Team Performance Management – 2014

Citation

Curseu, P.L. (2015), "Team Performance Management – 2014", Team Performance Management, Vol. 21 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-01-2015-0002

Team Performance Management – 2014

Article Type: Editorial From: Team Performance Management, Volume 21, Issue 1/2

Welcome to the first 2015 Team Performance Management issue. The aim of this editorial letter is to present an overview of the editorial process during 2014. Team Performance Management received an increased number of submissions (68 per cent more than in 2013), and from the 64 manuscripts newly submitted to Team Performance Management during 2014, the vast majority (54) were research papers. We also received 27 revised manuscripts last year, from which 22 were research papers. Ultimately, in 2014, Team Performance Management published 18 papers with authors from 13 countries (Canada, Finland, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA). We also published three editorial letters: one introducing the first issue of 2014 and presenting the editorial aspirations for the journal, the second one introducing the celebratory issue (last year Team Performance Management celebrated its twentieth volume) and the last one introducing the special issue edited by Monica Rolfsen and based on a selection of papers presented at the seventeenth edition of the International Workshop on Teamworking (IWOT 17). In 2015, we plan to organize two special issues. The first one, edited by Tassilo Schuster (Friedrich-Alexander University, Germany) and Benjamin Bader (University of Hamburg, Germany) entitled “Corporate masterminds: Executive management teams in focus”, will publish several papers that focus on the dynamics of top management teams. The second one will be based on a selection of papers that were presented during the eighteenth edition of the IWOT (Girona, Spain). We also welcome new participants at the next edition of IWOT 19, organized in Leuven, Belgium between 7 and 8 September 2015, as part of the Festival of Connecting: Designing Healthy and Innovative Organizations and Workplaces.

An important editorial aim was to decrease the throughput time for the manuscripts submitted to the journal. In 2014, on average, we managed to reach a final editorial decision in just under 33 days, and on average, reviewers returned their evaluations for the original submission in just under 26 days, while for the revised manuscripts in just under 24 days. We therefore managed to provide authors with timely feedback on their work submitted to the journal. We also aim to continuously improve the quality of the papers published in the journal, and as a consequence of this aspiration and the large number of submissions received by the journal, the acceptance rate substantially decreased during 2014. The acceptance rate in 2014 was just under 27 per cent, lower than in 2013 (55 per cent) and in 2012 (57 per cent). From the rejected manuscripts, the majority were desk rejected, meaning that they were not sent out for review, and the final decision was made rather quickly. The most important reasons for desk rejections are:

• misfit with the aim and scope of the journal;

• major methodological flaws; and

• inadequate writing style and severe linguistic errors.

Although admittedly disappointing for authors, desk rejection decisions provide timely feedback aimed at saving reviewer and author time.

I would like to thank the Editorial Advisory Board for their continuous support and contributions to the journal, and I would also like to thank the reviewers that supported Team Performance Management in 2014:

Agrawal, Vidhi

Arnulf, Jan Ketil

Aubé, Caroline

Awino, Zachary Bolo

Axelsson, Susanna Bihari

Bader, Benjamin

Becker, Wendy

Beigi, Mina

Benders, Jos

Bhat, Aruna

Bikfalvi, Andrea

Blazovich, Janell

Boak, George

Boros, Smaranda

Braun, Frank

Braziotis, Christos

Brehm, Alexander

Breitenmoser, Anika

Burns, Catherine

Callea, Antonino

Caputo, Andrea

Carlström, Eric

Casey, Adrea

Cha, Myungsuk

Chin, Roger

Clarke, Nicholas

Cooney, Richard

Costa, Patrícia

Croon, Marcel

Daspit, Joshua

de Jong, Jeroen

Derksen, Karin

Devrimi, Kaya

Dhondt, Steven

Ekmekci, Ozgur

Emons, Wilco

Erkutlu, Hakan

Fausing, Maj

Fiset, John

Flestea, Alina

Fodor, Oana

Fontana, Stefano

Furtmüller, Elfi

Garg, Ritam

Ghuman, Umar

Grant, Ken

Gressgard, Leif Jarle

Held, Katrin

Henttonen, Kaisa

Hildisch, Katharina

Holtbruegge, Dirk

Huusko, Liisa

Ibrahim, Khairil Izam

Karakowsky, Leonard

Karney, Dennis

KB, Akhilesh

Lettice, Fiona

Lettice, Fiona

Mannak, Remco

Maricutoiu, Laurentiu

Markette, Nicholas

Martz, William

McBey, Ken

Meslec, Nicoleta

Molleman, Eric

Morita, Plinio

Narayan, Anupama

Oertel, Rasmus

Olson, Joel

Olson, Linda

O’Neill, Richard

Perry, Emmett

Peslak, Alan

Pluut, Helen

Polychroniou, Panagiotis

Rogers, Helen

Rolfsen, Monica

Ross, T. Meredith

Rousseau, Vincent

Rusu, Andrei

Rutti, Raina

Ryan, Timothy

Rygl, David

Santos, Catarina

Savelsbergh, Chantal

Scheiner, Christian

Schruijer, Sandra

Sederblad, Per

Shetach, Ana

Stark, Eric

Stiglbauer, Markus

Sulea, Coralia

Tanco, Martin

Tuuli, Martin

Wells, Janelle

Yang, Seung-Bum

At the beginning of 2014, a jury composed of four members of the Editorial Advisory Board of Team Performance Management analyzed several papers published in 2013 (recommended by Fiona Lettice, the former editor of Team Performance Management) and decided that the paper authored by Catarina Marques Santos and Ana Margarida Passos (both at ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal) deserves the best paper award (outstanding paper), while the paper by Josh Daspit (Mississippi State University, USA), Justice Tillman (Baruch College, City University of New York, USA), Nancy Boyd (University of North Texas, USA) and Victoria Mckee (University of North Texas, USA) received the highly commended paper award. Therefore, we would like to extend our congratulations to the winners of the outstanding paper award: Santos, C.M. and Passos, A.M. (2013), “Team mental models, relationship conflict and effectiveness over time”, Team Performance Management, Vol. 19 Nos 7/8, pp. 363-385; and to the authors of the highly commended paper: Daspit, J., Tillman, C.J., Boyd, N.G. and Mckee, V. (2013), “Cross-functional team effectiveness: An examination of internal team environment, shared leadership, and cohesion influences”, Team Performance Management, Vol. 19 Nos 1/2, pp. 34-56.

The first TPM issue of 2015 contains six papers that reflect the journal’s commitment to a high-quality research, international contributions with practical relevance and its inclusive nature in terms of methodology. The first paper co-authored by Nicoleta Meslec and Daniel Graff explores the antecedents and consequences of cross-understanding in teams and shows that cross-understanding mediates the association between openness to cognitive diversity and reflective communication in groups on the one hand and team performance on the other hand. Because cross-understanding is argued to be a key antecedent for performance in cognitive tasks, the results of this study could be used by managers and leaders to design interventions for improving team effectiveness. The second paper co-authored by Patricia Costa, Ana Passos and Clara Barata uses a multi-level model to test the influence of positive emotions and team work engagement on perceptions of team viability. The results of this study show that positive emotions experienced by team members as well as team work engagement as an emergent state are significant (positive) predictors of team viability. The paper extends the multi-level perspectives on teams and has important implications for guiding future research on emergent affective states in teams and can inform managerial interventions aimed at building and maintaining a positive climate in work groups. The third paper authored by Davide Secchi reviews the core features of agent-based models (ABMs) and the way this research methodology was used in Organizational Behavior and in particular team research. The paper builds a compelling case for the use of ABM in team research emphasizing possible contributions of this research methodology for the advancement of multi-level perspectives on teams, as well as for the study of emergence, and emergent states in teams. The fourth paper co-authored by Nikos Schiniotakis and Aikaterini Divini explores the association between employee characteristics and group performance in the banking sector. The authors test their model in a Greek sample and show that individual performance, age and commuting distance are significant predictors of groups’ financial performance. The study reveals that trainings and seminars attended by the employees and their experience outside the bank are not significant predictors of group performance and as such point toward important managerial challenges in designing more effective on-the-job trainings in the banking sector in Greece. The fifth paper co-authored by Celso Pais and Cristina Parente explores the social representations related to teamwork in seven Portuguese organizations with a social entrepreneurship profile. The authors describe representations related to attitudes and behaviors, internal team organization and interpersonal relationships that describe and prescribe team functioning and effectiveness. The last (technical) paper co-authored by Rosa Lombardi, Raffaele Trequattrini and Mirella Battista illustrates the use of social network analysis for the study of sports teams. The paper provides a detailed technical illustration on how network analysis can be used to make sense of interpersonal interactions and effectiveness in teams. I hope readers will enjoy the selected papers and will continuously support the journal!

Petru Lucian Curseu - Department of Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands