Jacks-of-All-Trades? The Effect of Balanced Skills on Team Performance Previous empirical studies have shown that solo entrepreneurs benefit from having balanced skills: Jacks-of-All-Trades (JATs) are better entrepreneurs than specialists are. Nowadays however, the majority of entrepreneurs start up and run ventures together in teams. In this paper we test whether the effect of more balanced sk...

The new workplace is a key arena for learning in today’s society. The spiraling demand for knowledge in the workplace has increased interest in learning, especially team learning. Team learning can be viewed from multiple perspectives, making it difficult for career and technical educators (CTEs) to know how to prepare students for a team-based work environment, especially one that includes vir...

This is another in a series of articles about some of the most effective models, methods, and processes of organization development (OD), also known as change management, a discipline that offers much to professionals intent on solving real-world problems. Because it is based on a systemic view of organizations, OD includes the whole universe of fuzzy people issues that increasingly determine t...

Although basic life support skills are not often needed in the surgical setting, it is crucial that surgical team members understand their roles and are ready to intervene swiftly and effectively if necessary. Ongoing education and training are key elements to equip surgical team members with the skills and knowledge they need to handle untimely and unexpected life-threatening scenarios in the ...

Developing good team skills usually involves exercises with all team members playing their role. This approach is costly and has organizational and educational drawbacks. For the Netherlands army, we developed a more efficient and flexible approach by setting training in virtual environments, and using intelligent software agents to play the role of team members. We developed a general framewor...

This study evaluated the utility of generic teamwork skills training for enhancing the effectiveness of action teams. Results from 65 four-person action teams working on an interdependent command and control simulator revealed that generic teamwork skills training had a significant and positive impact on both cognitive and skill-based outcomes. Trained team members evidenced higher levels of de...