveness, communication, and sharing of
feelings. Team members exposed to an interpersonal relations
team-building intervention are supposed to develop trust in one
another and confidence in the team. Problem solving
emphasizes
the identification of major problems in the team. Team members
exposed to a problem-solving team-building intervention are
sup-
posed to become involved in action planning for the solution of
those problems and for implementing and evaluating those solu-
tions. Role clarification emphasizes increased communication
among team members regarding their respective roles within the
team. Team members exposed to a role-clarification team-
building
intervention are supposed to achieve better understanding of
their

and others’ respective roles and duties within the team.
These models might be best thought of as components of any
given team-building intervention. That is, any team-building
inter-
vention might engage any or all of these various components in
varying degrees. For example, Wegenast’s (1983) team-building
intervention in child protective service workers involved a rela-
tively high emphasis on problem solving, but relatively low
empha-
sis on interpersonal relations. Alternatively, Paul and Gross’s
(1981) team-building intervention in the communications and
elec-
trical division of city government involved a relatively high
empha-
sis on role clarification but relatively low emphasis on goal
setting.
This diversity in team-building interventions represents one of
the major challenges to previous efforts to make sense of the re-
search literature on team building. In the present effort, we
viewed
this diversity among team-building interventions as a unique
opportunity to gauge the relative impact of the four components
of
team building delineated above (goal setting, interpersonal rela-
tions, problem solving, and role clarification). To date, there is
no
evidence regarding which of these components of team building
are
more critical to the putative effects of team building on

perform-
ance. Therefore, another important goal of the present effort is
to
determine the relative contributions of these components of
team
building to the team building–performance effect.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF OPERATIONALIZATION OF
PERFORMANCE
Two broad sets of operationalizations of performance typify
research in the area of team performance. On one hand,
objective
indicators of performance include direct measures of countable
behaviors, like the number of units sold or the tons of ore
mined. On
the other hand, subjective indicators of performance include
ratings
of the performance or effectiveness of the team. Two separate
meta-analyses have reported relatively modest correlations
between objective and subjective measures of performance
(Bom-
mer, Johnson, Rich, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 1995, r = .389;
Heneman, 1986, r = .27). This led Heneman (1986) to conclude
that
objective and subjective measures of performance are not
substitut-
able, and that “when reviews of the literature are conducted,
results
should be grouped by the type of performance criteria” (p. 820).
There is no a priori expectation for the effect of team building
on
performance to be greater for one or the other of these two
opera-
tionalizations. However, the relatively modest correlations
previ-

ously observed between objective and subjective measures of
per-
formance led us to examine the effect of team building on
performance separately for each type of performance measure.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF TEAM SIZE
The size of social groups has been shown to affect the
magnitude
of several other group phenomena, including the participation-
leadership effect (Mullen, Salas, & Driskell, 1989), the ingroup-
bias effect (Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992), the cohesiveness-
performance effect (Mullen & Copper, 1994), the groupthink
effect
(Mullen, Anthony, Salas, & Driskell, 1994), and the effect of
stress
inoculation training on performance (Saunders, Driskell,
Johnston,
& Salas, 1996) (for a discussion, see Mullen, 1991). Larger
groups
tend to encourage deindividuation among group members (e.g.,
Mullen, 1987). Moreover, it is well established that as group
size
increases, members’liking for the group (e.g., Indik, 1965) and
per-
formance (Mullen, 1987) tend to decrease. In larger groups,
group
members would be expected to be less engaged in the group,
less
open to the team-building intervention, and less likely to
perform

with any concern for excellence. Thus, we would expect that the
effect of team building on performance would be weaker in
larger
teams and stronger in smaller teams.
In spite of the consistent tendency for the size of the group to
affect several similar group phenomena, there has been no
consid-
eration to date of whether team size moderates the effect of
team
building on performance. Therefore, another important goal of
the
present effort was to determine the extent to which team size
affects
the impact of team building on performance.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF DURATION OF
THE TEAM-BUILDING INTERVENTION
The duration of team-building interventions varies considerably
in the extant literature, from 2 days (Smith, 1976) to 8 months
(Bul-
ler & Bell, 1986). Common sense might suggest that
interventions
of longer duration might exert greater effects: If a little of the
inter-
vention works, then a lot of the intervention might work even
more.
However, interventions of longer duration have paradoxically
been
found to render weaker effects in such diverse areas as mental
prac-
tice effects (Driskell, Copper, & Moran, 1994), self-help
treatment
groups (Gould & Clum, 1993), and group-work interventions
with

depressed older persons (Gorey & Cryns, 1991). However, the
nature of the relationship between the duration of team building
and the effect of team building on performance remains unclear.
Therefore, another goal of the present effort is to determine the
effect of the duration of the team-building intervention on the
team
building–performance effect.
A META-ANALYTIC INTEGRATION
In an effort to provide a clearer picture of the effects of team
building on performance, a meta-analytic integration (Mullen,
1989; Mullen & Rosenthal, 1985; Rosenthal, 1991) was
conducted.
The goals of this effort were (a) to provide a precise summary
of the
significance, the strength, and the direction of the effects of
team
building on performance; (b) to examine different magnitudes of
this effect of team building on performance as a function of the
operationalization of performance; (c) to examine the possible
moderation of the effect of team building on performance by the
four components of team building (goal setting, interpersonal
rela-
tions, problem solving, and role clarification); (d) to determine
whether the effect of team building on performance would
decrease
as a function of team size; and (e) to scrutinize the effects of
the
duration of the team-building intervention on the effects of team
building.

PROCEDURE
Using all of the standard literature search techniques, an
exhaus-
tive search was conducted for studies testing the effect of team-
building interventions on performance. First, on-line computer
searches were conducted, using the keywords team(s), group(s),
or
crew(s) and building, development, performance, productivity,
or
effects. These computer searches were supplemented by
ancestry
approach and descendency approach searches, correspondence
with researchers active in this domain (the invisible college),
and
manually examining the past 30 years of social psychology,
applied
psychology, and management journals (see Mullen, 1989, for a
dis-
cussion of literature search techniques). Second, we reviewed
each
of the team building studies included in the previous narrative
reviews by Woodman and Sherwood (1980), DeMeuse and Lie-
bowitz (1981), Buller (1986), Sundstrom, DeMeuse, and Futrell
(1990), and Tannenbaum, Beard, and Salas (1992). Any studies
that were available as of March 1998 were eligible for inclusion
in
this integration.
Studies were included if they met the following criteria: Team

