Masters Theses

Abstract

"The intention of this research is to understand the impact of social structure on team performance. Data collection occurred at a Massachusetts university where 530 incoming students enrolled in an introductory course on teams and organizations. The individuals comprise 125 teams treated with four intervention techniques to determine the affect on student performance. Each group completes a network survey and performs a mixed-motivational simulation exercise for a fictional company. The profit obtained from the simulation exercise is defined as team performance.

The study poses several questions. First, do teams with high internal team density, the ones that know each other prior to taking the simulation exercise, have higher team performance? Second, do teams that perform similarly associate with each other? Third, do teams with team leaders improve team performance? Team leaders are defined by the number of connections indicated (number of friends an individual says they have) or the number of connections others indicate about you (number of individuals who pick you as a friend). Prior research by Baldwin et al., Guldner and Stone-Winestock, and Sparrow et al indicate a connection between social structure and performance. Finally, do individuals have a higher rate of friend acquisition during an initial period when entering a new environment as compared to a period after the initial period? Understanding the rate of change in the network structure extends the work done by Soda et al on how network structures add value over time"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Luechtefeld, Ray

Committee Member(s)

Spurlock, David
Lea, Bih-Ru

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Engineering Management

Publisher

University of Missouri--Rolla

Publication Date

Fall 2005

Pagination

x, 78 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 74-77).

Rights

© 2005 Dale Allan Spence, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Teams in the workplace -- Evaluation
Social networks
Performance
Leadership

Thesis Number

T 8881

Print OCLC #

70810361

Link to Catalog Record

Electronic access to the full-text of this document is restricted to Missouri S&T users. Otherwise, request this publication directly from Missouri S&T Library or contact your local library.

http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/record=b5596103~S5

Share My Thesis If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the button above.

Share

 
COinS