Challenges and New Directions in Examining Team Cohesion Over Time

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Challenges and New Directions in Examining Team Cohesion Over Time
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Team Dynamics Over Time
Challenges and New Directions in Examining Team Cohesion Over Time
Caitlin E. McClurg, Jaimie L. Chen, Alexandra Petruzzelli, Amanda L. Thayer,
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CHALLENGES AND NEW
DIRECTIONS IN EXAMINING TEAM
COHESION OVER TIME
Caitlin E. McClurg, Jaimie L. Chen,

Alexandra Petruzzelli and Amanda L. Thayer
ABSTRACT
Purpose This chapter reviews the challenges associated with measuring

and studying cohesion over time and provides guidance for addressing these
issues in future research.
Methodology/approach We reviewed the team cohesion and team devel-
opment literatures, including definitions and conceptualizations of cohesion
as well as the seminal team development taxonomies. We then integrated
these literatures to identify the challenges and potential solutions for study-
ing team cohesion as a dynamic construct.
Findings We identified five key challenges theoretical and practical in
nature that researchers and organizations often face in capturing and
studying team cohesion emergence: problems with self-report measures; mea-
suring multiple dimensions of cohesion at appropriate times; failure to com-
bine multilevel and temporal frameworks; and tracking of team and
organizational events. In response, we provide actions that researchers can
take in addressing these challenges: using indirect/unobtrusive measures;
using social network analysis; studying “swift cohesion”; adopting an event
system theory framework; and applying agent-based modeling.
Team Dynamics Over Time

Research on Managing Groups and Teams, Volume 18, 261 286
Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1534-0856/doi:10.1108/S1534-085620160000018011
261
262 CAITLIN E. MCCLURG ET AL.
Research implications This comprehensive chapter provides recommen-

dations for studying team cohesion as a dynamic, emergent process rather
than as a static state. We discuss the challenges pertaining to study design
and measurement when capturing team cohesion emergence, and provide the-
oretical and practical ideas to guide researchers in overcoming these issues in
future research.
Practical implications This chapter suggests tools and data collection
techniques that organizations and practitioners can use for measuring and
improving team cohesion, such as using unobtrusive measures and timing
measurement according to team and organizational events.

Keywords: Team cohesion; methodological challenges; research method
innovation; temporal; dynamic; emergence
Think back to a time that you have been a part of a team. Did you and your
teammates distribute work evenly and get along with one another? Perhaps,
but many teams are not as lucky. One of the largest obstacles teams face is the
commitment to work on a task constructively together while maintaining a
social relationship. This is a simple way to think about a popular construct:
team cohesion. Having a cohesive team is often the staple of successful out-
comes for the team and its organization; this much research focuses on captur-
ing and keeping this cohesive state. In fact, team cohesion has been studied in a
variety of settings from managing sports teams (Carron, Bray, & Eys, 2010) to
examining high-risk teams, such as space crews and military teams (Mael &
Alderks, 1993; Salas, Grossman, Hughes, & Coultas, 2015). It is important for
scientists and practitioners to foster this cohesion and maintain it over time,
which is often easier said than done. That is the focus of this chapter: providing
an overview of cohesion; examining the common challenges to measuring and
facilitating this cohesion; and providing future guidelines and practical ways to
researching and developing cohesion over time.
DEFINING AND CONCEPTUALIZING COHESION

To understand the dynamic nature of team cohesion, it is first important to
define teams. A team is “a distinguishable set of two or more people who inter-
act, dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively toward a common and val-
ued goal/objective/mission” (Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum,
1992, p. 4). Team cohesion is defined as the bond between members of a team
that elicits a desire to remain and work together (Casey-Campbell & Martens,
2009). An important characteristic of this construct is that it is an emergent
Cohesion Challenges and New Directions 263
state that spans multiple levels (e.g., the individual, team, and organizational
levels) and takes time to become salient or emerge across these levels. Thus,
team cohesion is a construct that changes over the lifespan of a team and is
influenced by changes in the team (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001).
Progression of time is an integral component of team cohesion and should be
considered when measuring the construct (Salas et al., 2015).
Researchers are particularly interested in studying team cohesion in relation to
team performance, and there is evidence that a positive relationship between
team cohesion and team performance exists (Beal, Cohen, Burke, & McLendon,
2003; Chiocchio & Essiembre, 2009). However, results vary depending on how
cohesion is defined and measured; and these definitions have often been inconsis-
tent (Casey-Campbell & Martens, 2009). Early research by Seashore (1954) pro-
posed a unidimensional view, with a focus on the social aspects of cohesion. In
contrast, Festinger (1950) described cohesion as being composed of multiple
“forces,” suggesting that there are multiple components to the construct. One of
the earlier developments toward a multidimensional view of cohesion came from
Carron, Widmeyer, and Brawley (1985) when they developed the Group
Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) for sports teams and distinguished four
dimensions of cohesion: group integration-task, group integration-social, individ-
ual attractions to group-task, and individual attractions to group-social. The
group integration dimensions are measured at the team-level, whereas individual
attractions to the group are assessed at the individual-level (Carron et al., 1985).
Moreover, this multidimensional view expanded the conceptualization of cohe-
sion by including task and social aspects (Carron et al., 1985). Task cohesion is a
bond that forms from a desire to accomplish the team’s required objectives; social
cohesion is a team member bond that arises from members’ inclinations to
develop interpersonal relationships with one another (Carron et al., 1985).
Zaccaro (1991) found support for the distinction between task and social cohe-
sion with evidence that the two cohesion dimensions each had different relation-
ships with team outcomes, such as overall performance.
Although research suggests that a two-dimensional view is superior to a uni-
dimensional view, there is additional evidence that goes further to suggest cohe-
sion is comprised of more dimensions. Carless and DePaola (2000) adapted the
GEQ for work teams and found support for a three-factor model of cohesion,
which included task and social cohesion, along with a third dimension, attrac-
tion to the group. Additionally, Beal et al. (2003) conducted a meta-analysis
that found support for three dimensions: task cohesion, social cohesion, and
group pride. Group pride is defined as the extent to which members of a team
exhibit a feeling of importance or agree with the ideologies that the group exhi-
bits (Beal et al., 2003). Therefore, it is evident that researchers must take a mul-
tidimensional approach when working with cohesion to accurately understand
how it is relates to team performance outcomes.
TEAM DEVELOPMENT AND COHESION

Teams develop and change over the course of their lifespans. Various taxonomies
and theories have attempted to categorize the different stages that teams cycle
through over time (Gersick, 1988; Tuckman, 1965). This is important because
each stage or phase of development may have different implications for the devel-
opment of cohesion. Specifically, certain dimensions of cohesion may coalesce at
different times or may be more reliable at different stages of team development
(Salas et al., 2015). We provide a brief historical review of the popular team devel-
opment theories and discuss how they relate to team cohesion.

