Chen, "Relationships of teamwork skills with performance appraisals and salary information in a Taiwanese high-performance work organization," 2002

Hsiang-I Chen, Ph.D.

Abstract (Summary)
Teamwork has become a critical element of many organizations. In an effort to assess the teamwork skills theoretically, practically, and cost-effectively, O'Neil, Wang, Chung, and Herl (1999) developed an English language version self-report teamwork skills questionnaire that views teamwork skills as a trait of individuals. In addition, Weng (2000) developed a Chinese version of this questionnaire. Weng found the Chinese version to have acceptable reliability and validity.

This study extended the work of Weng (2000). His study was extended by adding more items to create the six predicted scales of the teamwork skills questionnaire. The six scales include: adaptability, coordination, communication, decision making, leadership, and interpersonal skills. The purpose of the study was to investigate (1) the reliability and validity of this revised Chinese version of the teamwork skills questionnaire, and (2) the direct and indirect effects of teamwork skills on performance appraisals and salary by using the structural equation modeling.

The study was conducted in Taiwan. A total of 273 employees (152 engineers and 121 assembly line workers) participated. The engineer group was expected to show high levels of teamwork skills (e.g., adaptability, coordination) because teamwork skills are required to accomplish their goals. The other group of assembly line workers was expected to have a lower level of teamwork skills, as teamwork skills are less required for their jobs. Moreover, it was expected that the teamwork skills would have a direct effect on performance appraisal and have an indirect effect on salary. The effects of teamwork skills on bonus were also investigated. SPSS 8.0 (1998) and the structural equation modeling program, EQS (Bentler, 1996) were used to analyze the data.

Overall, engineers reported higher levels of teamwork skills than the assembly line workers. For the structural model, the results showed that the cognitive teamwork skills had a direct effect on performance appraisal and had indirect effects on salary and bonus through its influence on performance appraisal. Implications and suggestions for future research were also provided.

Advisor: O'Neil, Harold, Jr.