Are Pre-Assembly Shared Work Experiences Useful for Temporary-Team Assembly Decisions? A Study of Olympic Ice Hockey Team Composition

The purpose of this study was to investigate if preassembly shared work experiences among temporary team members facilitate individual and team performance. Archival data from the 2014 Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament (12 teams, 25 players each) was used in the study. Measures of social network centrality were computed based on the pre-assembly shared work experiences among national team members derived from professional and amateur affiliations. These measures were used to predict objective individual and team performance criteria. Players’ closeness centrality scores, from pre-assembly shared work experience networks, positively predicted their goals, assists, and being involved in more positive than negative plays. Teams with less centralized pre-assembly shared work experience network structures tended to perform better than teams with more centralized pre-assembly shared work experience network structures. Temporary teams are commonly used by organizations to perform tasks that are specific, important, and of short duration. Because temporary teams have little time to develop the shared properties required for effective team functioning, assembly decisions are of paramount importance. The results from this study suggest that centrality measures derived from pre-assembly shared work experiences are useful to consider when assembling temporary teams. Few studies have investigated the impact of pre-assembly shared work experiences on individual and team performance. Using objective data, this study provides evidence that pre-assembly shared work experiences relate to individual and team performance in temporary teams, supporting the need for expanded research in this area.