One of the earliest team lifespan models is Tuckman’s (1965) team develop-
ment model, which consists of five stages: forming, storming, norming, per-
forming, and adjourning. During the forming stage, the team members develop
initial relationships; during the storming stage, the team members experience
within-team conflict; during the norming stage, the team becomes cohesive;
during the performing stage, the team focuses on completing its tasks; finally,
during the adjourning stage, the goals are completed, and the team disperses
(Tuckman, 1965). The third stage, norming, is the stage in which team cohesion
develops and is characterized by members feeling comfortable with sharing
their opinions and agreeing on what the rules and roles are (Tuckman, 1965).
This may have implications for both social and task cohesion. Members feeling
comfortable sharing their opinions with one another may contribute to the
development of social cohesion as it may assist in the development of interper-
sonal relationships. Agreeing on what the rules and roles are may contribute to
task cohesion as it may help establish focus and clarity on the objectives of the
team. Research has found that team cohesion that develops in the norming
stage plays a critical role because feelings of acceptance and the ability to work
together emerge as the task develops (Neuman & Wright, 1999). During the
first few stages of forming and storming, these feelings and abilities have not
yet been established, which may have negative implications for the team, such
as members being unable to efficiently work together toward the objectives.
Gersick’s (1988) punctuated equilibrium model focuses on the changes in iner-
tia in teams as they progress from start to finish; it proposes that teams experience
a certain inertia in phase 1 that is established by the first meeting. This initial iner-
tia is then changed by the transition stage, which happens when teams are half-
way to the deadline (Gersick, 1988). During this stage, as the teams are becoming
aware of the looming time constraint, they evaluate and change their approaches
so that they can meet their deadline; teams then progress through phase 2 with a
different inertia (Gersick, 1988). For the last team meeting, teams hastily finish
off their goal (Gersick, 1988). For example, a team may have a first meeting in
which members disagree about what a task calls for, which results in the team’s
phase 1 being filled with arguments about what the task is about (Gersick, 1988).
However, during the transition phase, the team is able to come to a consensus on
the task; this guides phase 2, in which the team uses the plan established in the
transition phase to finish their task (Gersick, 1988). Dimensions of cohesion may
play different roles during these different phases; Casey-Campbell and Martens
(2009) suggest that stronger social cohesion, but not task cohesion, may develop
during phase 1 since groups are beginning to know and work with one another.
During phase 2, stronger task cohesion may develop because teams are becoming
more cognizant of the nearing deadline and are likely placing more focus on the
task to meet the deadline (Casey-Campbell & Martens, 2009). Using the example
given earlier, the team initially did not agree on the task during phase 1, which
would suggest low task cohesion; however, as the group agreed on what the task
called for and focused on completing the task during phase 2, task cohesion was
likely stronger during this phase. On the other hand, social cohesion may remain
constant or change during phase 2 depending on factors such as whether team
members’ roles changed as a result of the transition phase (Casey-Campbell &
Martens, 2009).
Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, and Smith’s (1999) team development model con-
sists of three phases: team formation, task compilation, and role compilation.
During team formation, the team is beginning to know each other at a superficial
level. During task compilation, the team focuses on the tasks that need to be com-
pleted. Finally, during role compilation, the team focuses on team members’
interpersonal relationships (Kozlowski et al., 1999). Cohesion, as an emergent
state, may change across each of these three phases; this has implications for
studying cohesion (Salas et al., 2015). For example, group pride may be the only
measurable form of cohesion during the team formation stage because the only
commonality between the team members present is the reputation of the organi-
zation they have just joined. They do not know each other socially and have not
seen each other’s work ethic, thus the only bond they can form is being proud of
the group. Once the team begins working on assigned tasks during the team com-
pilation phase, then they become aware of how to work together to complete the
work most efficiently. Thus, task cohesion comes to fruition as the team members
interact to complete different tasks together. Finally, once team members get to
know each other personally and interpersonal relationships develop, social cohe-
sion is attained in this role compilation stage.
In conclusion, Marks et al. (2001) proposed a dynamic model that identifies
transition phases and action phases in a team’s lifespan. This taxonomy is an
important contribution to the literature, as it is the first to suggest the cyclical
nature of teams; teams go from action to transition phases repeatedly, and
these phases can vary in length. The transition phase involves periods of time in
which members are focused on planning and strategizing their goals, and the
action phase involves periods of time in which members are focused on actively
working toward the goal and coordinating (Marks et al., 2001). Various studies
have been conducted to establish that different team processes take place dur-
ing each of these phases. However, there are factors in both phases that can
influence the emergence of team cohesion. For example, if there is conflict in a
team that is not managed well, resources that should be used toward complet-
ing a task are instead used to resolve this conflict. Conflict can also cause a rift
in the interpersonal relationships between team members that can interrupt
later performance. Thus, conflict management, a process evident in both the
transition and action phases, if not implemented properly, can disrupt both the
task and social cohesion of a team.
Overall, the team taxonomies discussed above illustrate the inherent com-
plexity of measuring team cohesion over time. The multidimensional nature of
cohesion heightens this complexity as different dimensions are focal at different
phases in each of these perspectives. In the subsequent sections, we expand on

the temporal component involved in measuring team cohesion. We next intro-
duce the challenges associated with measuring and examining cohesion over
time and how these challenges emerge in a variety of contexts.
CHALLENGES IN EXAMINING COHESION OVER TIME

