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 -- EvaluationSocial networksPerformanceLeadership
Thesis Number
T 8881
Print OCLC #
70810361
Recommended Citation
Spence, Dale Allan, "Impact of social structure on team performance and rate of network change" (2005). Masters Theses. 5820.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/masters_theses/5820
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