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Communication in Engineering Teams: Personal Interactions and Role Assignment COMMUNICATION IN ENGINEERING TEAMS: PERSONAL INTERACTIONS AND ROLE ASSIGNMENT A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering Management, University of Canterbury Author KRISTINA NESTSIAROVICH Supervised by DR. DIRK PONS (Primary Supervisor) DR. SID BECKER (Secondary Supervisor) 2020 1 Preface The area of engineering communication has received little dedicated research investigation. In addressing this issue, I have taken the approach of exploring how engineers – in this case mostly engineering students, but also engineers in consulting practices – interact when in meetings. What I discovered by the end of this journey was a set of role descriptions that characterise the types of interactions, and a circumplex arrangement of these roles. I wish to thank my primary supervisor, Dr Dirk Pons. My second supervisor, Dr Sid Becker, although not involved in the day-to-day running of the project, was in the background providing support and willing to be involved as a backup. I extend my thanks to Prof. Colleen Mills for the suggestions about qualitative research methods, and to academics of the department of Mechanical Engineering, who supported me in conducting observations in their student groups. Finally, thank you to all participants, students and engineers alike, who agreed to be observed. Khrystsina (Kristina) Nestsiarovich https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6164-2942 2 Abstract NEED – Communication is understood to be a key professional soft skill for engineers, but the components of communication are defined poorly. The literature on engineering communication is devoted primarily to formal information flows, the medium of communication, and technical documentation. There is comparatively little attention on the process, cognitive and organisational aspects. PURPOSE – The overall objective of this thesis was to develop a model of casual role assignment in the engineering context. Specifically, to identify how participants of engineering project meetings choose and acquire communication behavioural patterns. APPROACH – The research approach used mixed methods – a quantitative exploratory study followed by inductive qualitative analysis. The research consisted of four phases. First, a survey (questionnaire) was used to explore levels of satisfaction in communication of engineering team members (phase 1). Next, a new observational study method was developed to capture behavioural interactions within project meetings (phase 2). This is called the interaction diagram methodology. This methodology was then applied together with a structured interview, questionnaire, and Big Five personality test, to observational studies on student engineers (phase 3), and engineers in consulting firms (phase 4). FINDINGS – This thesis made several original contributions. First, a novel observational method was developed that provides a graphical representation of the interaction flow during meetings and a procedure to quickly analyse communication situations, identify group roles, and compare group activity at different meetings. Second, a new set of 12 team roles was identified for participants at project meetings. These were based on the literature, and further modified by our observations. We proposed that Social sensitivity and Personal satisfaction from communication interact, resulting in four broad levels of team outcome. The best is Team coherence, and the lesser outcomes are identified as Reluctant cohesiveness, Parallel compensation, and Behavioural divergence. Third, observations of team behaviour lead to a new insight into the process of team role assignment, and the creation of a new theoretical construct. This is the Team role circumplex. While circumplexes exist elsewhere in psychology and human development, there is no prior work in the area of engineering team roles. Key features of the new circumplex are the identification of two axes against which all the roles may be placed: Personal Agency/ Communion and Social engagement/ Social Disengagement. Fourth, communication at project meetings at university and in commercial engineering firms was compared and several distinctions in communication patterns were identified. For example, official positions consist mostly of predefined communications in industrial organisations, whereas at university participants have more freedom to choose their communication style. Furthermore, factors influencing project team communication (temporal and permanent) were determined and analysed. These factors included the communication setting of the meeting, team size, location inside meeting places, styles of supervision, and personality and demographic factors (gender differences in communication preferences of engineers). It was observed that participants of engineering project meetings adjusted their communication style to the behaviour of other people or to different communication settings. We supposed that this happens at three different levels: micro-level (grounding processes in conversation), mezzo-level (emotional and rational regulation) and macro-level (over an extended period of time). 3 Publications Published: 1. Nestsiarovich, K.; Pons, D. Interaction diagrams: Development of a method for observing group interactions. Behavioral Sciences, 2019, 9 (1), p. 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9010005 This paper was partially adapted and featured in Chapters 5, 8 and 9. 2. Nestsiarovich, K.; Pons, D. Team Role Adoption and Distribution in Engineering Project Meetings. Behavioral Sciences, 2020, 10 (2), p. 57. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs10020057 This paper was adapted in Chapter 9. 3. Nestsiarovich, K., Pons, D., Becker, S. Communication Adjustment in Engineering Professional and Student Project Meetings. Behavioral Sciences, 2020, 10(7), p. 111. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs10070111 This paper was adapted in Chapter 10. 4 Terminology Artefact (boundary object): An abstract or concrete item of information (such as an engineering drawing, project plan, specification, contract for works, design file, and resource consent documents) used by people within a work community. Circumplex: A circular order of components describing and organising interpersonal behaviour. Communication adjustment: the process of changing a communication behaviour. Communication grounding: reaction to the miscommunication event. Communication interaction: a change of turn-taking among participants or change of conversation addresser. Communion: A tendency to prioritise interpersonal relationships. Adapted from [1]. Density of communication event: Quantity of communication interactions per time unit. Formal communication: A flow of information through channels of organisation, generally containing official messages to one or more people. Implicit communication (non-verbal): The use of body signals (facial expressions, gestures, or voice tone) for better understanding of messages. Informal communication: Not official communication, generally unscheduled, more interactive and with using of informal language. Interaction diagram (ID): A paper diagram with note-taking that provides a representation of communication between team members. Materiality: The physical medium used to store and convey information such as engineering drawings, project plans, specifications, or design files. Miscommunication: A lack of clear and adequate information. Personal agency: The ability of a person to put efforts to make things happen. Adapted from [2]. Slide: A part of an interaction diagram that illustrates team communication in a time interval. Social sensitivity: An aspect of empathy that helps a person to understand feelings of others in a group. Adapted from [3]. Team role: A behavioural pattern that represents how individuals behave in a team or as a way in which people interact with one another while performing a task. Adapted from [4]. Team role adoption: A personal conscious choice of communication behaviour. Team role distribution: A joint allocation of roles based on what the team should accomplish (unconscious process). Technical communication: Engineering work with paper or electronic documentation. 5 Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Publications ................................................................................................................................ 4 Terminology ................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 12 1.1. Background .................................................................................................................... 12 1.2. Professional expectation for communication skills in engineering............................... 12 Graduate attributes (student level) .................................................................................. 13 Professional competencies (practitioner level) ................................................................ 14 Chapter 2. Literature review .................................................................................................... 16 2.1. Overview .......................................................................................................................
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