Despite the accomplishing work on cohesion, there are still challenges to cap-
turing the full picture of the construct. The next section details some of these
practical, as well as theoretical, challenges in examining team cohesion as it
emerges over time. These challenges include: issues with self-report measures,
different dimensions of cohesion being more important at different points, com-
bining multilevel and temporal framework in the context of cohesion, within
team events, and organizational change and other major events.
Challenge 1: Self-Report Measures Are Not Always Appropriate
There are almost limitless challenges in measuring cohesion over time. One of
the most popular methods for measuring team cohesion is employing self-
report measures, but with this comes several issues. First, the underlying
assumption of a self-report measure is that participants will be honest, but that
is not always the case. Dishonesty on a self-report measure can lead to inflated
or underestimated results when studying cohesion. The influence of social desir-
ability on self-report responses is a common concern in psychological research
(Arnold & Feldman, 1981; Taylor, 1961). An individual on a team that is
choosing socially desirable responses on a cohesion questionnaire might pro-
vide inconsistent responses compared with the other team members, leading to
an over- or underestimation of social cohesion.
Additionally, self-report measures are time-consuming and not always a via-
ble option for teams (Salas et al., 2015). For example, it is not feasible to ask a
surgical team to complete a self-report cohesion measure during surgery when
lives are at stake instead, they must respond to the questionnaire after
surgery is complete. However, this poses problems because the passage of time
influences an individual’s perceptions of cohesion and may become less accu-
rate for the event that just took place. Furthermore, self-report measures often
require participants to not only remember an event, but to then think abstractly
about the event (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). For example, a poorly worded
item on a self-report measure of cohesion may ask team members to think
about a past event and rate the extent to which they felt bonded to their team.
While trying to answer the question, members may have different conceptuali-
zations of the word “bond.” Consequently, this item would not have measured
the actual cohesion during the event, but rather an abstraction of how each
team member perceived cohesion.
Depending on the type of team being studied, it may also be necessary to
account for problems with readability of the questionnaire. If an individual’s
reading level is below the reading level required to understand specific items, then
there is potential for misleading responses (Schinka & Borum, 1994). This is con-
cerning because the average American’s reading ability is approximately an eighth
grade level (Schinka, 2012); thus, a self-report measure of cohesion could have
several items that are above a team member’s reading level. This could lead to
team members guessing or misinterpreting the question, which would result in a
distorted measure of the team’s cohesion. If a measure has not been checked for
readability beforehand, then the self-report measure may not be accurate.
Aside from the numerous complications that can arise when using a self-report
measure, there are also challenges specific to certain fast-paced teams, such as the
surgical team mentioned previously. In a laboratory setting, a researcher might
attempt to capture the temporal component of cohesion by administering self-
report measures to team members at multiple times during the team’s lifespan.
Unfortunately, this method is not always feasible in real-world teams. Many
highly interdependent teams operate in fast-paced and risky situations in which it
would be impractical to administer a questionnaire at multiple time points during
task completion. Accordingly, the time point chosen for administering a self-
report is typically based on ease of administration or practical concerns rather
than theoretically meaningful times. For example, military teams operate in a
fast-paced context characterized by hazardous situations. In military situations,
not only would it be impractical to try to administer questionnaires in theater,
but asking these individuals to pause their focus and efforts on the task at hand
could also be dangerous for warfighters and civilians. Although a cohesion mea-
sure could be given before or after the mission, it would not fully encompass the
development of cohesion over time. Also, the data obtained from the question-
naire would not capture responses at meaningful points in the mission when cohe-
sion is expected to fluctuate due to internal events and external events, such as
conflict or environmental challenges.
Furthermore, administering self-report measures in large organizations can
present a challenge. It is a much larger undertaking to distribute self-report mea-
sures at such a large scale, especially at multiple time points. Mass distributed
questionnaires are not only burdensome, but also have potential for missing data
points from individuals who do not respond. Couple this with administering mul-
tiple surveys at different time points and the response rate can decrease substan-
tially. This is problematic, as missing data from even one influential team
member can lead to an inaccurate depiction of cohesion. As attrition rates
increase with each wave of questionnaires, valuable information from team mem-
bers might be missing at different time points, leading to unreliable conclusions
about the emergence of cohesion. With all the problems that can arise from self-
report, it is evident that to fully understand cohesion there must be improved
measurements.
Challenge 2: Different Dimensions of Cohesion Are Important at Different Points
Every team ultimately has a beginning, middle, and an end, and which dimension
of team cohesion is most important can depend on what stage the team is in. For
example, social cohesion measurement is less reliable than task cohesion measure-
ment during the beginning of a team’s lifespan (Salas et al., 2015; Siebold, 2006).
Thus, it is important to pinpoint what time points are influential in measuring the
different dimensions of cohesion; one should not measure social cohesion at the
beginning of a team’s lifespan if it has empirically been found to be less reliable.
Furthermore, team cohesion can also vary in importance at different stages. For
example, group pride may play an important role in a team’s early life or the
socialization period of the team. It is possible that group pride is the only basis
for forming a bond before individuals have an opportunity to learn about one
another and work together; however, this dimension may become less important
as relational bonds develop within the team. For example, this can be seen in an
esteemed graduate school program in which the new cohort members do not
know each other but all feel a sense of group pride for belonging to such a presti-
gious institution. Other teams, however, may not experience this sense of group
pride due to the nature of the team or organizational norms, regardless of what
stage the team is in.
Another issue is that many taxonomies assume that teams go from one stage
to another in order, but various events can happen (e.g., a shift in task, change
in roles, member change) that make this assumption false. Due to the variation
in types of teams, different dimensions of cohesion can emerge at different
points in the lifespan of the team and last for variable amounts of time, which
many taxonomies often do not account for. For example, a team may experi-
ence a shift in task due to a reallocation of resources by an organization (e.g.,
budget cuts). As a result, it may have to overhaul its overall goals and amount
of work required to complete those goals. Using the Marks and Colleagues’
(2001) taxonomy a team may need to abruptly end its action phase and shift to
a transition phase to plan and strategize around these new goals. In addition, a
team can spend more or less time in one stage over another depending on its
rhythm; after this shift in goals, a team may need to spend a significant amount
of time in the transition phase in order to plan around these new goals.
Without spending this extra time to strategize, the team’s overall task cohesion
may suffer in the long-term, so this extra time spent is valuable.
Because cohesion takes time to emerge and many factors contribute to its
emergence, it is difficult to accurately represent cohesion at a given time. The
truth is that teams, and in turn assessing team cohesion, are messier in the applied
world than in an experimental setting, and thus do not always fit into previously
recorded team development or lifespan models. Researchers emphasize this point;

Kozlowski, Chao, Grand, Braun, and Kuljanin (2013) assert that emergence is
dynamic and must occur over time, so it is folly for those who try to study it a
static state. However, it is often difficult to pinpoint when it is appropriate to
measure certain dimensions of cohesion depending on what lifespan or develop-
ment stage a team or which previously supported lifespan development or team
processes model, if any, is appropriate to utilize. However, current research direc-
tions and taxonomies are beginning to focus on this aspect of time and teams dif-
ferentially changing over time (Cooke, Gorman, Myers, & Duran, 2013; George
& Jones, 2000; Kozlowski et al., 2013). Future research and implications for
cobesion will be discussed more in the following sections.
Challenge 3: Combining Multilevel and Temporal Frameworks in the

