•Study the effect of birthplace diversity on team performance.•Use data from Germany's highest soccer league.•Propose two IV approaches to establish causality.•Find that an intermediate level of ...birthplace diversity is optimal.•Results suggest that birthplace diversity has both benefits and costs.
Using hand-collected and web-scraped data on 7208 matches and 3266 players from the highest division of German male football, this paper examines how birthplace diversity affects team performance. The results of two instrumental variable analyses suggest that birthplace diversity has a hump-shaped effect on team performance. To explain our result, we argue that nationally diverse teams have a wider range of skills and face greater communication barriers.
Using cross-functional team (CFT) is a suitable strategy for improving the performance of organizations. The member selection problem is an important aspect of the CFT formation. Several evidences ...showed the important criteria for choosing true members are: cooperation and coordination, functional expertise, individual abilities, cost, and communication. In this paper, effective features for member selection are identified and a multi-objective 0–1 nonlinear programming model is developed. This model is developed by using individual and collaborative performance. Afterward, it is converted into the linear form by changing variables to solve it more easily. The proposed model is used in the real example in Census cross-functional team in the statistical center of Iran and required data were collected by surveys and interviews. The results indicate that this proposed model has better performance compared to recommendation of experts and can be used in other fields. Introduction: Nowadays using teams is increased; it helps companies and organizations to survive in product markets’ competition, business pressure, and customers’ expectations (Proehl, 1996; Santa, Ferrer, Bretherton et al. 2010; Fan, Feng, Jiang et al, 2009). Among various teams, cross-functional team is one of the most effective strategy which is used in NPD (Wang, Yan, and Ma, 2003), lean production, TQM and continuous improvement (Love and Roper, 2009). CFT is defined by a group of members who come from different functional areas (Feng, Jiang, Fan et al, 2010) in the same hierarchy as level within an organization, or even between organizations for a limited time )Saarani and Bakri, 2012). CFT has several advantages such as positive impact on cycle time and project performance )Barczak and Wilemon, 2003(, increasing learning, processing optimization, knowledge sharing (Love and Roper, 2009), creativity, problem solving (Santa, Ferrer, Bretherton et al. 2010; Saarani and Bakri, 2012), increasing competition in organization, responding to market changes (Santa, Ferrer, Bretherton et al. 2010), spanning organizational boundaries (Love and Roper, 2009; Feng, Jiang, Fan et al, 2010), and responding quickly to environmental changes (Zhang and Zhang, 2013) The first stage of team development is forming, therefore organizations must select candidates carefully to ensure CFT’s effects and success (Feng, Jiang, Fan et al, 2010). Correct selection prevents wasting time (Feng, Jiang, Fan et al, 2010), financial losses and productivity shortcoming )Saarani and Bakri, 2012(. Recently, some researchers have attended to CFT’s formation and discuss suitable characteristics to assemble members. In Chen and Lin (2004) study, functional expertise, teamwork experience, communication skill, flexibility in job assignment, and personality traits indicated as five important characteristics of team members that build successful multifunctional team. Fitzpatrick and Askin (2005) regarded innate tendencies, interpersonal skills, and technical skills as important criteria for member selection. Wang, Yan and Ma (2003) listed the selection attributes for the creation ability, management ability, utilization rates, cooperation levels, and so forth. Jiang et al. (2010) reported the criteria for selecting members for cross-functional teams: individual performance (such as work experience, ability to solve work problems, and technical knowledge), exterior organizational collaborative performance (such as the extent of external cooperation), and interior organizational collaborative performance (for instance mutual communication among members and collaboration in solving problems). Zhang and Zhang (2013) stated that the effective NPD team should have four capabilities: expertise and experience consistent, learning and knowledge sharing, communication, and problem-solving. Kargar and Zihayat (2012) discussed requirements such as communication, cost, and skills for desired members. Several evidences showed important criteria for choosing appropriate members. These are cooperation, coordination, functional expertise, individual abilities, cost, and communication. Existing researches focus on main skills of candidates while to the best of our knowledge there is no study that notices subskills of candidates. Furthermore, there is no study which considers all the criteria simultaneously. In addition, utilizing quantitative methods for the formation of CFTs has been the topic of recent researches. Chen and Lin (2004) used chain wise AHP to evaluate sharing knowledge and selecting members who have high knowledge rating in each department. Following that, they have proposed the nonlinear quantitative model to select the appropriate candidates based on teamwork capabilities and working relationships for teams in industrial environments. The working relationships and teamwork capabilities respectively are calculated by using MBTI and AHP. Fitzpatrick and Askin (2005) formulated mathematical model based on Kolbe Conative Index (synergy, inertia, and stability) that measures interpersonal structure for multi-functional teams and then solves it by heuristic solution. Zhang