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S. G. Fisher, T. A. Hunter and W. D. K. Macrosson*
University of Strahclyde, Glasgow G4 0LN, Scotland
Belbin's original management team model requires the presence of eight individuals, each of whom shows a facility for a particular role. Because many teams in industry have fewer than eight members, the issue of secondary team roles is important. A study was undertaken of data collected from UK managers (N= 1796) which showed that team roles fall into two general categories and which we labelled 'task' and 'relationship'. These categories, which reveal the likely secondary team role for any given individual, were also shown to predict the degree of harmony and productiveness of dyads within a given team.
Belbin's management team model in its earlier form (Belbin, 1981) described the ideal team as a group of individuals who could fulfil the eight, and later (Belbin, 1993), nine team roles which he had identified. He also suggested (Belbin, 1981, pp. 116) that 'a team of six . . . was found . . to be the most suitable for enabling a management team to tackle a complex problem', a proposal which implied that some team members would need to operate in more than one role. How difficult it might be for team members to operate in more than one role was addressed by Belbin (1981, p. 115) when he reported that he had `observed that most competent managers seem to be able to function well in both a primary and secondary team role'. A question arising from this observation is `Do any sets of management team roles frequently occur together, and, if so, does this indicate some underlying construct which, perhaps, could be identified?' Belbin (1981, p. 140) gave some pointers on this issue when he stated that the 'shaper' and `team worker' were an `unlikely . . combination', but implied that 'chairman' and `team worker', 'plant' and `monitor evaluator', and `team worker' and `company worker' were combinations which would, probably, be found together. His pointers were few and tentative, but we suspected that some basic principle does exist which unifies the team role model, and that such a principle could be identified. Should this generality be isolated it would enable practitioners to make better predictions...