Context of Cohesion
Multilevel theory has conceptual underpinnings from General Systems theory,

which is useful for conceptualizing how individual team members can contrib-
ute to the success of the team as a whole by enabling the ideology that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Ashby, 1952; Kozlowski & Klein,
2000; Von Bertalanffy, 1968). For example, fulfilling a role and the ability to
coordinate and communicate productively relate to team cohesion; cohesion is
more than just individuals commitment to a team because it also reflects the
interactions and processes evident between these individuals as they engage in
teamwork. Multilevel theory allows researchers a way to build a framework of
how variables at one level of analysis (e.g., the individual-level) can affect other
variables at another level of analysis (e.g., the team-level), or how a variable at
a lower level can be aggregated to reflect shared perceptions of states at a
higher.
One major issue in multilevel theory is properly specifying what level, or
levels, the researcher should operate under. In addition, findings at one level of
analysis within an organization do not necessarily generalize to findings at
another level of analysis (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). For example, a team that
is highly cohesive does not mean that the multiteam system (MTS) a unit of
interdependent teams it is nested in is also highly cohesive. That is, cohesion

may exist within a team, yet there can still be negative MTS outcomes due to
other factors occurring between teams like lack of communication or trust. In
addition, it is often difficult to specify what constitutes where a team in an
organization lies, and what type of teams are of interest. Namely, within orga-
nizations, there can be both formal and informal teams; formal teams; formal
teams are decided by the organization, and informal teams come about organi-
cally through interactions. Often, team members are part of both formal and
informal teams, and having a high level of cohesion within one team may
detract from the time and effort required be cohesive in the other team.
Therefore, it is important to identify appropriate samples (i.e., informal or for-
mal teams) and sampling techniques, as well as appropriate analyses to analyze
these samples when drawing conclusions between multiple levels of an organi-
zation (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000).
Another issue in multilevel theory is that researchers are not utilizing it to its
full potential, even if they specify what level of analysis they are working from.
This is because one of the primary underpinnings of multilevel theory includes
the integration of macro- and micro-level perspectives. Although these bottom-
up and top-down processes are receiving more attention in the literature today,
many researchers often get bogged down in the tradition that they are operat-
ing from (e.g., psychologists focusing on the micro level; organizational theor-
ists focusing on the macro level), which hinders the integration of these two
viewpoints (i.e., the meso level; House, Rousseau, & Thomas-Hunt, 1995) for a
more holistic view of individual, organizational, and teamwork processes and
emergent states (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Furthermore, both scientists and
practitioners fail to incorporate the passage of time in their models, which is
key in order to draw accurate inferences and conclusions. With such a strong
foundation, multilevel theory is useful in the examination of various bottom-up
and top-down events and processes that affect all levels of an organization, but
it often fails to be correctly applied to a temporal framework examining team
cohesion.
Most theories adopt a feature-oriented framework which view these pro-
cesses and results as stable over time and these frameworks have gained the
most traction in the extant research (Morgeson, Mitchell, & Liu, 2015).
Multilevel theory can be used to examine feature-oriented theories, but the
proper synthesis of organizational levels to yield any sort of practical insights
should incorporate time, due to the dynamic nature of organizations and its dif-
ferent constituents (Klein, Tosi, & Cannella, 1999). In the past, research exam-
ining multilevel theory has emphasized the need to integrate these levels and
the constructs being studied (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). Thus, it is impor-
tant to identify how different interactions among team members affect team
cohesion emergence as well as how cohesion affects outcomes across levels of
the organization. However, there are various hurdles, especially practical ones,
that often prevent the combined use of temporal frameworks and multiple
levels in theory and research.
One theoretical issue is that constructs may not change because of time, but
rather over time (Ployhart & Vandenberg, 2010), implying that a team changes
in result to events that occur outside of the team’s control. This holds implica-
tions for how important it is to identify the processes that change cohesion over
time. For example, consider how a team that is co-located and has effective in-
person communication methods may be required to become virtual due to the
globalization of the organization it operates under. Thus, communication may
suffer due to the lack of preparation for this change, and the team may become
less cohesive due to the communication barriers present. This process of com-
munication does not change because of the passage of time in and of itself, but
rather in response to an event.
Recent research has begun to incorporate both multiple levels and the pas-
sage of time, though this approach is limited in research to-date. One such
example includes recent advancements examining the reciprocal relationship
between cohesion and performance utilizing a temporal framework (Mathieu,
Kukenberger, D’Innocenzo, & Reilly, 2015). Recognizing that high or low
levels of team cohesion can affect individual and organizational outcomes is a
step in the right direction, but little has been done on how cohesion changes
and develops over time to result in different outcomes. The next two challenges
take an in-depth look at specifically bottom-up and top-down processes that
operate to affect team cohesion.
Challenge 4: Within-Team Events
Team cohesion changes as a result of bottom-up processes occurring among

individual team members, meaning that events that occur within the team can
be pivotal to this emergent state should they affect any of the processes that
impact team cohesion. There has been little focus on studying specific events in
the extant literature, despite the importance of understanding their impact on
team cohesion. This is not necessarily due to a lack of interest in this phenome-
non but rather the practical issues in adequately examining changes in cohesion
resulting from specific events and attributing them to more than just one level
of an organization. It is difficult not only to identify events that occur within
teams, but also to be ready to collect data before and after these events to
determine if and how team cohesion has changed. For example, teams will
often remain together for multiple projects, cycling through their lifespans
more than once; however, new information may become available or organiza-
tional priorities may shift, necessitating a drastic change in how the team is
functioning. This can relate directly to the processes and coordination related
to task cohesion, which in turn can impact effectiveness. It is often difficult to
pinpoint events such as these and to be ready to collect data, due to the
dynamic nature of organizations. Furthermore, organizations may not consider
it important to monitor particular events, although they can have practical
implications for the team’s performance and organizational outcomes (e.g.,
productivity, revenue). Although the team needs to quickly shift its goals, an
event such as this can go largely unnoticed to those not directly affected, and
therefore is not traditionally studied in detail.
One such event that is prevalent in organizational teams is member change,
including a team member leaving, a new team member being introduced, or a
combination of the two. This is a common event in organizations due to factors

