A STUDY OF TEAMWORK CHARACTERISTICS THAT INCREASE THE ACCURACY AND CREATIVITY OF GROUP PROBLEM SOLVING

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The present study was intended to reveal the characteristics and functions of the excellent teamwork that enabled accurate and creative group problem solving from the viewpoint of social psychology. First of all, I made a review of studies about teamwork conceptions and recomposed the definition of teamwork on this study in order to clarify the purpose and locus of this study. The first empirical study was conducted on sales promotion teams in Tokyo branch of a major electric company. I got full records of exchanged information via electric communication system using email, net meeting and electronic bulletin board in that sales promotion teams. Then I conducted the content analysis with time series perspectives. And I carried out the questionnaire survey on the team members and interview to managers of the teams. In addition, I compared the results of these analyses between an excellent performing team and a struggling team for poor performance.The results of this study were as follows. In an excellent team, large part of the exchanged information was occupied by task oriented and problem solving oriented ones. And most of the members chose the notion that teamwork was that each member completed own mission as teamwork. On the other hand, in a struggling team, large part of exchanged information was occupied by emotional support oriented and clarification oriented ones. And most of the members chose the notion that each member covered mutual weakness as teamwork. This study succeeded in demonstrating that the notion of teamwork in a team was interacting dynamically with the trait of team communication and team performance, and that such dynamic interaction would generate the team characters. The future task is to clarify the modalities of the relationships between such interaction and team problem solving and performance.