Method

Survey

The participant group consisted of 52 full time workers who were employed at one of two

organizations. The two organizations were in the telecommunication industry. The selected

departments that participated in the study were segmented into teams based on the project teams

they were assigned to for their everyday tasks. Managers or organizational contacts provided the

team structures. Each member of the team was asked to login to an internet site and fill out a

survey online, the survey was formatted for each particular organization. The designated team

names were entered in as options in the survey to allow for each individual to be properly

grouped with their designated team.

Respondent Characteristics

The participant’s characteristics were captured in the final part of the survey where

different demographic questions were asked. The participant total was 52 individuals coming

from two organizations, with the break down 65% (n=19) from organization one and 34% (n=10)

from organization two. The usable sample size consisted of 44% (n=13) male and 55 % (n=16)

females totaling 29 useable surveys. The ethnic break down was 55% (n=16) White, 13% (n=4)

Black or African American, 6 % (n=2) Asian, 3 % (n=1) American Indian / Alaskan Native and

17 % (n=5) other. When asked about how long the participant worked as part of their current

team 7 % (n=2) 1-6 months, 10 % (n=3) 6-12 months, 10 % (n=3) 1 to under 2 years, 28 % (n=8)

2 to under 3 years, 7 % (n=2) 3 to under 4 years and 35 % (n=10) 4 or more years. The

breakdown for participants percentage of the day they work with their team was as follows; 34 %

(n=10) 1-24%, 25 % (n=8) 25- 49%, 10 % (n=3) 50-74% and 27 % (n=8) 75-100%.
Measures

I measured prosocial and intrinsic motivation with scales developed by Grant (2008).

The scales are combined with four items focused on intrinsic motivation and four items on

prosocial motivation. The scale items open with a leading question asking “Why are you

motivated to do your work”. Two examples of intrinsic scale items are, “because it’s fun”,

“because I enjoy the work itself”. Two example of prosocial motivation are, “because I want to

help others through my work”, “because it’s important for me to do good for others through my

work”. This scale was measured on a seven point likert-scale from disagree strongly to agree

strongly.

Perspective taking was measured with items adapted by Davis, Conklin, Smith, and Luce,

(1996) (e.g. Grant & Berry, 2008). The instruction asks the participant to “Indicate the extent to

which you take others perspectives”. Two examples from the four item scale are, “At work I

often imagine how other people are feeling”, and “On the job I frequently try to take other

peoples perspectives.” This scale was measured on a seven point likert-scale from disagree

strongly to agree strongly.

I measured the team’s shared mental model using a matrix model developed by (Mathieu

et al., 2000). The participants were presented with eighteen matrix questions to fill out nine for

their understanding of a team model and nine for their understanding of a task model. The matrix

had eight attributes listed and compared its relation to a single select attribute. The select

attributes description was also provided for each question. Participants were asked to rate the

relatedness of each attribute with a range from -4 to 4 (-4 negatively related, a high degree of one

requires a low degree of another, to 4 highly related, a high degree of one requires a high degree

of the other, or 0, no relation). The attributes selected for the team mental model were adapted
from literature based on team work dimensions and team taxonomy (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro,

2001). The nine attributes used were; project review & planning, goal identification, strategy,

monitoring progress, team support and backup, coordination, conflict management , motivation

and confidence building, and making a difference. “Making a difference” was added to

understand if prosocial motivational factors influenced team members to relate the attribute of

“making a difference” to other team attributes. The task mental model matrix attributes were

adapted from literature based on team task activities (e.g. Cannon Bowers et al 1993, Mathieu et

al 2000). The nine task items were; role assignment / hierarchy, task identification, planning, on

time task delivery, team communication, leadership, team support /assistance, escalation

management. These task related attributes like the team attributes cover group interactions from

project/group creation to project/assignment completion.

Conflict management was measured using 19 items developed by Rahim (1993) and

adapted by Montoya-Weiss, Massey and Song (2001). The items cover the five identified

conflict management styles (avoidance, accommodation, competition, collaboration, and

compromise). Instructions for the questions state; “please indicate the conflict management style

experienced in your team, (When my team experienced some conflict…I). An example has been

provided for each conflict management style, “I tried to keep my disagreement with my

teammates to myself in order to avoid hard feelings.”(Avoidance) “I accommodated to the

wishes of my teammates” (accommodation). “I used my power to win in a competitive situation”

(competition). “I tried to bring all our concerns out in the open so that the issues could be

resolved in the best possible way” (collaboration). “I proposed a middle ground for breaking

deadlocks” (compromise). The questions were rated on a five point scale from, almost never to

almost always.
 To analyze the individual’s perspective of the team, a series of questions were developed

based on the shared mental model team and task processes. Using the same attributes from the

prior survey questions, individual team members were asked to rate their perspective of their

team members understanding of team & task interactions. Two sample questions the first being

team related and second task related, have been included; “Team members understand the

team’s mission, main tasks, current work environment, and available resources”, “Team

members have identified roles and clear team assignment”. These questions where scored on a

seven point likert scale ranging from disagree strongly to agree strongly.

Age, race and employment status may affect motivation and team interaction so twelve

demographic related questions were added to the end of the survey to capture team control

variables and demographic data. Questions on the percentage of daily team interaction, team

tenure, and virtually of the team was included in this section.