such as organizational resource reallocation (Summers, Humphrey, & Ferris,
2012). This member change can interrupt cohesion because it interrupts impor-
tant processes such as communication that are essential to team effectiveness.
Additionally, member change can cause a disruption that results in a transition to
a different developmental stage. This can make it even more difficult to track
what type of cohesion is most important at any given time, as discussed previ-
ously. Although member change events can be formally tracked by an organiza-
tion, there has traditionally been little effort to assess team cohesion before and
after member change (Arrow & McGrath, 1993; Moreland, Levine, & Wingert,
1996). This is because researchers rarely use longitudinal designs and there is a
tendency to view member change as a bothersome variation source rather than a
meaningful event (Arrow & McGrath, 1993).
Furthermore, depending on what type of work teams are prevalent in an
organization, member change has different effects on team outcomes. For
example, in closed groups in which the composition is relatively constant
(Arrow & McGrath, 1993), member change is a rare event that can easily upset
the natural balance and cohesion of the previously formed long-standing group.
An example of this is the career shifts surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court.
Supreme Court justices are appointed for life terms, meaning the team is
stable with relatively few membership changes. Thus, member change has a
more dramatic impact on team functioning, and the cohesion of the group in
particular. In an open group, composition is almost always in a state of flux
and member change more often flows freely (Arrow & McGrath, 1993), so
these teammates are more accustomed to member change and may never actu-
ally establish a high level of cohesion. For instance, surgical teams often come
together for a single surgery and disband once the procedure is complete. Some
of the members may come together again for a future surgery or may have
worked together in the past, but the membership of the entire team varies
greatly in terms of familiarity among members. Thus, cohesion may not have
truly developed and a member change event may have little or no impact. Even
still, many work teams may not be as easily dichotomized into either open or
closed and may fall somewhere in between, in which case there can be variable
implications for member change and its effects on team cohesion. Regardless,
this remains an avenue of research that has yet to be fully explored.
Challenge 5: Organizational Change and Other Major Events
Organizations are increasingly dynamic and complex in nature to match today’s

globalization and rapid technological shifts (Howard, 1995). Thus, it is not
uncommon for the top-down organizational level processes that occur before,
during, and after a major organizational event (e.g., organizational restructur-
ing) to affect teams. Although these events are often tracked and recorded by
the organization, there is little interest in how they trickle down to smaller
units, so top management (e.g., CEO’s) seldom ask individual employees how
they are affected by these events. Moreover, employee perceptions of organiza-

tional policies, including new policies that are often implemented after organi-
zational change occurs, can be inaccurate. Should these perceptions be
negative, employees can easily become distracted by social politics and organi-
zational “red tape,” which result in lower team cohesion due to this social dis-
traction. In conclusion, organizations may see that one area of the company is
stabilized after a restructuring or a round of layoffs and assumes all is well with
the other areas. This may not always be accurate, however, and should be
investigated further.
Furthermore, there are major events that are out of the organization’s con-
trol that can affect team cohesion (e.g., natural disasters that diminish organi-
zational resources). For example, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
may have resulted in a higher level of national patriotism, which may have in
turn resulted in a higher levels of group pride, a dimension of team cohesion
that is particularly important in military units. However, since these events are
largely unpredictable, little research beyond national archival data has exam-
ined this phenomenon, and thus important research questions have been left
unanswered. For example, how were feelings of uncertainty different for
employees working in New York affected before and after the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks? This is important to understand because emotions, (e.g.,
feeling uncertain) can affect the attentional resource allocation and productivity
of employees thereby affecting the performance cohesion relationship estab-
lished by Mathieu and colleagues (2015).
Events, both top-down and bottom-up play important roles in shaping team
cohesion from a temporal and multilevel perspective. When these events are
ignored, a gap occurs and the available data is not representative of a team’s
cohesion life cycle. These unanswered research questions can have important
implications for future research and various organizational processes and
policies.
Altogether, the distinct challenges in measuring team cohesion over time cre-
ate a multitude of barriers that researchers and practitioners must overcome.
These challenges are exemplified in many of the methodological decisions
adopted by researchers, from theoretical frameworks to measurement tools.
Moreover, within-team events and organizational events exacerbate these
temporal challenges. The following propositions will address each of the chal-
lenges presented here. Table 1 provides a summary of these challenges, specific
propositions for overcoming them as well as exemplar literature.
A TEMPORAL APPROACH TO STUDYING COHESION

In response to these challenges, the subsequent propositions may be useful for
both researchers and practitioners to apply when studying or assessing cohesion.

Specifically, the following are proposed: using unobtrusive/indirect measures,
studying swift cohesion, using social network analysis (SNA), adopting an event
system theory (EST) approach, and using agent-based modeling (ABM).
Proposition 1: Use Unobtrusive/Indirect Measures
Although self-report measures can easily be used to measure cohesion in labo-

ratory experiments, collecting self-report data in other environments may be
less practical, or impossible (Salas et al., 2015). To address this issue, indirect
or unobtrusive measures can be used. These types of measures can potentially
allow for the measurement of cohesion, without disrupting the teams. These
include using big data, sociometric badges, physiological metrics, content
Table 1. Challenges and Propositions for Studying Team Cohesion over

Time.
Challenges Propositions Citations
• Self-report measures are not • Use unobtrusive measures for • Salas et al. (2015), Brzozowski
always appropriate and collecting data (2009), Olguı́n-Olguı́n and
useful for capturing team • Use social network analysis Pentland (2010), Gozalez et al.
cohesion (SNA) for data analysis (2010), Mayo et al. (2003)
• Different dimensions of • Study “swift cohesion” early in • Salas et al. (2015), Coultas
cohesion may be more a team’s lifespan et al. (2014)
salient at different time
points
• Multilevel and temporal • Use an event systems theory • Morgeson et al. (2015), Fan
frameworks are often not (EST) approach and Yen (2004)
integrated • Use agent-based modeling
• Within-team events are (ABM) for data collection
often not captured
• Organizational and major
events are often not looked
at lower levels
analysis, and external observers (Salas et al., 2015), each of which we expand
upon in the following paragraphs.
Big data provides a potential opportunity to measure cohesion unobtrusively
(Salas et al., 2015). This method could be particularly effective for large organi-
zations. For instance, Brzozowski (2009) designed a tool to increase knowledge
sharing at a large organization by aggregating the organization’s social media
servers to a single site for employees. The Web service facilitates communica-
tion between globally distributed teams, while keeping record of the teams’
interactions (Brzozowski, 2009). Additionally, future research in large organiza-
tions could use the automatically compiled data from social media sites and
other team member exchanges, such as e-mail and telephonic communication,
and analyze the data in search of cohesion indices (Salas et al., 2015). Analysis
of these indices could also be based on quantitative data, such as communica-
tion frequency, along with qualitative data, such as trigger words that indicate
cohesive behaviors in teams (Salas et al., 2015).
In addition to big data, sociometric badges provide another alternative,
unobtrusive measure that can be used to gather data to study teams (Olguı́n-
Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010). Sociometric badges, which can be attached to radio
frequency identification badges that some employees are already required to
wear for work, are able to record information about individuals as they proceed
throughout the day, such as individual movement around the building (Olguı́n-
Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010). Furthermore, they can gather information about
social interactions, including how frequently members are in face-to-face con-
tact with each other, how much time an individual spends talking, duration of
the face-to-face contact, and where the members are with regards to proximity
with each other (Olguı́n-Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010). Along with measuring the
frequency and duration of the conversation, the badges can also record how
many different individuals a person spoke to that day to determine if the indi-
vidual is talking to many other different co-workers or to a select few (Olguı́n-
Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010). The badges can also capture information about a
person’s tone of voice, indicating characteristics such as whether the individual
was excited or not, and body gestures (Olguı́n-Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010), which
could help capture cohesion. For example, if members of a team do not speak
to one another, this may indicate poor cohesion, as there is no communication.
Furthermore, if results indicate that certain team members are communicating
face to face, but are only or mostly talking to certain members and not others,
this could indicate that the team cohesion is not appropriate for aggregation
analysis but for rather analyzing it using dispersion or dyadic techniques.
Overall, sociometric badges provide the ability to record information about
behavior, without disrupting the individuals performing tasks in the team, and
they take less time than a survey (Olguı́n-Olguı́n & Pentland, 2010; Salas et al.,
2015). As a result, this would be greatly useful in team situations that are fast-
paced (Salas et al., 2015). Other benefits include being able to gather objective
information about a multitude of individuals at the same time (Olguı́n-Olguı́n &