and Zhang (2013) presented nonlinear multi-objective optimization for NPD and employed Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization to resolve it. They improved fuzzy AHP based on Fuzzy Lin PreRa. In addition, they used the model to evaluate capability and employed MBTI to measure interpersonal relationships among members of interior and exterior departments of the organization. Jiang et al (2010) offered a multi-objective 0–1 programming model for formation cross-functional teams and developed an improved non dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (INSGA-II) to solve it. However, most of the existing methods for the formation of CFTs are nonlinear and there is no simple model for developing CFTs. Therefore the multi-objective nonlinear 0–1 programming model is built based on all of the criteria. Then to solve it more easily, it is converted into a linear form by changing variables. Materials and Methods: Five main measures are considered to form cross-functional teams: cooperation and coordination, functional expertise, individual abilities, cost, and communication. The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test is used to evaluate “cooperation and coordination”. MBTI is a self-help assessment test which indicates different psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and how they make decisions. The professional interview is conducted to assess “functional expertise”. In addition, the members answered self-report skill measures which rated in the Likert scale. In order to calculate “individual abilities” two methods are used: personal assessment (the participants are asked by questionnaire) and professional assessment (using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method). With the aim of realizing the “cost”, the paychecks of candidates are considered. Sociometry test is used to asses “communication”. The collected data, based on the mentioned methods, are analyzed and the model is developed. The proposed model minimizes the cost and maximizes the other objective measures. Global Criteria method is used to convert the multi-objective proposed model to the one-objective model. Furthermore, this non-linear model is transformed to linear by using the Glover and Woolsey’s method. Results and Discussion: In order to examine the proposed method, the Census cross-functional team in the statistical center of Iran as the real case is considered. Four departments were selected for this test. 10 people were nominated from chosen departments (3, 3, 2, and 2 members from each department, respectively). The proposed model was applied and the results were compared to the chosen team by the head of the office. Themembers selected by the proposed model are 1, 2, 4, 5 and 9. However, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 members are chosen by the expert. In fact, these two results are 80% in common. Conclusion: Forming cross-functional teams improves the performance of organizations. Selecting appropriate members for the team formation is a critical decision. Therefore, in this paper, significant features to form the CFT is found and a new model to solve the CFTs formation problem is developed. The findings show the vital criteria in CFTs are: cooperation and coordination, functional expertise, individual abilities, cost, and communication. We have developed simple, linear, multi-objective model which solve forming CFTs more easily and effectively. The outcome of the proposed model is better than the expert’s decision in all goals except the “individual abilities”, this exception may happen because of considering constraints. References Barczak, G., & Wilemon, D. (2003). Team member experiences in new product development: views from the trenches. R&D Management, 33(5), 463-479. Chen, S. J., & Lin, L. (2004). Modeling team member characteristics for the formation of a multifunctional team in concurrent engineering. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 51(2), 111-124. Fan, Z. P., Feng, B., Jiang, Z. Z., & Fu, N. (2009). A method for member selection of R&D teams using the individual and collaborative information. Expert Systems with Applications, 36(4), 8313-8323. Feng, B., Jiang, Z. Z., Fan, Z. P., & Fu, N. (2010). A method for member selection of cross-functional teams using the individual and collaborative performances. European Journal of Operational Research, 203(3), 652-661. Fitzpatrick, E. L., & Askin, R. G. (2005). Forming effective worker teams with multi-functional skill requirements. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 48(3), 593-608. Kargar, M., An, A., & Zihayat, M. (2012, September). Efficient bi-objective team formation in social networks. In Joint European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases (pp. 483-498). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Love, J. H., & Roper, S. (2009). Organizing innovation: compl
Aus der AGMB Reimann, Iris
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We look back to a successful Annual Meeting of the German MLA (AGMB) 2019 in Göttingen. A new executive board was elected as well as the management of the working groups for the period 2019 to 2021. ...The next conference location in Würzburg was also presented. The executive board met already with the Würzburg local committee to visit the conference venues there and to start the preparations for the next conference.
What is important is to understand and circumvent the many parameters that determine the success of a touring show. These can include modularity, ergonomics, language of assemblers and expedient ...durability amongst many other issues. Adam Davis is Chief Creative Officer of TAIT – the architectural engineering and software company that has worked with everyone from Elton John to Beyoncé and U2. He explains TAIT's ‘design spiral’ approach and the benefits of collaborative creative processes.
The acquisition of both transversal and specific competences cannot be achieved using conventional methodologies. New methodologies must be applied that promote the necessary competences for proper ...professional development. Interdisciplinary projects can be a suitable tool for competence-based learning. A priori, this might be complicated, as subjects are traditionally studied at the university level in isolated compartments, with a fragmented structure. Taking advantage of the creation of new degree programs in Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering and Industrial Automaton, in the 2010-11 academic year we decided to add an interdisciplinary project (IP) to our teaching methodology. The importance of this project lies in the fact that it requires the participation of all the courses in all the academic years in the degree program. The present article explains the methodology used in the interdisciplinary project and how it was implemented in the first year of the Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering and Industrial Automaton degree programs. Furthermore, an evaluation is conducted of all four years of the interdisciplinary project, revealing the main problems with its execution and how they have been addressed.
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We look back to a successful Annual Meeting of the German MLA (AGMB) 2017 in Vienna. A new executive board was elected as well as the management of the working groups for the period 2017 to 2019. The ...next conference location in Oldenburg was also presented. The executive board met already with the Oldenburg local committee to visit the conference venues there.
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We look back to the Annual Meeting of the German MLA (AGMB) 2015 in Basel and ahead to the next annual meeting in Göttingen. A new editor group will now manage our weblog MEDINFO, anyway we are ...looking for further authors. Our membership database is up to date. The members are asked for regularly updating their membership records.
The IAEA is one of the most important international organizations within the United Nations system, with a relevant mandate in the field of international peace, security, and the transfer of nuclear ...technology for its use with peaceful purposes only. The Peace Nobel Prize won by the organization in 2005 in recognition of its work in the promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy is the confirmation of what has been said before. To accomplish its mandate, the IAEA should carry out its activities in the most efficient and effective manner, taking into account the limited human and financial resources now available in the Secretariat, and the level of the resources that could be available during the coming years. For this reason, the IAEA should periodically revise its internal organizational structure, the management process used by the Secretariat to carry out the supervision of the activities to be implemented, the contents of its programs, the working procedures used to implement the approved programs, enhance the training of its staff, among others things. If an organization wants to succeed in achieving the mission for which was established in the most efficient and effective manner, then it should choose adequately its goals, identify the correct course of actions or the best strategies to fulfil the adopted goals, adopt the most efficient internal organizational structure, and allocate the necessary resources to ensure the full implementation of the approved programs. To make sure that the adopted strategies are working, the organization needs to adopt the correct internal organizational structure. Choosing the correct internal organizational structure entails allocating tasks, responsibilities, and decision-making authority within the organization in the most effective manner. One of the main changes that the Secretariat should introduce in its working procedures during the coming years is the establishment of multidisciplinary working teams. These teams will have the responsibility to implement all IAEA technical programs, including all technical cooperation projects approved by the policy making organs of the organization, in the most effective and economical manner.
In this cross-sectional study we analyzed, whether team climate for innovation mediates the relationship between team task structure and innovative behavior, job satisfaction, affective ...organizational commitment, and work stress. 310 employees in 20 work teams of an automotive company participated in this study. 10 teams had been changed from a restrictive to a more self-regulating team model by providing task variety, autonomy, team-specific goals, and feedback in order to increase team effectiveness. Data support the supposed causal chain, although only with respect to team innovative behavior all required effects were statistically significant. Longitudinal designs and larger samples are needed to prove the assumed causal relationships, but results indicate that implementing self-regulating teams might be an effective strategy for improving innovative behavior and thus team and company effectiveness.
El objetivo de este artìculo es describir una enriquecedora experiencia de aprendizaje que se está llevando a cabo en la Universidad de Valladolid con estudiantes de traducciñn e interpretaciñn y ...expertos en el área participantes de un proyecto de innovaciñn docente de excelencia.
Este proyecto supone una experiencia formativa y colaborativa en la que los estudiantes participantes reciben una formaciñn práctica como complemento a sus estudios (de gran utilidad en su tarea diaria y de cara a su futuro profesional), y los expertos actúan como mentores en una relaciñn horizontal de ayuda, apoyo, confianza y refuerzo positivo caracterìstica del liderazgo transformacional. El objetivo principal es fomentar que los estudiantes aprendan a trabajar en equipo de forma eficaz viéndose a sì mismos como profesionales actuando en un contexto real y significativo en el que se contemplan y valoran sus ideas, destrezas y fortalezas.
The goal of this paper is to describe a fruitful and enriching learning experience taking place at the University of Valladolid with students of Translation and Interpreting and experts in the field who are participating in an excellence teaching innovation project. This project is aimed at stimulating effective group work and professional development in English through an action-training plan, the use of ICT and following the concept of transformational leadership, an approach which enhances the participants‘ motivation and performance by inspiring and challenging them to take ownership of their work and learn from each other through cooperative work.
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