members in the studies had to be adolescents or adults not
sampled
from abnormal populations. Studies had to report (or allow the
reconstruction of) a precise test of the effect of a team-building
intervention either on an objective measure of performance
(e.g.,
productivity data) or a subjective measure of performance (e.g.,
rat-
ing of team effectiveness). Case studies were not included (e.g.,
“Teamwork Through Conflict,” 1971), nor were T-group (e.g.,
Argy-
ris, 1962) or managerial grid (e.g., Blake & Mouton, 1966)
inter-
ventions. The effect of these criteria for inclusion was to focus
on
the effects of team building on performance in studies that were
optimally homogeneous in methodological terms. Hypothesis
tests
were coded as having a positive direction of effect if team
building
increased performance, and they were coded as having a
negative
direction of effect if team building decreased performance.
These selection criteria rendered a total of 11 studies (Buller &
Bell, 1986; Eden, 1986; Friedlander, 1967; Howard, 1979; Kim-
berly & Nielsen, 1975; Paul & Gross, 1981; Smith, 1976;
Wakeley &
Shaw, 1965; Wegenast, 1983; Wexler, 1990; Woodman, 1978).
These 11 articles yielded 16 separate tests of the effects of team
building on performance, representing the responses of 2,806
team
members in 307 teams.1 Attesting to the thoroughness of the
litera-
ture search, the included reports spanned a period of more than
30

years, and 4 of the 11 reports (36%) were unpublished
dissertations.
In addition to the requisite statistical information, each
hypothe-
sis test was coded for seven predictors. The nature of the
operation-
alization of performance (objective vs. subjective), the size of
the
team, and the duration of the team-building intervention were
all
directly coded from each report by two judges with perfect
reliabil-
ity. In addition, each team-building intervention procedure was
also scored for the extent to which that intervention would
engage
each of the components of team building. To be specific, two
judges
independently rated each team-building intervention on a scale
from 0 (low) to 100 (high) for goal setting, interpersonal
relations,
problem solving, and role clarification (as defined above).
Acceptably high levels of interjudge reliability were obtained
for
each of these components: Goal setting (interjudge reliability r
=
.693, Spearman-Brown Effective Reliability R = .819), interper-
sonal relations (r = .822, R = .902), problem solving (r = .945,
R =
.972), and role clarification (r = .580, R = .734). The extent to
which

each intervention engaged each component of team building was
set equal to the average of the judges’ ratings for each
component.
The hypothesis tests included in this meta-analysis, along with
the
corresponding statistical information and predictors for each
hypothesis test, are presented in Table 1.
RESULTS
General effect. Overall, there was a nonsignificant, z = 0.132, p
=
.45, negligible, ZFisher = 0.007, r = .007, effect of team-
building inter-
ventions on performance. Thus, the weight of available evidence
fails to substantiate the effectiveness of team-building interven-
tions to increase performance.2
Objective versus subjective measures of performance. For the k
= 8 hypothesis tests that used objective measures of
performance,
the effect of team building on performance was a
nonsignificant, z =
–0.511, p = .70, negative, ZFisher = –0.040, r = –.040. For the k
= 8
hypothesis tests that used subjective measures of performance,
there was a significant, z = 2.589, p = .004, albeit still weak,
ZFisher =
0.140, r = .139, positive effect of team building on performance.
These two effects were significantly different from one another,
z =
3.398, p = .0003. Thus, although subjective reports indicate that
team building appears to increase performance, objective
indica-
tors of performance reveal no genuine effect of team building
on

performance.
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320
Contributions of components of team building. The mean judged
level of each component of team building was used to examine
the
contributions of the various components of team building. The
team building–performance effect did not vary as a function of
the
level of goal setting engaged by the team-building intervention,
(r =
–.164, z = 1.165, p = .12). In other words, the extent to which a
given
team-building intervention engaged the component of goal
setting
neither increased or decreased the magnitude of the effect of
team
building on performance. Similar to this, the extent to which a
given

team-building intervention engaged the component of interper-
sonal relations (r = –.056, z = 0.485, p = .3138) or problem
solving
(r = –.049, z = 0.342, p = .37) neither increased or decreased the
magnitude of the effect of team building on performance. The
only
component of team building to significantly predict the effect of
team building on performance was role clarification (r = .759, z
=
5.533, p < .001). In other words, the more a given team-building
intervention engaged the component of role clarification, the
stronger the magnitude of the effect of team building on
performance.
It should be noted that there is no moderation of these patterns
for components of team building by the operationalization of
per-
formance. That is, for both objective and subjective indices
respec-
tively, there was no effect of goal setting (r = –.060, z = 0.182,
p = .43
and r = –.110, z = 0.972, p = .17), interpersonal (r = –.382, z =
1.258,
p = .10 and r = –.035, z = 0.325, p = .37), or problem solving
(r = –.305, z = 0.780, p = .22 and r = .088, z = 1.298, p = .10).
How-
ever, for both objective and subjective indices respectively,
there
was a significant effect of role clarification (r = .712, z = 4.565,
p < .001 and r = .752, z = 4.594, p < .001).
Contributions of team size. Overall, the effects of team building
on performance decreased as a function of the size of the team,
r =
–344, z = 5.965, p < .001. This inverse effect of team size on
the

effect of team building held for both objective measures of per-
formance (r = –.400, z = 2.383, p = .009) and subjective
measures of
performance (r = –.407, z = 7.796, p < .001). Thus, whatever
positive effect team building may have is most likely to emerge
in
small groups.
Contributions of duration of the team-building intervention.
Over-
all, there was a marginal tendency for the effects of team
building
on performance to decrease as a function of duration of the
team-
building intervention, r = –.197, z = 1.452, p = .07. This inverse
effect of duration on the effect of team building did not obtain
for
objective measures of performance (r = –.056, z = 0.194, p =
.42),
but did obtain for subjective measures of performance (r = –
.208,
z = 2.562, p = .005). Thus, the negligible effects of team
building on
objective indices of performance are not influenced by the
duration
of the team-building intervention, but the appearance of benefits
from team building on more subjective measures seems to
dissipate
for more lengthy team-building interventions.
DISCUSSION