Pentland, 2010; Salas et al., 2015).
The passage should read “Other unobtrusive measures that should be con-
sidered are physiological measures (e.g., eye movement, brain-waves) and anal-
ysis of language (Salas et al., 2015). Linguistic style matching (LSM) algorithm
is able to predict both team cohesion and team performance based on the
occurrence of mimicry of language (Gonzales, Hancock, & Pennebaker, 2010).
It focuses specifically on mimicry of function words, such as prepositions and
articles, which provide semantic information (Gonzales et al., 2010). In addi-
tion, the researchers also found evidence that word count positively predicted
cohesiveness and use of future-oriented words positively predicted performance
(Gonzales et al., 2010). Conversely, first-person plural words negatively pre-
dicted cohesion and achievement-oriented words negatively predicted perfor-
mance (Gonzales et al., 2010). The benefits of using the unobtrusive LSM
algorithm are that it is objective and efficient.
Additionally, research by Hung and Gatica-Perez (2010) has shown that
cohesion may be estimated indirectly through audio and visual cues. The
researchers recorded participant speech patterns including pauses, interrup-
tions, and length along with visual data of participant movement and found
that several of the behavioral cues accurately estimated cohesion (Hung &
Gatica-Perez, 2010). This research provides a promising direction for future
research on indirect measurements of cohesion by using content analysis of
these cues. Utilizing content analysis would be a useful technique for measuring
cohesion in teams that work in environments that are dynamic or risky because
it allows for extraction of data that does not interfere with the teams at any
point. Content analysis can also be used with a variety of other unobtrusive
measures mentioned above, such as big data, and can be used in conjunction
with SNA.
Finally, using an external observer can be an indirect measure of cohesion
(Salas et al., 2015). However, this measure can be somewhat more prone to
human biases and error, meaning it may be more subjective in nature.
Therefore, the observer should be someone who has been able to watch the
team and can remain as unbiased as possible (Salas et al., 2015), and has ade-
quate job knowledge to understand the team’s objectives. This can be achieved
through observing the job multiple times, having experience in the job, or hav-
ing experience supervising it. Also, these observers may be trained to be less
biased by giving them guidelines or practice in how to draw conclusions, and
also by selecting observers who may not be inherently biased, such as a person
who has a personal interest in the success of the team. More behavioral and
objective measures can be given to the observers as well. For example, an
observer could be asked to note how many times a team member was inter-
rupted during a conversation. As an example, Chang, Jia, Tekeuchi, and Cai
(2014) used an external observer to measure team cohesion.
Overall, there are many methods of collecting objective, unobtrusive data

that can be used to assess and predict team cohesion. These methods are useful
because they minimize or eliminate the influence of bias and other perceptual
errors. Furthermore, many of these methods are particularly favorable because
they allow for continuous data collection. With data being captured at all
times, the problem of deciding when to assess cohesion and the potential for
missing the impact of an event is eliminated. Accordingly, for a better under-
standing of the emergence of cohesion, researchers would benefit from incorpo-
rating these methods into their designs.
Proposition 2: Use Social Network Analysis
SNA is a tool used to analyze the data resulting from behaviors, self-report
measures, and interactions among people. Specifically, it allows researchers to
examine relational ties between people and the social network that results from
those ties, such as a collective of people, teams, organizations, or any other
entity (Mayo, Meindl, & Pastor, 2003). When applicable, SNA is useful for get-
ting an accurate view of team cohesion using self-report questionnaires. Instead
of relying on a team member’s perception of the cohesiveness of the team in its
entirety, it relies on a team member’s perception of his or her relationship with
every other team member and then draws conclusions about the overall team
cohesion from these multiple responses. SNA is also unique in that it is one of
the few tools that can use a density approach or the mean number of ties in a
team per team member that allows one to infer the overall level of relational
ties among team members in which one can view how communication, coor-
dination, and work are distributed. A visual example of a density measure as it
can apply to team cohesion can be found in Fig. 1. For example, Wise (2014)
used a SNA approach to analyze the distribution of team cohesion on team
performance, finding that cohesion and performance have an inverted U shape
relationship. This differs from other approaches that do not analyze the distrib-
utor of cohesion and result in cohesion and performance having a positively
linear relationship. Thus, this can give new insights into the relationship
between cohesion and other popular team outcomes, and it can help to estab-
lish which team members are playing pivotal roles throughout the development
of the team.
As detailed above, there are also general issues in developing and providing
questionnaires to participants, including readability and developing behavioral
measures (Korb, 2011). SNA, although not the optimal solution to these issues,
can help to overcome them. In terms of readability, since each team member is
rating his or her other team members, it does not require having to explain var-
ious terms to that participant that may be difficult to comprehend, like interde-
pendency and cohesion. Instead, similar words can be used that are more
Fig. 1. Sociogram of Different Levels of Cohesion in Teams. Source: Adapted

from Carson, Tesluk, and Marrone (2007). Notes: This figure illustrates a low
level, a medium level, and a high level of cohesion. The dots represent team
members and the lines connecting two dots represent the connection between the
two members.
comprehensible to a broader audience that can capture the same information

through multiple items. In addition, because team members are rating various
other members, they have concrete examples of behaviors that each member
exhibits and how these behaviors are differentiated between other team mem-
bers. SNA can serve to help anchor perceptions of specific behaviors one sees
in a highly cohesive team without needing to develop costly measures like
behaviorally anchored rating scales. However, SNA shines in its ability to ana-
lyze data and allow researchers to ask simple questions, reducing unwanted var-
iance that can result from issues that people face while taking surveys.
Furthermore, SNA can be combined with other unobtrusive tools to analyze
people’s interactions with one another. SNA can pinpoint with whom people
spend the most time with, the frequency with which people interact with others,
and other similar patterns through the use of physiological measures and socio-
metric badges. This is useful for foregoing questionnaire distribution related to
the issues discussed above, and is especially useful for high-risk teams, such as
military and surgical teams.
Proposition 3: Study “Swift Cohesion”
Emergent states, such as cohesion, require time to form (Coultas, Driskell,

