The effects of strength of relationship, information sharing, instruction orientation, and member resources on resource coordination and performance

The present study examined the effects of strength of relationship, ability differences, amount of shared information, and task orientation on triad resource coordination and performance. A significant main effect was found for ability difference. As ability differences increased there were increases in willingness to divide tasks unequziUy, increases in resource coordinaUon strategy effectiveness, and increases in triad performance. An interaction was found among ability difference, relationship and information sharing for sub-task allocation distribution. As ability differences increased, information sharing strangers, and friends and strangers with no information sharing had more variable allocation distributions than information sharing friends . Results also showed that triads with low task orientations were outperformed by triads with high task orientations as average ability increased. Task orientation had no effect on resource coordination, but regression analysis results showed that resource coordination accounted for more variance (41%) than average ability (22%) in predicting triad performance. It seems that the weighting procedure used by triads to coordinate their average abilities was an important determinant of triad performance. Findings from the present study suggest that triads were more likely to divide sub-tasks appropriately as their ability to use the information on ability difference increased. Bliese (1991) suggested that dyads coordinated their resources more appropriately only after members became comfortable with each other. Findings from the present study suggest that increased comfort had little to do with the appropriate coordination of resources. It was the information processing of triads, not their level of comfort, that determined the allocation distribution. The findings from the present study also suggest that variables that affect triad performance do not necessarily affect the quality of the resource coordination process and vice versa. Prescriptions for team development and future research are given.