One of the most important results to emerge from the present
analyses is the documentation of the overall nonsignificant and
negligible effect of team building on performance. These results
suggest that the enthusiastic testimonials on behalf of team-
build-
ing interventions should be interpreted with caution. The overall
magnitude of the effect of team building on performance of r =
.007
indicates that approximately .005% of the variability in a team’s
performance might be accounted for by knowing whether the
team
had gone through a team-building intervention. In other words,
approximately 99% of the variability in a team’s performance is
attributable to factors other than whether the team had gone
through a team-building intervention. Relative to some rather
bold
proclamations regarding the beneficial effects of team building
interventions (e.g., Shandler & Egan, 1996), future summaries
of
the effects of team building on performance should be a bit
more
modest.
When the data were disaggregated into objective performance
indicators versus subjective performance indicators, it was
shown
that objective performance indicators rendered functionally no
effect of team building on performance, whereas subjective per-
formance indicators rendered a significant, albeit still weak,
effect

of team building on performance. This difference between
results
for objective performance indicators and subjective performance
indicators is not surprising, given the modest convergence
previ-
ously observed between these different operationalizations
(Bom-
mer et al., 1995; Heneman, 1986). The analyses for these two
dif-
ferent performance indicators are even more sobering than the
overall lack of beneficial effects of team building: Not only is
there
an overall lack of beneficial effects of team building, but there
is not
even much of a measurement-specific benefit of team-building
interventions of which to speak.
The examination of the contributions of the four components of
team building yielded a very intriguing result: The team
building-
performance effect did not vary as a function of the level of
goal set-
ting, interpersonal relations, or problem solving engaged by the
team-building intervention. It was only role clarification that
seemed to make a genuine contribution to the effect of team
build-
ing on performance, and this pattern emerged for both of the
opera-
tionalizations of performance. This significant effect for role
clari-
fication is entirely consistent with evidence from other quarters
regarding the importance of role clarification and role
ambiguity in
team performance. For example, Abramis’s (1994) recent meta-
analysis reported that the general weight of evidence indicates
that

role ambiguity exerts a negative impact on performance. The
pres-
ent results suggest that future research on team building and
per-
formance should further examine the positive effects of the role
clarification component of team building.
The results for team size on the effects of team building are
con-
sistent with patterns documented in other group phenomena
(e.g.,
Mullen et al., 1989; Mullen et al., 1992; Mullen et al., 1994;
Mullen &
Copper, 1994; Mullen, 1991). For years, researchers studying
group and team performance have searched for the magic
numbers
that could summarize the effects of the group on the individual.
It is
interesting to note that Old (1946) long ago proposed that the
opti-
mum size for a group was 0.7 persons. This tongue-in-cheek
proposal, although somewhat limiting in terms of implementing
group training, keeps with the results of the present analyses:
As the
size of the team increases, the effectiveness of team-building
inter-
ventions decreases. Optimal benefit from a team-building
interven-
tion seems most likely to be obtained with relatively small
teams.

The results for the effects of duration of the team-building
inter-
vention are more complex. Although there was a marginal ten-
dency overall for longer team-building interventions to render
weaker effects, this pattern was actually due only to the
influence of
duration on the effects of team building on subjective indicators
of
performance. Thus, although shorter duration team-building
inter-
ventions might be of some benefit to subjective performance
mea-
sures, there does not seem to be any difference between shorter
and
longer team-building interventions on objective performance
measures.
Of course, there are limitations to our analysis and to the impli-
cations that can be drawn from it. As noted earlier, the term
team
building has been defined somewhat broadly in the literature to
include various types of group interventions that are
conceptually
quite dissimilar. As Lipsey and Wilson (1993) noted in a recent
review of the general efficacy of psychological treatments, there
are often gray areas as to what constitutes a certain
intervention.
Our approach was to cast a very narrow net, adopting a precise
approach to defining team building and to including studies in
the
analysis. This decision resulted in a small, tightly-focused
database
of studies, yet one that we feel is highly representative of this
research domain. Second, this analysis allowed us to examine
sev-
eral theoretically and practically interesting moderators of the

effect of team building on performance, such as team size and
dura-
tion of training. There are other potentially informative modera-
tors, such as the type or task (cf. Tannenbaum et al., 1992), that
the
literature did not allow us to examine. Further primary level
research is needed to examine other conditions under which
team
building may be more effective. Finally, there are
methodological
limitations of this analysis. There were no studies in this
database
that reported reliability coefficients for the performance
measures
used, so adjustments for attenuation were not attempted. The
fail-
ure of the source information to report reliabilities for
performance
measures is not unique to this particular meta-analysis, but it
repre-
sents a common limitation of the research literature.
In summary, the present results indicate that overall there is no
significant effect of team building on performance. Moreover,
what
little benefits team building might exert on performance are
likely
to be seen in interventions that emphasize role clarification in
smaller groups (and perhaps, in interventions that are more
brief).
Future research might be directed toward further examinations

of
the relative contributions of the four components of team
building
and to scrutinizing the differential effects of team building on
dif-
ferent indicators of performance. Finally, we note that in
examining
team building almost 20 years ago, Scherer (1979) posed the
ques-
tion, “How can something that feels so good not be
worthwhile?”
(p. 335). Subsequent reviews of team-building research
cautioned
that evidence of an effect of team building on performance was
“inconclusive” (Buller, 1986, p. 147), “unsubstantiated” (Wood-
man & Sherwood, 1980, p. 166), “equivocal” (Tannenbaum et
al.,
1992, p. 146), and “mixed” (Sundstrom et al., 1990, p. 128).
The
present analysis of the effect of team building on performance
pro-
vides an empirical basis for the caution voiced by these
reviewers.
NOTES
1. The included studies reported varying numbers of hypothesis
tests, ranging from one
per study (e.g., Eden, 1986) to three per study (e.g., Buller &
Bell, 1986). In the meta-
analysis reported, each hypothesis test was treated as an
independent observation. This
assumption of independence is patently false. For example, each
of the three hypothesis tests
included in Buller and Bell (1986) was derived from the same
subject population at the same

time. However, without making this assumption of
nonindependence, one would be forced to
select the best hypothesis test from a study such as Buller and
Bell or to pool the results from
the reported hypothesis tests into a single test. In the present
context, these alternatives seem
even more arbitrary and capricious than the present assumption
of independence. The effects
of this assumption of independence are examined later.
2. As indicated in Note 1, the assumption that each of the 16
hypothesis tests represented
an independent observation is false. However, it can be seen
that such an assumption does not
seem to render a distorted summary of this research domain.
Consider the results of a
supplementary meta-analysis of wholly independent effects, in
which multiple hypothesis
tests obtained from a single study were combined into a single
test. This heavy-handed solu-
tion precludes the examination of the effects of any of the
moderators considered above, but
it does eliminate the problem of nonindependence. This
produced 11 distinct, wholly inde-
pendent hypothesis tests, one from each includable study. The
results of this supplemental
meta-analysis revealed the same patterns reported previously:
There was a nonsignificant,
z = 0.440, p = .33, negligible, ZFisher = 0.032, r = .032, effect
of team-building interventions
on performance. These results indicate that the degree of