Burke, & Salas, 2014). Furthermore, there is evidence that cohesion measured
later on in a team’s development is a better predictor of performance

than cohesion measured earlier in a team’s development (Bradley, Baur,
Banford, & Postlethwaite, 2013). Thus, traditional approaches to measuring
cohesion in teams in which members only spend a short amount of time
together may not be appropriate as they will not necessarily have the oppor-
tunity to develop cohesion as it has traditionally been defined. This suggests
that the conceptualization and measurement of cohesion in ad hoc teams
(e.g., experimental study teams) may be disconnected with reality, meaning
researchers may not actually be measuring what they intend to measure
(Coultas et al., 2014).

Swift cohesion, although in its infancy as a construct, could have impor-
tant implications for developing future studies. It is based on the idea that
although people may not have enough time to fully develop the specific
dimensions of cohesion group pride, task cohesion, and social cohesion
they must rely on contextual information to quickly coordinate and commu-
nicate with other team members, simulating the same processes that cause
cohesion to naturally emerge. For example, people may rely on symbols to
indicate a common identity, such as a military uniform or badge that makes
them feel a part of the same unit, and this can activate the group pride
dimension of cohesion. This suggests that swift cohesion is actually at work
in experimental settings in which team members only meet for one or few
short sessions instead of fully established cohesion, which often takes longer
to develop. However, there is more research that must be done in order to
draw concrete inferences about this construct.
Moving forward, Salas and colleagues (2015) suggest conducting more
research on “swift cohesion.” Measuring cohesion toward the beginning of a
team’s lifespan, where the development of cohesion is sudden, may be quali-
tatively different than measuring cohesion further along in the team’s life-
span, whereby the development of cohesion has been more gradual in nature
(Coultas et al., 2014; Salas et al., 2015). Consequently, there is benefit in
studying swift cohesion as a unique phenomeno to determine if it may be a
more reliable predictor of performance during the earlier stages of the team
lifespan, in which there is little time to socialize or get to know one another
before performing some task at hand (Quintane, Pattison, Robins, & Mol,
2013; Salas et al., 2015).
Proposition 4: Adopt an Event System Theory Framework
Static conceptualizations of cohesion are not meaningful when events take

place, often sporadically, that can easily alter cohesion. One way to circumvent
this issue is to use an EST framework when examining cohesion (Morgeson
et al., 2015). This approach seeks to bridge the gap that largely ignores the
dynamic shifts that teams go through by recognizing that multilevel events and
processes occur. There are three main research issues that Morgeson and collea-
gues (2015) address by adopting this theory: (1) event-oriented theories are rela-
tively under-researched compared to feature-oriented theories, despite the
widespread acceptance that teams are constantly shifting and changing; (2)
only certain events are studied, with the focus on major top-down processes or
organizational change efforts instead of bottom-up processes and emergent
events; and (3) there is little overlap between event and feature theories. These
issues are all pertinent to studying team cohesion over time.
EST is pivotal in integrating a temporal and multilevel view of organiza-

tions. It integrates the complexities of organizational processes affected by cer-
tain events and the features that can evolve over time as the result of certain
events, namely by taking into account event strength (the disruption caused by
an event), event space (where the event originates from), and event time (how
long the event remains impactful) (Morgeson et al., 2015). Considering these
different event features and what they influence can hold important findings of
the shifting nature of team cohesion as well as the processes leading to highly
cohesive teams. For example, an event low in strength may have little impact
over team cohesion for any long amount of time, but a stronger event can not
only impact the cohesiveness of a team overall but can also change the very
nature of how cohesive that team is for the remainder of its lifespan.
Team cohesion can increase or decrease in response to various events at mul-
tiple different levels. Returning to a previous example, an event like member
change can disrupt the cohesion of a team. However, very few team lifespan
taxonomies incorporate this event or even mention the change in processes fol-
lowing it. Instead, they tend to view teams as separate from changes in the envi-
ronment or the context in which they are working. This is an example of a
bottom-up process change in response to an event. Although the examination
of emergence is becoming more common in studying team phenomena, there is
still a large focus on top-down effects on lower levels. Further, many studies
fail to incorporate how bottom-up processes work beyond the aggregation to
the team level and affect an organization as a whole. How do changes in the
individual interactions affect a team, and how do these changes in a team affect
organizational outcomes, such as return an investment and turnover? For
example, once a high level of team cohesion has been established, how does
that affect MTS cohesion and organizational outcomes beyond that? These
research questions remain largely unanswered and unaddressed in the
literature.
Using an EST framework as an avenue for new temporal research also
addresses various other theoretical obstacles examined previously. For example,
EST can provide an avenue for integrating the past (before an event), future
(what follows an event), and the present subjective experience of time (during
the event and what changes occur) (George & Jones, 2000). Processes before,
during, and after an event can affect team cohesion and how one perceives his
or her teams cohesiveness during those different time periods. It also provides a
framework for multilevel modeling in which both contextual issues (i.e., macro
level or top-down processes) and emergence issues (i.e., micro level or bottom-
up processes) can be integrated (Fig. 2).
Although research often treats teams as stable, there are numerous events
that can affect cohesion. Thus, interpreting team cohesion using an EST frame-
work can contribute to overcoming conceptual barriers in which teams are
assumed to be relatively stable over long periods of time and encourage
researchers to treat their data collection methodology and subsequent data
analysis differently than if only a feature-oriented theory is used. This can be

done by using time as its own meaningful source of variance when studying
teams, instead of treating it as unwanted noise, and attempting to correct it
through abstract statistical means.
Proposition 5: Use Agent-based Modeling
ABM is an innovative technique using computational algorithms to simulate

human behaviors under specific situations and environmental conditions
(Wilensky & Rand, 2015). Though ABM does not derive from the teams research
domain, it has been useful in simulating teamwork (Fan & Yen, 2004; Kozlowski
et al., 2013). ABM operates by allowing researchers and programmers to model
simulated environmental parameters and unit-level characteristics, and determine
how this simulated environment affects team processes and behaviors in complex
ways. Team members are each represented by a unique computer agent capable
Fig. 2. An EST Framework Approach to Cohesion. Source: Adapted from

