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.

The Belbin team role preferences of the members of 55 teams were assessed by three independent methods: (1) Cattell's 16PF (Form 5) personality questionnaire, (2) video observation of a business simulation exercise and subsequent analysis with a Belbin behavioural checklist, and (3) Saville and Holdsworth's Occupational Personality Questionnaire. The 338 participants were drawn in approximately equal measure from managerial and non-managerial levels from equal numbers of manufacturing and public service organizations. A multitrait- multimethod correlation matrix derived from the data collected from the participants was employed to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validities of the Belbin team roles. Application of the Campbell and Fiske criteria to the matrix did not produce clear support for discriminant validity. Application of a correlated uniqueness model in a confirmatory factor analysis showed the Belbin team role model to be overparameterized and to lack both convergent and discriminant validity. Further modelling revealed that the Belbin team roles fit easily into a "Big Five" five-factor personality framework

States that organizations are using teams and groups to an increasing extent yet current researchers often use the terms interchangeably, despite literature indicating both that their processes and outputs may be very different, and that these differences may have important consequences. Examines how, in order to differentiate between management teams and groups based on the descriptions of managers’ experience in the workplace, 319 part‐time MBA students completed a checklist comprising 149 adjectives. Analyses showed that both teams and groups were best described by separate one factor solutions. Discusses how teams and groups were described equally as “affective”, “effective”, “energetic” and “flexible”; teams were described as “creative”, “innovative”, and “well rounded”, groups were described as “negotiating”, “networking”, “persuasive”, and “the sum of individual goals”. Posits that such characterizations were taken as suggesting that teams create resources and add to their environments while groups manage and redistribute their resources, and further, that teams have stable, valued interpersonal relations but groups do not.

Ascertains the preferred team roles of a substantial sample of UK managers using Belbin's model. Finds that co-ordinators and resource investigators are present in great numbers, but few completers, monitor evaluators, plants and shapers are encountered. Highlights the significance of this finding for firms seeking to create balanced and, hopefully, optimallystructured teams. Adduces some evidence for the validity of the Belbin team role construct.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Belbin team role scores derived from the 16PF5 personality questionnaire data were obtained from a sample of volunteers drawn from industrial and local authority organizations. The volunteers, comprising male and female managers and non-managers, with approximately equal numbers in each of the four possible categories, were set into teams. Approximately half of the 55 teams comprised solely managers, the other half solely non-managers. The distribution of Belbin team roles over all the teams was not controlled. All teams completed a business game typically used for training managers in team decision making. The distribution of Belbin scores amongst all the volunteers and the results of the business game provided evidence in support of the claim that Belbin's team role theory can be applied to non-managerial personnel.The research register for this journal is available at