distortion engendered by the
assumption of independence of the original 16 hypothesis tests
is (at worst) tolerable.
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perspectives on (inter)
group phenomena and meta-analysis.
Structure BookmarksArtifactTHE EFFECT OF TEAM
BUILDING ON PERFORMANCE An Integration THE EFFECT
OF TEAM BUILDING ON PERFORMANCE An Integration
EDUARDO SALAS Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems
Division DREW ROZELL BRIAN MULLEN Syracuse
University JAMES E. DRISKELL Florida Maxima Corporation
In this article, meta-analytic integration of research examining
the effects of team building on performance is reported.
Overall, there was no significant effect of team building on
performance. However, the effects of team building varied as a
function of the type of operationalization of performance: On
objective measures of performance, there was a nonsignificant
tendency for team building to decrease performance, whereas on
subjective measures of performance, there was a significant,
albeit small, tend------Harry, you weren’t kidding when you
said this Florida trip would be no vacation! Building a group
like us into a high-performing team takes really hard work! But
I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds! —Jack, a participant in a
team-building intervention (Shandler & Egan, 1996) Team
building, also called team development or group development,
is an extremely popular and common intervention. In fact, -
SMALL GROUP RESEARCH, Vol. 30 No. 3, June 1999 309-
329 © 1999 Sage Publications, Inc. Porras and Berg (1978)
observed that team building was one of the most frequently used
organization development interventions. Enthusiastic reports
can be found for the application of team building to such
diverse settings as hotel management organizations (e.g.,
Beckhard, 1966), microwave cooking manufacturers (George,
1977), metropolitan rapid transit authorities (Golembiewski &
Kiepper, 1976), medical rehabilitation teams (Halstead et al.,
1986), and nursing teams (Robinson-Kurpius & Keim, 1994). A
recen-----In spite of this popularity of the concept of team
building, however, several reviewers (e.g., Buller, 1986;

Woodman & Sherwood, 1980) have observed that there is no
conclusive evidence that team building renders an increase in
team performance. Druckman and Bjork (1994) noted that the
enthusiasm for these approaches among practitioners “is not
matched by strong empirical support for their effect on team
performance” (p. 125). Similar to this, Smither, Houston, and
McIntire (1996) concluded that “Research f-Several issues need
to be addressed in examining the effect of team building on
performance. First, the significance and AUTHORS’NOTE: The
views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do
not reflect the official position of their organizations.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Eduardo Salas, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems
Division, Code 4961, 12350 Research Parkway, Orlando, FL
32826-3275. -magnitude—indeed, the very existence—of an
effect of team building on performance needs to be established.
Second, differences between objective and subjective indices of
performance have been delineated in other domains, but there is
no a priori determination of the extent to which team building
would differentially affect these two different ways of
operationalizing performance. Third, the degree to which a
given team-building intervention engages different components
of team-building might influence the ----THE EXISTENCE OF
A TEAM-BUILDING EFFECT THE EXISTENCE OF A TEAM-
BUILDING EFFECT Team building has at its core the central
notion that enlisting the participation of a group in planning and
implementing change will be more effective than simply
imposing change on the group from outside. The process by
which the members of the team become able to effectively
participate in the targeted change requires that the team acquire
new skills and perceptions. The various definitions of team
building that have been proposed in the research literature
resonate to these elements of participation and----The effects of
team building are often described in extremely sanguinary
terms. For example, the epigram at the beginning of this The
effects of team building are often described in extremely

sanguinary terms. For example, the epigram at the beginning of
this report is extracted from a primer on team building, entitled
VROOM! Turbo-Charged Team Building (Shandler & Egan,
1996). Therein, the president of a high-tech research and
development firm uses a team-building intervention to rescue
his foundering company, ensure his promotion in the corporate
hierarchy, and even save his failing marriage. It would seem
that any intervention capable of such impressive effects would
have generated an imposing body of evidence supporting its
effectiveness. -Unfortunately, a clear summary of the effects of
team building on performance apparently cannot be formulated
from narrative readings of previous research. Indeed, several
narrative literature reviews have been conducted in this domain
within the past two decades, and the judgments rendered by
these previous review efforts have been inconclusive. Woodman
and Sherwood (1980) reviewed 30 papers and concluded that
there were generally positive results for most of the studies but
that there was no clear-cut evi---It is interesting to consider the
nature of the body of studies considered in many previous
narrative reviews of the effects of team building. First, there
was a remarkable lack of convergence among these reviews
regarding which studies to include in a review of team-building
interventions. Of the 69 reports examined in at least one of
these narrative reviews, on average only 4 studies (or 5.8%)
were included by both of any two reviews. The point is that
more than 90% of the literature summarized in each ofIt is
interesting to consider the nature of the body of studies
considered in many previous narrative reviews of the effects of
team building. First, there was a remarkable lack of
convergence among these reviews regarding which studies to
include in a review of team-building interventions. Of the 69
reports examined in at least one of these narrative reviews, on
average only 4 studies (or 5.8%) were included by both of any
two reviews. The point is that more than 90% of the literature
summarized in each of-reviews of team building was referred to
in none of the other narrative reviews. This stunning lack of

convergence on precisely what constitutes an includable study
of team building is in part a reflection of the complexity of the
notion of team building (to be elucidated further). ---It is useful
to consider a few other intriguing facets of the studies
considered in previous narrative reviews of the effects of team
building. The most common type of report examined in these
previous reviews was the case study (20 out of 69 studies or
29%), describing the application of a team-building intervention
in some organizational setting with no empirical examination of
the effectiveness of the intervention (e.g., Beckhard, 1966;
George, 1977). These case studies, although interesting and
illumina----In sum, we cannot determine whether there is a
beneficial effect of team building on performance based on
previous narrative perusals of this research domain. Part of the
problem lies in the ambiguity of what precisely is team building
and what studies should be included in an effort to integrate the
effect of team building on performance. Part of the problem is
that the team-building literature includes a variety of case
studies, nonempirical reports, and tests of various types of
outcome measures. Therefo-COMPONENTS OF TEAM
BUILDING COMPONENTS OF TEAM BUILDING Beer (1976,
1980), Dyer (1977), and Buller (1986) have discussed four
current models of team building: Goal setting, interpersonal
relations, problem solving, and role clarification. Goal setting
emphasizes the setting of objectives and the development of
individual and team goals. Team members exposed to a goal-
setting team-building intervention are supposed to become
involved in action planning to identify ways to achieve those
goals. Interpersonal relations emphasizes an increase in team
work skills, suc-----These models might be best thought of as
components of any given team-building intervention. That is,
any team-building intervention might engage any or all of these
various components in varying degrees. For example,
Wegenast’s (1983) team-building intervention in child
protective service workers involved a relatively high emphasis
on problem solving, but relatively low emphasis on

