Does team orientation matter? A state-of-the-science review, meta-analysis, and multilevel framework

As teams are a foundational component of modern organizations, selection and training of employees to facilitate teamwork is of key importance. In this paper, we review and meta-analyze research on the construct of team orientation. We differentiate between organizational-, team-, and individual-level team orientation and discuss multilevel theory implications. A total of 39 articles comprising 210 effects were meta-analyzed. Results indicate that team orientation is important, particularly for effective teamwork and team-based outcomes. Specifically, at the overall level, we found significant and positive relationships with communication, coordination, cooperation, trust, shared mental models, backup behaviors, cohesion, innovation, satisfaction, leadership, and team performance. Team orientation was found to be negatively correlated with conflict. Interestingly, we found a negative relationship between team orientation and individual-level performance. We discuss the implications of these findings and make suggestions for future work to build upon these findings.