Date of Award

1994

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Human Resource Education and Workforce Development

First Advisor

Betty C. Harrison

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a TEAM CULTURE INDICATOR (TCI) as an assessment tool to measure the difference between employee perceptions of actual and desired work team culture in business and industry settings. Specific objectives included: determine the instrument constructs; develop a multi-dimensional, concise, operational, and practical instrument, potentially applicable to varied settings in business and industry, with an established degree of reliability; and develop an initial "User's Guide" for the TCI. The TCI was initially constructed using 100 items representing the characteristics of effective work teams. The TCI reveals a "perceived opportunity for team improvement" or the difference between actual and desired perceptions of work team culture. A total of 404 adult employees from 43 work teams in 23 organizations representing various business and industry settings, participated in a two stage data collection and scale refinement process. The scale refinement process was designed to refine the TCI by eliminating items that failed to contribute to internal consistency, and which eliminated redundancy, and confirmed the factor structure. The current 54-item TCI has 10 sub-scales with five or six items per scale. The reliability estimate for the TCI was.98. Sub-scale reliability estimates were: communication,.88; working relationships,.88; accountability/responsibility,.85; roles/leadership,.79; consensus,.85; team energy,.85; purpose,.85; interpersonal relationships,.88; attachment/reward,.84; and planning/structure,.86. An initial TCI "User's Guide" was developed. The final TCI instrument presented in this study needs further refinement. Preliminary applications from the TCI development process have indicated that the TCI does assess work teams' perceptions of their culture. Work teams who cooperated with the researcher for data collection, have used the results for team development and improvement activities (i.e. drafted brainstorming lists, prioritized actions, planned for quality improvement and team building). Potential applications of the TCI include its use as a tool for: team planning, team building, quality improvement, self-assessment, work team assessment, team discussions, and organizational development efforts.

Pages

243

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.5766

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