Impact of Synergism on Teamwork Performance Psychology Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Impact of Synergism Teamwork Performance
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Introduction
Teamwork is an essential component of collaborative efforts which are designed to achieve common goals or complete tasks effectively and efficiently. The concept of teamwork involves the building of relationships and bringing people together to achieve common goals. The effectiveness and efficiency of the teamwork have a significant impact on the team performance. In essence, there exists a positive correlation between the efficiency of the teamwork and the output of a team. Teamwork has traditionally been conceptualized using a variety of theoretical models such as the input-process-output (IPO) model, the traditional model, the team spirit model, the cutting edge model, the task force model, and the cyber team model among others (Reiter-Palmon, Sinha, Gevers, Odobez & Volpe, 2017).
The IPO model is one of the most researched models and is highly accepted across various disciplines. The model assumes that it is important to have an in-depth knowledge of the inputs, processes, and the output of the team environment to understand the functioning of a team (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017). Inputs of the team environment include aspects such as organizational context variables, personality diversity, education background, and demographics such as race, gender, and age. Processes refer to activities that team members engage in to achieve their preset goals (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017). Team processes are often conceptualized as emergent states which emanate from the interactivity of the team members. The term emergence is universally defined as a phenomenon that originates from human characteristics such as behavior, cognition, and affection among others (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017). The concept of emergence is amplified by the interactivity of the team members and it is often manifested as a higher level collective phenomenon (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017).The phenomenon of the emergence is characterized by aspects such as transactive memory system, shared mental model, collective efficacy, leadership, cohesiveness, and trust. The output of the team environment is presented by aspects such as turnover intention, individual performance, well-being, member satisfaction, creativity, team performance, viability, and team effectiveness (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017). The IPO model has severally been used to conceptualize teamwork from different perspectives such as team homogeneity, emergent states, and social processes among others. In the context of this paper, the IPO model in addition to other models will be used to conceptualize the concept of teamwork by taking into consideration the factors that influence the effectiveness of the teamwork (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017). Previous studies have identified cohesiveness, communication, groupthink, homogeneity, role identity, stability, and team size as some of the major factors that influence the effectiveness of the teamwork. Despite the presence of extensive research on the influence of the factors enumerated above on the effectiveness of teamwork in the workplace, there exist some gray areas on the impact of the synergetic effects and collective orientation on the efficacy of the teamwork (Reiter-Palmon et al., 2017; McEwan, Ruissen, Eys, Zumbo & Beauchamp, 2017). This paper intends to conduct a systematic review of the influence of both the synergetic effects and the collective orientation on teamwork performance. As such, the paper will meet its objective by addressing the following research question: