Team composition and team performance: Achieving better results in an international higher education environment

Abstract

In line with former experiments, this stud), covers a period of four years (2008-2012) while teaching Project Management courses to international students at Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences, Finland - aiming to explore the possibility to apply the Belbin's theory on building successful small project teams in a multicultural higher education environment - in order to achieve better results - in terms of both satisfaction and performance. Besides exploring this possibility, the study has as objectives: (i) to assess the students' performance while working in teams; (ii) to assess the students' satisfaction of working in teams built according to different criteria; (iii) to check if there is any relationship between team members' performance and the way team is built. The influence of the cultural background was behind the scope of this work. The results are positive: the theory is applicable in the above conditions,. students' satisfaction depends on the way the team is built; building the teams according to the theory of team members' roles leads to better performance. The results of the study are important jar academic researchers as well as practitioners - higher education professors and decision makers, aiming at improving the quality of the higher education processes.