TY - JOUR

T1 - Big Hitters

T2 - Important Factors Characterizing Team Effectiveness in Professional Cricket

AU - Hardy, James

AU - Hardy, Lewis

N1 - This Document is Protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permission. This research project was funded by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) through a Doctoral grant endorsed to the first author.

PY - 2017/7/11

Y1 - 2017/7/11

N2 - While organizational psychology attests to the multidimensional nature of teameffectiveness, insight regarding the most important factors contributing to theeffectiveness of sports teams, especially elite teams, is lacking. An abductivemethod of qualitative enquiry was adopted to capture participants’ construal ofteam effectiveness, drawing on the extant literature in both sport and organizational psychology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 players, coaches, and psychologists involved in elite cricket, with resultant data analyzed inductively initially, before being reanalyzed deductively. Although, the narratives endorsed the value of many of the deductively derived factors, other constructs more prominent in organizational psychology (e.g., trust and intra-group conflict) appeared to be more important than traditional sport psychology group factors. The results revealed six broad themes; culture and environment, values, communication, understanding, leadership, and uniqueindividuals, with some gender differences apparent throughout. Based on our elite sample’s construal of team effectiveness, we propose a new model representing a practical, parsimonious, and novel conceptualization of the most important attributes of team effectiveness in cricket, with conceivable transferability to other team sports.

AB - While organizational psychology attests to the multidimensional nature of teameffectiveness, insight regarding the most important factors contributing to theeffectiveness of sports teams, especially elite teams, is lacking. An abductivemethod of qualitative enquiry was adopted to capture participants’ construal ofteam effectiveness, drawing on the extant literature in both sport and organizational psychology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 players, coaches, and psychologists involved in elite cricket, with resultant data analyzed inductively initially, before being reanalyzed deductively. Although, the narratives endorsed the value of many of the deductively derived factors, other constructs more prominent in organizational psychology (e.g., trust and intra-group conflict) appeared to be more important than traditional sport psychology group factors. The results revealed six broad themes; culture and environment, values, communication, understanding, leadership, and uniqueindividuals, with some gender differences apparent throughout. Based on our elite sample’s construal of team effectiveness, we propose a new model representing a practical, parsimonious, and novel conceptualization of the most important attributes of team effectiveness in cricket, with conceivable transferability to other team sports.

KW - Culture

KW - Leadership

KW - Qualitative research

KW - Sport teams

KW - Teamwork

U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01140

DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01140

M3 - Article

VL - 8

JO - Frontiers in Psychology

JF - Frontiers in Psychology

SN - 1664-1078

M1 - 1140

ER -