Team Resilience in Complex and Turbulent Environments: The Effect of Size and Density of Social Interactions

Abstract

How are teams able to cope with environmental threats? Why are some teams better than others in facing this challenge? This paper addresses these questions by investigating two drivers of team resilience: the team size and the density of social interactions among team members. We adopt a complex system approach and employ a model of team decision-making where collective dynamics of team members are governed by a continuous-time Markov process. The model simulates team performance in complex and turbulent environments. It is used to measure the resilient ability of team to quickly adapt to disturbance and secure a new more desirable condition. Scenarios characterized by increasing levels of complexity and turbulence are simulated, and the resilience performance is calculated and compared. Results show that the team size negatively affects the team resilience, whilst the density of social interactions plays a positive influence, especially at a high level of complexity. We also find that both the magnitude and the frequency of disturbance moderate the relationship between team size/density and the team resilience.