Group Potency and Its Implications for Team Effectiveness

Emergent states, as previously defined, describe the development of a collective phenomenon from the sharedness of individual members' perceptions of a team-level attribute. Emergent states therefore exist as constructs at the collective level (e.g., team, group, unit, and organization), underscoring their theoretical foundations based on differing composition frameworks. Detailed considerations of composition models are available elsewhere; however, we note here that research on emergent states (e.g., group potency) requires that a level of consensus (i.e., agreement or sharedness), which is based on a theoretically appropriate composition model, be demonstrated. Emergent state research has generally relied on r_wg, intraclass correlations (ICCs), and other agreement statistics as indices of consensus. Kozlowski et al. noted that although these statistical approaches for assessing agreement have been used in both cross-sectional and longitudinal research to demonstrate emergence, their use has predominantly been restricted to static interpretations (even when averaged across time in longitudinal research), and therefore ignores the temporal aspect of emergence. More specifically, in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, these consensus statistics have been used to demonstrate that emergence has taken place, but only provide a snapshot of sharedness, thereby ignoring the dynamicity of the emergence process. For example, in cross-sectional research, after demonstrating some level of consensus, researchers are left to assume a team-level phenomenon has emerged, without actually assessing the pattern of change in consensus that may more accurately represent the emergence process. Although this is informative from a descriptive standpoint, interpreting isolated ICC estimates may not provide a strict test of whether emergence has occurred. To address this issue, Lang et al. introduced the consensus emergence model, which allows researchers to examine change in consensus over time, a key component of the emergence process. The current investigation used this methodology to provide an assessment of group potency emergence over time.

As a collective phenomenon, group potency fits into Chan referent-shift consensus model. Group potency, therefore, requires consensus amongst group members to demonstrate the collective or shared aspect of the construct. Commensurate with Kozlowski et al. theorizing on emergent processes, group members need time to interact with each other and engage with the task to develop a shared understanding of the team-level phenomenon. Initially, group members' perceptions of their potency will be based on minimal information as they have had limited time interacting. As a result, initial ratings of group potency will be more indicative of individual members' perceptions rather than shared perceptions. It can therefore be theorized that agreement between group members will increase over time. Accordingly, we forward the following hypothesis: