Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Group Performance / Ben Weidmann, David J. Deming.

By:

Weidmann, Ben

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w27071.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

J01 - Labor Economics: General

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Abstract: Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to group performance. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their group to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals "team players". Team players score significantly higher on a well-established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education and gender. Social skills - defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect - improve group performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w27071 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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May 2020.

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to group performance. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their group to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals "team players". Team players score significantly higher on a well-established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education and gender. Social skills - defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect - improve group performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.