interpersonal relations. Alternatively, Paul and Gross’s (1981)
team-building intervention in the communications and electrica-
----This diversity in team-building interventions represents one
of the major challenges to previous efforts to make sense of the
research literature on team building. In the present effort, we
viewed this diversity among team-building interventions as a
unique This diversity in team-building interventions represents
one of the major challenges to previous efforts to make sense of
the research literature on team building. In the present effort,
we viewed this diversity among team-building interventions as a
unique -opportunity to gauge the relative impact of the four
components of team building delineated above (goal setting,
interpersonal relations, problem solving, and role clarification).
To date, there is no evidence regarding which of these
components of team building are more critical to the putative
effects of team building on performance. Therefore, another
important goal of the present effort is to determine the relative
contributions of these components of team building to the team
building–performance effec--CONTRIBUTIONS OF
OPERATIONALIZATION OF PERFORMANCE
CONTRIBUTIONS OF OPERATIONALIZATION OF
PERFORMANCE Two broad sets of operationalizations of
performance typify research in the area of team performance.
On one hand, objective indicators of performance include direct
measures of countable behaviors, like the number of units sold
or the tons of ore mined. On the other hand, subjective
indicators of performance include ratings of the performance or
effectiveness of the team. Two separate meta-analyses have
reported relatively modest correlations between objective and
subjective measures of performance (Bommer-----
CONTRIBUTIONS OF TEAM SIZE CONTRIBUTIONS OF
TEAM SIZE The size of social groups has been shown to affect
the magnitude of several other group phenomena, including the
participation-leadership effect (Mullen, Salas, & Driskell,
1989), the ingroupThe size of social groups has been shown to
affect the magnitude of several other group phenomena,

including the participation-leadership effect (Mullen, Salas, &
Driskell, 1989), the ingroup-bias effect (Mullen, Brown, &
Smith, 1992), the cohesiveness-performance effect (Mullen &
Copper, 1994), the groupthink effect (Mullen, Anthony, Salas,
& Driskell, 1994), and the effect of stress inoculation training
on performance (Saunders, Driskell, Johnston, & Salas, 1996)
(for a discussion, see Mullen, 1991). Larger groups tend to
encourage deindividuation among group members (e.g., Mullen,
1987). Moreover, it is well established that as group size
increases, members’liking for the group (e.g., Indik, -In spite of
the consistent tendency for the size of the group to affect
several similar group phenomena, there has been no
consideration to date of whether team size moderates the effect
of team building on performance. Therefore, another important
goal of the present effort was to determine the extent to which
team size affects the impact of team building on performance. -
CONTRIBUTIONS OF DURATION OF THE TEAM-
BUILDING INTERVENTION CONTRIBUTIONS OF
DURATION OF THE TEAM-BUILDING INTERVENTION The
duration of team-building interventions varies considerably in
the extant literature, from 2 days (Smith, 1976) to 8 months
(Buller & Bell, 1986). Common sense might suggest that
interventions of longer duration might exert greater effects: If a
little of the intervention works, then a lot of the intervention
might work even more. However, interventions of longer
duration have paradoxically been found to render weaker effects
in such diverse areas as mental practice effects (Driskell,
Copper, & Moran, 1The duration of team-building interventions
varies considerably in the extant literature, from 2 days (Smith,
1976) to 8 months (Buller & Bell, 1986). Common sense might
suggest that interventions of longer duration might exert greater
effects: If a little of the intervention works, then a lot of the
intervention might work even more. However, interventions of
longer duration have paradoxically been found to render weaker
effects in such diverse areas as mental practice effects
(Driskell, Copper, & Moran, 1---effect of the duration of the

team-building intervention on the team building–performance
effect. A META-ANALYTIC INTEGRATION A META-
ANALYTIC INTEGRATION In an effort to provide a clearer
picture of the effects of team building on performance, a meta-
analytic integration (Mullen, 1989; Mullen & Rosenthal, 1985;
Rosenthal, 1991) was conducted. The goals of this effort were
(a) to provide a precise summary of the significance, the
strength, and the direction of the effects of team building on
performance; (b) to examine different magnitudes of this effect
of team building on performance as a function of the
operationalization of performance; (c) to examine the-
PROCEDURE PROCEDURE Using all of the standard literature
search techniques, an exhaustive search was conducted for
studies testing the effect of team-building interventions on
performance. First, on-line computer searches were conducted,
using the keywords team(s), group(s), or crew(s) and building,
development, performance, productivity, or effects. These
computer searches were supplemented by ancestry approach and
descendency approach searches, correspondence with
researchers active in this domain (the invisible college),
anUsing all of the standard literature search techniques, an
exhaustive search was conducted for studies testing the effect of
team-building interventions on performance. First, on-line
computer searches were conducted, using the keywords team(s),
group(s), or crew(s) and building, development, performance,
productivity, or effects. These computer searches were
supplemented by ancestry approach and descendency approach
searches, correspondence with researchers active in this domain
(the invisible college), an--reviews by Woodman and Sherwood
(1980), DeMeuse and Liebowitz (1981), Buller (1986),
Sundstrom, DeMeuse, and Futrell (1990), and Tannenbaum,
Beard, and Salas (1992). Any studies that were available as of
March 1998 were eligible for inclusion in this integration. -
Studies were included if they met the following criteria: Team
members in the studies had to be adolescents or adults not
sampled from abnormal populations. Studies had to report (or

allow the reconstruction of) a precise test of the effect of a
team-building intervention either on an objective measure of
performance (e.g., productivity data) or a subjective measure of
performance (e.g., rating of team effectiveness). Case studies
were not included (e.g., “Teamwork Through Conflict,” 1971),
nor were T-group---These selection criteria rendered a total of
11 studies (Buller & Bell, 1986; Eden, 1986; Friedlander, 1967;
Howard, 1979; Kimberly & Nielsen, 1975; Paul & Gross, 1981;
Smith, 1976; Wakeley & Shaw, 1965; Wegenast, 1983; Wexler,
1990; Woodman, 1978). These 11 articles yielded 16 separate
tests of the effects of team building on performance,
representing the responses of 2,806 team members in 307
teams.Attesting to the thoroughness of the literature search, the
included reports spanned a period of more than 3-1 -In addition
to the requisite statistical information, each hypothesis test was
coded for seven predictors. The nature of the operationalization
of performance (objective vs. subjective), the size of the team,
and the duration of the team-building intervention were all
directly coded from each report by two judges with perfect
reliability. In addition, each team-building intervention
procedure was also scored for the extent to which that
intervention would engage In addition to the requisite statistical
information, each hypothesis test was coded for seven
predictors. The nature of the operationalization of performance
(objective vs. subjective), the size of the team, and the duration
of the team-building intervention were all directly coded from
each report by two judges with perfect reliability. In addition,
each team-building intervention procedure was also scored for
the extent to which that intervention would engage ---each of
the components of team building. To be specific, two judges
independently rated each team-building intervention on a scale
from 0 (low) to 100 (high) for goal setting, interpersonal
relations, problem solving, and role clarification (as defined
above). Acceptably high levels of interjudge reliability were
obtained for each of these components: Goal setting (interjudge
reliability r = .693, Spearman-Brown Effective Reliability R =

