Multiple interdependencies and workgroup effectiveness

In this thesis I focus on the question how the alignment of interdependency leads to an effective level of performance in work groups or teams. For the continuance of every organization it is important to organize individuals so that their actions are aligned (Heath & Staudenmayer, 2000). In this thesis I claim that the relationship between coordination and effectiveness is still not clearly understood and lacks theoretical clarity and empirical evidence. Where most of the management and organizational design literature focused only on the functional task interdependencies, I suggest that in order to gain more understanding of the complex coordination-performance relationship in groups, other more social types of interdependence need to be considered as well. I introduce in addition to functional interdependence, the constructs of cognitive and affect-based interdependence. I studied the main and integrative effects of these three interdependencies on individual and group performance in three organizational settings.