| In the last 20 years, there has been a great deal of interest by researchers on the topics of teams and team performance. This interest has sprung up because teamwork has become a critical element in many modern organizations. It is therefore not difficult to see why the topic of teamwork measurement has been gaining interest in recent years. Without accurate, reliable, and cost-effective measurement tools of teamwork skills, it is difficult to select, train, or manage team members. Unfortunately, there is no feasible way to measure teamwork skills directly without having individuals participate in a team. Computer simulation approaches, although technically feasible, are not cost-effective for many environments. For these reasons, O'Neil et al. (1999) developed a paper-and-pencil, 10-minute self-report questionnaire that measures teamwork skills as a trait of individuals.; This study attempts to replicate and extend the O'Neil et al. (1999) study in an international setting. It was conducted in Taiwan in two phases. The first phase, a pilot study (N = 338), was completed to ensure the adequacy of the Chinese translation and to provide some reliability and validity information for the questionnaire. The analyses indicated reasonable reliability and validity for the Chinese version of the teamwork questionnaire. In the second phase, the main study, a total of 372 employees (134 engineers and 238 assembly line workers) from a Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company participated. The study expected that the engineering group would show high levels of teamwork skills, as teamwork was required to be successful in engineering jobs. On the other hand, the assembly line group was expected to show a low level of teamwork, as less was required in the assembly workers' job. Team scores of both groups on the questionnaire were obtained and compared for differences. In addition, teamwork skills were expected to be positively associated with salary and the participants' performance appraisal scores. Overall, all hypotheses were supported. The results suggested that the Chinese revised teamwork skills questionnaire displayed good reliability and promising validity with a Taiwanese sample. |