.819), interpersonal relations (r = .822, R = .902), problem
solving (-RESULTS RESULTS General effect. Overall, there
was a nonsignificant, z = 0.132, p = .45, negligible, ZFisher =
0.007, r = .007, effect of team-building interventions on
performance. Thus, the weight of available evidence fails to
substantiate the effectiveness of team-building interventions to
increase performance.--2 Objective versus subjective measures
of performance. For the k = 8 hypothesis tests that used
objective measures of performance, the effect of team building
on performance was a nonsignificant, z = –0.511, p = .70,
negative, ZFisher = –0.040, r = –.040. For the k =8 hypothesis
tests that used subjective measures of performance, there was a
significant, z = 2.589, p = .004, albeit still weak, ZFisher =
0.140, r = .139, positive effect of team building on performance.
These two effects were significantly diff-TABLE 1: Studies
Included in the Meta-Analysis Duration Study Statistic rN
DOEMeasure Size (in days) GS IR PS RC b Buller and Bell
(1986) t(16) = 0.399 –.010 6/18 – Objective 3 240 83.5 32.5
82.5 10.0 t(16) = 1.584 .368 4/8 + Objective 2 240 87.5 5.0 10.0
20.0 t(16) = 0.005 –.001 6/18 – Objective 3 240 25.0 32.5 90.0
10.0 Eden (1986) t(29) = 1.252 –.226 7/220 – Subjective 31.5 3
40.0 77.5 29.0 35.0 Friedlander (1967) F(1, 88) = 3.98 .208
12/91 + Subjective 7.6 5 22.5 70.0 90.0 20.0 Howard (1979)
r(17) = .040 .040 2/19 + Objective 9 14 30.0 90.0 40.0 10.0
Kimberley and Nielsen (1975) t(43) = 0.71 –.108 45/900 –
ObjectiveNOTE: DOE = Direction of Effect, GS = Goal Setting,
IR = Interpersonal Relations, PS = Problem Solving, RC = Role
Clarification. a. The first number represents the number of
teams; the second number represents the number of team
members. b. The positive sign indicates that team building
increased performance; the negative sign indicates that team
building decreased performance. Contributions of components
of team building. The mean judged level of each component of
team building was used to examine the contributions of the
various components of team building. The team building–
performance effect did not vary as a function of the level of

goal setting engaged by the team-building intervention, (r = –
.164, z = 1.165, p = .12). In other words, the extent to which a
given team-building intervention engaged the component of
goal setting neither increased or decreased the magnitude of t-It
should be noted that there is no moderation of these patterns for
components of team building by the operationalization of
performance. That is, for both objective and subjective indices
respectively, there was no effect of goal setting (r = –.060, z =
0.182, p = .43 and r = –.110, z = 0.972, p = .17), interpersonal
(r = –.382, z = 1.258, p = .10 and r = –.035, z = 0.325, p = .37),
or problem solving (r = –.305, z = 0.780, p = .22 and r = .088, z
= 1.298, p = .10). However, for both objective and subject---
Contributions of team size. Overall, the effects of team building
on performance decreased as a function of the size of the team,
r = –344, z = 5.965, p < .001. This inverse effect of team size
on the effect of team building held for both objective measures
of performance (r = –.400, z = 2.383, p = .009) and subjective
measures of performance (r = –.407, z = 7.796, p < .001). Thus,
whatever Contributions of team size. Overall, the effects of
team building on performance decreased as a function of the
size of the team, r = –344, z = 5.965, p < .001. This inverse
effect of team size on the effect of team building held for both
objective measures of performance (r = –.400, z = 2.383, p =
.009) and subjective measures of performance (r = –.407, z =
7.796, p < .001). Thus, whatever -positive effect team building
may have is most likely to emerge in small groups.
Contributions of duration of the team-building
intervention.Overall, there was a marginal tendency for the
effects of team building on performance to decrease as a
function of duration of the team-building intervention, r = –
.197, z = 1.452, p = .07. This inverse effect of duration on the
effect of team building did not obtain for objective measures of
performance (r = –.056, z = 0.194, p = .42), but did obtain for
subjective measures of performance (r = –.208, z = 2.562, p =
.005). Thus, the negligible eff-DISCUSSION DISCUSSION One
of the most important results to emerge from the present

analyses is the documentation of the overall nonsignificant and
negligible effect of team building on performance. These results
suggest that the enthusiastic testimonials on behalf of team-
building interventions should be interpreted with caution. The
overall magnitude of the effect of team building on performance
of r = .007 indicates that approximately .005% of the variability
in a team’s performance might be accounted for by knowing
whether th-When the data were disaggregated into objective
performance indicators versus subjective performance
indicators, it was shown When the data were disaggregated into
objective performance indicators versus subjective performance
indicators, it was shown that objective performance indicators
rendered functionally no effect of team building on
performance, whereas subjective performance indicators
rendered a significant, albeit still weak, effect of team building
on performance. This difference between results for objective
performance indicators and subjective performance indicators is
not surprising, given the modest convergence previously
observed between these different operationalizations (Bommer
et al., 1995; Heneman, 1986). The analyses for these two ----
The examination of the contributions of the four components of
team building yielded a very intriguing result: The team
building-performance effect did not vary as a function of the
level of goal setting, interpersonal relations, or problem solving
engaged by the team-building intervention. It was only role
clarification that seemed to make a genuine contribution to the
effect of team building on performance, and this pattern
emerged for both of the operationalizations of performance.
This significant effec------The results for team size on the
effects of team building are consistent with patterns
documented in other group phenomena (e.g., Mullen et al.,
1989; Mullen et al., 1992; Mullen et al., 1994; Mullen &
Copper, 1994; Mullen, 1991). For years, researchers studying
group and team performance have searched for the magic
numbers that could summarize the effects of the group on the
individual. It is interesting to note that Old (1946) long ago

