How Satisfied Are Team Members Individually?
[Editor’s Note: We are pleased to welcome Jose M. de la Torre-Ruiz who collaborated with Vera Ferron-Vilchez and Natalia Ortiz-e-Mandojana on their article “Team Decision Making and Individual Satisfaction with the Team” in the April Issue of Small Group Research.]
The main reason justifying this work was the necessity of analyzing in depth individuals’ affective reactions toward being involved in team-decision making processes. Although team decisions have shown some advantages compared with decisions made by only one person, team decision-making process can be complex and generate some negative reactions by part of team members. For this reason in this paper we paid attention to some specific factors that may influence the satisfaction of individuals with the team. We specifically focus on some personality traits (collectivism orientation and self-efficacy for teamwork), on the individuals’ perception of team decision-making process (specifically perception of team debate and decision comprehensiveness), and on the final decision of the team.
Our work highlights the necessity of considering that team members’ satisfaction with the team may depend on factors developed at different temporal moments in the team decision-making process. These results have important implications to the extent that the handling of these factors can be different.
The fact that team debate has a negative influence on team members’ satisfaction but that the decision comprehensiveness has a positive influence is an especially interesting result. This implies that although team members are satisfied when different opinions are assessed before making the decision, they prefer to avoid possible conflicts and heated debates that can be derived from this. Thus, our result highlight the necessity of studying in depth the decision-making process and try to understand when team members can be more or less comfortable in the team.
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Vera Ferrón-Vílchez is an assistant professor in the business and management department at University of Granada, Spain, where she received her PhD in management. Her current research focuses on advanced environmental strategies, human resources management, and the achievement of cost leadership strategy.
