Emotions and team projects and processes

Purpose – To explore the relationships between emotions and overall team processes and task performance. Design/methodology/approach – The work begins with a literature review of the major studies performed on emotions and their affects on teams. This study then specifically surveys a group of information technology student teams at various stages of a term‐long project to determine their level of feelings in 15 separate emotions at each stage. Also measured are effects of emotions on attitudes towards team processes. Regression analysis was used to measure the significance of several hypotheses. Findings – Overall findings specifically measured the five hypotheses. It was found that team emotions at the start of the project are more positive than negative. Negative emotions grow more than positive over the life of the project. Emotions show increased intensity over the life of the project. Initial emotions did not significantly affect overall team processes. Final emotions somewhat affected overall team processes. Research limitations/applications – The small sample size does limit generalizations but the work can serve as a framework for more extensive and industry situated studies. Practical implications – The work suggests issues related to the impact and evolution of emotions on team projects. Practitioners can begin to focus on efforts that can improve emotions and potentially overall team success. Originality/value – There is little work done on the evolution of emotions and their effects on team processes. The paper begins the dialogue on an important aspect of team dynamics.