Morgeson et al. (2015). Notes: This figure illustrates how events at one level can
shape processes, cohesion, outcomes, and events at other levels.
of making decisions for behavior based on the rules set by the investigator
according to the research question and the existing literature.
ABM is particularly useful because it allows agents to interact and simulate
team processes and the emergence of team emergent states. Furthermore, it
allows for the examination of team phenomena that may not otherwise be able to
be studied due to limited resources and time. In particular, using ABM, a virtual
experiment can be conducted in a fraction of the time it would require to bring
real people into a controlled laboratory setting or to administer questionnaires to
organizational employees to assess cohesion and other constructs of interest. This
allows researchers and practitioners to circumvent the need for constantly recruit-
ing participants to show the emergence of team cohesion, which is particularly
useful when cohesion is being examined in large collectives, such as complex
MTSs. Running a large MTS through a traditional study would be difficult and
costly using human subjects, but is relatively easy with the use of ABM.
ABM also eliminates the need for determining when it is appropriate to col-
lect data, one of the issues in examining spontaneous events. It is easier to inte-
grate a multilevel and temporal framework using ABM because the parameters
of the simulation can be changed to suit the research question being asked. For
example, parameters and events can be programmed to simulate how cohesive
teams and non-cohesive teams react differently in response to these events, as
well as how these events interrupt team processes and impact the development
of cohesion. Team cohesion can be examined before, during, and after these
events without the need to use real-world participants. Thus, ABM allows for
the examination of both bottom-up processes through manipulation of the sim-
ulated teams behaviors as well as top-down processes by maniplating the simu-
lated environment surrounding the team (Bonabeau, 2002; Wall, 2016). The
possibilities are truly endless.
However, ABM has one large caveat: it is in its infancy in terms of simu-
lating human behaviors and organizational contexts. Thus, more theory may
need to be established before using ABM as a long-term solution because the
parameters of the algorithm are purely based on existing theory and research.
Furthermore, ABM is particularly useful for developing theory, but any find-
ings that derive from ABM should, at least for the time being, be replicated
in a studies with real people. The validity of the algorithm being used to simu-
late those people and their environments needs to be established. One poten-
tial limitation of ABM is that the parameters are set by the researcher based
on the best information at hand, which may not account for all relevant fac-
tors in real-world environments. Thus, the basis for the computational algo-
rithm is heavily reliant upon existing research and researcher decisions and
thus should be approached with caution. Still, this is a cost-effective tool
because cohesion emergence can be simulated and analyzed in a short amount
of time.
CONCLUSION
We have identified five primary challenges associated with assessing cohesion
over time. First, self-reports used to measure cohesion are not always practical
and are susceptible to issues that may negatively impact accuracy, specifically
with regard to how cohesion changes over time. Second, different dimensions
of cohesion may be more critical to measure, depending on which stage of
development a team is in. Third, multilevel theory is important in studying
team cohesion, although it often fails to be correctly applied to a temporal
framework. Fourth, events within a team may affect team cohesion, such as a
team experiencing member or task changes, but is not often accounted for. And
fifth, extraneous or organizational events outside of the team may affect team
cohesion, but these also are not often accounted for. In response to these chal-
lenges, we have provided theoretical and practical suggestions for moving for-
ward in studying team cohesion: using unobtrusive/indirect measures for
continuous assessment of cohesion; using SNA to analyze the microdynamics
of cohesion; studying swift cohesion as a means for quickly developing a team
bond, particularly in short-term or ad hoc teams; adopting an EST framework
for understanding how event features impact team cohesion as a dynamic pro-
cess; and using ABM to simulate the emergence of cohesion.
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Challenges and New Directions in Examining Team Cohesion Over Time

Chapter in Research on Managing Groups and Teams · August 2017

Alexandra Petruzzelli Amanda L Thayer

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Caitlin E. McClurg, Jaimie L. Chen,

Purpose This chapter reviews the challenges associated with measuring

Team Dynamics Over Time

Research implications This comprehensive chapter provides recommen-

measurement according to team and organizational events.

DEFINING AND CONCEPTUALIZING COHESION

TEAM DEVELOPMENT AND COHESION

opment theories and discuss how they relate to team cohesion.

phases in each of these perspectives. In the subsequent sections, we expand on

CHALLENGES IN EXAMINING COHESION OVER TIME

Challenge 1: Self-Report Measures Are Not Always Appropriate

Challenge 2: Different Dimensions of Cohesion Are Important at Different Points

recorded team development or lifespan models. Researchers emphasize this point;

Challenge 3: Combining Multilevel and Temporal Frameworks in the

Multilevel theory has conceptual underpinnings from General Systems theory,

interdependent teams it is nested in is also highly cohesive. That is, cohesion

Challenge 4: Within-Team Events

Team cohesion changes as a result of bottom-up processes occurring among

combination of the two. This is a common event in organizations due to factors

Challenge 5: Organizational Change and Other Major Events

Organizations are increasingly dynamic and complex in nature to match today’s

they are affected by these events. Moreover, employee perceptions of organiza-

A TEMPORAL APPROACH TO STUDYING COHESION

both researchers and practitioners to apply when studying or assessing cohesion.

Proposition 1: Use Unobtrusive/Indirect Measures

Although self-report measures can easily be used to measure cohesion in labo-

Table 1. Challenges and Propositions for Studying Team Cohesion over

information about a multitude of individuals at the same time (Olguı́n-Olguı́n &

Overall, there are many methods of collecting objective, unobtrusive data

Proposition 2: Use Social Network Analysis

Fig. 1. Sociogram of Different Levels of Cohesion in Teams. Source: Adapted

comprehensible to a broader audience that can capture the same information

Proposition 3: Study “Swift Cohesion”

Emergent states, such as cohesion, require time to form (Coultas, Driskell,

later on in a team’s development is a better predictor of performance

(Coultas et al., 2014).

Proposition 4: Adopt an Event System Theory Framework

Static conceptualizations of cohesion are not meaningful when events take

EST is pivotal in integrating a temporal and multilevel view of organiza-

analysis differently than if only a feature-oriented theory is used. This can be

Proposition 5: Use Agent-based Modeling

ABM is an innovative technique using computational algorithms to simulate

Fig. 2. An EST Framework Approach to Cohesion. Source: Adapted from

Psychology, 99(4), 665–680.

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