Gagne, Marlyene
O'Neill, Thomas
Klonek, Florian

In this digital, informational age of work, interdependent teams have generally been accepted as the dominant approach to organising workers. Understanding how interdependent teams communicate and coordinate their work is critical to predicting effectiveness and performance. Recent work has applied Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to the context of work teams in a dynamic process-driven model that might elucidate how teams are motivated, and thus, how they come to be effective. This research builds upon this model to validate two separate approaches to examining team communication through the lens of SDT. Study 1 validates a team-level self-report measure designed to capture how teammates support or thwart the psychological needs of each other. Study 2 validates an observational rating scale for assessing team communication through the lens of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviour. Together, these studies offer validated tools for capturing communication in the context of SDT depending on the intended research design. The potential utility and application of these tools is discussed in addition to the presentation of the validation evidence. Ongoing research utilising these measurements tools will also be briefly summarised.

Comfortably utilise the validated tools for their own research.

Understand how Self-Determination Theory might provide an opportunity for analysing team processes and team outcomes.