proposed that the optimum size for a group was 0.7 persons.
This tonguThe results for team size on the effects of team
building are consistent with patterns documented in other group
phenomena (e.g., Mullen et al., 1989; Mullen et al., 1992;
Mullen et al., 1994; Mullen & Copper, 1994; Mullen, 1991). For
years, researchers studying group and team performance have
searched for the magic numbers that could summarize the
effects of the group on the individual. It is interesting to note
that Old (1946) long ago proposed that the optimum size for a
group was 0.7 persons. This tongu--proposal, although
somewhat limiting in terms of implementing group training,
keeps with the results of the present analyses: As the size of the
team increases, the effectiveness of team-building interventions
decreases. Optimal benefit from a team-building intervention
seems most likely to be obtained with relatively small teams. --
The results for the effects of duration of the team-building
intervention are more complex. Although there was a marginal
tendency overall for longer team-building interventions to
render weaker effects, this pattern was actually due only to the
influence of duration on the effects of team building on
subjective indicators of performance. Thus, although shorter
duration team-building interventions might be of some benefit
to subjective performance measures, there does not seem to be
any difference between s----Of course, there are limitations to
our analysis and to the implications that can be drawn from it.
As noted earlier, the term team building has been defined
somewhat broadly in the literature to include various types of
group interventions that are conceptually quite dissimilar. As
Lipsey and Wilson (1993) noted in a recent review of the
general efficacy of psychological treatments, there are often
gray areas as to what constitutes a certain intervention. Our
approach was to cast a very narrow net, adoptinOf course, there
are limitations to our analysis and to the implications that can
be drawn from it. As noted earlier, the term team building has
been defined somewhat broadly in the literature to include
various types of group interventions that are conceptually quite

dissimilar. As Lipsey and Wilson (1993) noted in a recent
review of the general efficacy of psychological treatments, there
are often gray areas as to what constitutes a certain
intervention. Our approach was to cast a very narrow net,
adoptin----used, so adjustments for attenuation were not
attempted. The failure of the source information to report
reliabilities for performance measures is not unique to this
particular meta-analysis, but it represents a common limitation
of the research literature. --In summary, the present results
indicate that overall there is no significant effect of team
building on performance. Moreover, what little benefits team
building might exert on performance are likely to be seen in
interventions that emphasize role clarification in smaller groups
(and perhaps, in interventions that are more brief). Future
research might be directed toward further examinations of the
relative contributions of the four components of team building
and to scrutinizing the differential effects o--(p. 335).
Subsequent reviews of team-building research cautioned that
evidence of an effect of team building on performance was
“inconclusive” (Buller, 1986, p. 147), “unsubstantiated”
(Woodman & Sherwood, 1980, p. 166), “equivocal”
(Tannenbaum et al., 1992, p. 146), and “mixed” (Sundstrom et
al., 1990, p. 128). The present analysis of the effect of team
building on performance provides an empirical basis for the
caution voiced by these reviewers. --NOTES NOTES 1. 1. 1.
The included studies reported varying numbers of hypothesis
tests, ranging from one per study (e.g., Eden, 1986) to three per
study (e.g., Buller & Bell, 1986). In the meta-analysis reported,
each hypothesis test was treated as an independent observation.
This assumption of independence is patently false. For example,
each of the three hypothesis tests included in Buller and Bell
(1986) was derived from the same subject population at the
same time. However, without making this assumption of
nonindependence,2. 2. As indicated in Note 1, the assumption
that each of the 16 hypothesis tests represented an independent
observation is false. However, it can be seen that such an

assumption does not seem to render a distorted summary of this
research domain. Consider the results of a supplementary meta-
analysis of wholly independent effects, in which multiple
hypothesis tests obtained from a single study were combined
into a single test. This heavy-handed solution precludes the
examination of the effects of any of the moderators considered
above, but it does eliminate the problem of nonindependence.
This produced 11 distinct, wholly independent hypothesis tests,
one from each includable study. The results of this
supplemental meta-analysis revealed the same patterns reported
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Warfare Center Training Systems Division. His research
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European Journal of Personality, Eur. J. Pers. 25: 31–42 (2011)
Published online 4 April 2010 (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI:
10.1002/per.769
Personality and the Prediction of Team Performance
THOMAS A. O’NEILL* and NATALIE J. ALLEN
Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada
Abstract: Although much is known about personality and
individuals’ job performance, only a few studies have
considered the effects of team-level personality on team
performance. Existing research examining the effects of
personality on team performance has found that, of the Big Five
factors of personality, Conscientiousness is often the most
important predictor. Accordingly, we investigated the criterion
validity of lower-level Conscientiousness traits to

determine whether any one trait is particularly predictive of
team performance. In addition to Conscientiousness, we
examined the criterion validity of the other Big Five personality
factors. We found that Conscientiousness and its facets
predicted team performance. Agreeableness, Extraversion and
Neuroticism were not predictive of team performance,
whereas Openness had a modest negative relation with team
performance. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Key words: team performance; team composition; personality;
Big Five; narrow traits; personality facets
INTRODUCTION
The composition of a work team is defined by the individual
characteristics of its members. One implicit rationale
underlying the research on team composition is that
individual characteristics of team members (i.e. their
personalities, demographic characteristics, attitudes and so
on) serve as inputs that indirectly influence team perform-
ance through group processes (e.g. collaboration) and
emergent states (e.g. team cohesion). In other words, the
characteristics of team members affect the way in which a
team operates and its subsequent performance.
Personality, as a class of team composition variables, is
the focus of the present study. Over the past several years,
research on personality has received considerable attention
in the teams literature (e.g. Bell, 2007; Humphrey,
Hollenbeck, Meyer, & Ilgen, 2007; Peeters, van Tuijl, Rutte,
& Reymen, 2006). Interest in this topic continues for at least
two reasons. First, there is an intuitive appeal to the argument
that personality will influence team-related variables.
Conceptually, personality should be related to (a) team
knowledge, skills and abilities, (b) processes and emergent

states and (c) general dimensions of teamwork (e.g.
collaboration, supportive behaviour, team trust). Most of
these variables appear to be natural outgrowths of personality
and, therefore, one would expect personality to be a valid
predictor in many cases (see Halfhill, Sundstrom, Lahner,
Calderone, & Nielsen, 2005; Kichuk & Wiesner, 1998).
A second reason that personality continues to be
investigated in team settings is that it is a consistent and
important predictor of individuals’ job performance (e.g.
Barrick & Mount, 1991; Tett, Jackson, Rothstein, & Reddon,
*Correspondence to: Thomas A. O’Neill, Department of
Psychology, Social
Science Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London,
Ontario N6A
5C2, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
1999). Extending these findings to the team level is needed as
organizations are increasingly turning to teamwork in an
effort to stay competitive in the global marketplace (Allen &
West, 2005; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Thus, research on
personality and team performance is an ongoing priority.
In this study, we collected personality data from members
of project design teams, operationalized those data at the
group level (e.g. using the group mean on each trait), and
correlated the resulting team-level personality scores with
team performance. Our purpose in this research was
threefold. First, we examined the extent to which any
content-relevant personality facets of Conscientiousness
could demonstrate superior prediction of team performance
relative to a broad Conscientiousness composite. An
investigation of this type is needed given that Conscien-
tiousness has been shown to be one of the most consistent Big

Five predictors of job performance and team performance,
but the criterion validity of its facets have rarely been
examined at the team level (but see LePine, 2003). Second,
we investigated whether any personality factors besides
Conscientiousness could be valid predictors of team
performance in the present context. Specifically, we assessed
the criterion validity of the other Big Five factors:
Agreeableneness, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Openness.
Third, when considered as a team-level construct, personality
has historically been operationalized in several ways. In this
study we provide new evidence regarding the criterion
validity of the four most common team-level personality
operationalizations.
TEAM-LEVEL PERSONALITY
Typically, the operationalization of personality variables at
the team level is accomplished by aggregating individual-
level personality scores using one of four group-level
Received 29 July 2009
Revised 16 February 2010, Accepted 16 February 2010
mailto:[email protected]
https://wileyonlinelibrary.com
32 T. A. O’Neill and N. J. Allen
indices: Mean, variance, minimum and maximum scores
(see Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998; Halfhill
et al., 2005; Williams & Allen, 2008). The particular
operationalization is usually chosen through a consideration
of the personality variable, the nature of the task, and how the
two are expected to interact (e.g. Allen & West, 2005; Hecht
& Allen, 1999; LePine, Hollenbeck, Ilgen, & Hedlund,

1997).
The mean approach involves computing the arithmetic
average of each team member’s score on the personality
variable. This approach is appropriate when the trait is
theorized to work additively—that is, when it is suspected
that the more (or less) team members possess the trait, the
better the team will perform. The variance approach indexes
the dispersion, or heterogeneity, of the trait across team
members. This operationalization is used when the
researcher believes a greater (or lesser) amount of variation
in the trait will be related to the criterion. Finally, sometimes
it is appropriate to consider only the team member with the
highest, or lowest, score on a trait (referred to as the
maximum or minimum approach, respectively), and refer to
that value as the team-level score. As an analogy, on an
assembly line, the number of units produced will often depend
on the slowest working team member, and, accordingly, the
minimum score on a trait such as Achievement could be most
predictive of team performance. Conversely, on a creativity
task, the team member with the highest score on a trait such as
Innovation could be most responsible for the level of team
performance achieved (because a novel idea has only to
come from one team member). Theorizing about the most
appropriate operationalization for team personality is critical
as these may substantially affect the magnitude of person-
ality’s criterion validity (Moynihan & Peterson, 2004;
Williams & Allen, 2008).
In the most recent and comprehensive meta-analysis
examining relations between team-level personality and
performance, Bell (2007) found that, overall, team-level
personality does predict team performance. The findings for
lab studies were generally weak, likely because team
performance measurement in those studies tended to be
too coarse to detect small variations in behaviour related to

expressions of personality. Field studies in Bell’s meta-
analysis, however, demonstrated the strongest and most
consistent findings for Conscientiousness. Teams with high
means, high team member maximum and minimum scores
and low variance had the greatest performance levels
(Emotional Stability was coded in the socially desirable
direction). Other Big Five factors were predictive of team
performance, but not with the same magnitude and
consistency across operationalizations.
Given that Conscientiousness was the most consist-
ently predictive trait of team performance in Bell’s (2007)
meta-analysis, it is reasonable to consider that facets of
Conscientiousness might even be more predictive (see
Dudley, Orvis, Lebiecki, & Cortina, 2006). For example,
the factor of Conscientiousness encompasses several
more specific facets of personality, such as Industrious-
ness, Order, Self-Control, Responsibility, Traditionalism
and Virtue (see Roberts, Chernyshenko, Stark, & Gold-
berg, 2005). Arguably, some of these lower-level
personality variables belonging to the same higher-level
personality factor may correlate differently, in magnitude
or direction, from the others in the prediction of a
criterion (see Ashton, 1998; Ashton, Jackson, Paunonen,
Helmes, & Rothstein, 1995; Hough, 1992; LePine, 2003;
Paunonen, 1998, 2003). Reflecting on Bell’s meta-
analytic findings, as well as the literature demonstrating
the validity of narrow traits, we suggest that, in order to
maximize the predictive power of Conscientiousness as it
relates to team performance, criterion-relevant facets
ought to be considered.
The fact that personality variables other than Conscien-

tiousness (e.g. Agreeableness) were predictive of team
performance in Bell’s meta-analysis suggests that they, too,
may be relevant in the present study. As we will argue later,
our criterion, project team performance, could be associated
with certain team-level operationalizations of Agreeable-
ness, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Openness. Finally, the
method of operationalizing team personality (e.g. mean,
minimum) that will be most predictive of team performance
must also be considered in maximizing criterion validity. In
the section that follows we develop our predictions regarding
the operationalization that is, in the context of our study,
most theoretically appropriate for each personality factor and
facet included in this study.
THE PRESENT STUDY
Our sample consisted of concept design teams, composed of
engineering students, who worked interdependently for 6.5
months. The teams were engaged in an intensive, complex
engineering design task. The team members had shared
outcomes of significant value, and coordinated most work
dynamically and reciprocally (rather than through pooled or
sequential processes). These were classic ‘project teams’ as
they were created for a specific purpose and time frame, after
which they would disband (see Chiocchio & Essiembre,
2009). Knowledge of these contextual details was important
in generating predictions, outlined below.
The Big Five
In the present research we assessed the Big Five factors of
personality. In order to optimize their prediction of team
performance, we judged it most appropriate to operationalize
the Big Five factors, at the team-level, as follows:
Conscientiousness (mean), Agreeableness (mean), Neuroti-
cism (mean), Extraversion (variance) and Openness (maxi-

mum). Important theoretical rationales underlie the choice of
team personality operationalizations. Beginning with Con-
scientiousness, we contend that this factor captures a class of
attributes that manifest themselves as valuable resources,
such as achievement-striving, organization, planning and
task focus. The team may draw upon resources of this type to
accomplish its work (see LePine et al., 1997; Stewart, 2003).
An additive team-level conceptualization, using the mean
approach, is most appropriate in the present research because
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Pers. 25: 31–
42 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Personality and team performance 33
the more team members are conscientious, the better the
team should perform (see also Barrick et al., 1998).
Similarly, Agreeableness represents a factor of personality
that can be expected to foster effective team interactions
because members are trusting, altruistic and cooperative.
Such teams could perform well because of their smooth
conflict resolution, and inclination towards open communi-
cation and information seeking (Peeters et al., 2006). We also
see Agreeableness as accumulating additively, as the more
members are characterized as agreeable, the more they
should have positive interactions, and in turn, create a higher
performing team. Regarding the personality factor Neuroti-
cism, most previous studies have found important relations
with team performance for the mean only (see Bell, 2007).
As Neuman, Wagner and Christiansen (1999) pointed out,
teams that are higher on Neuroticism will have difficulty

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