Personality, Generalized Self-Efficacy & Team Performance: A Study of Rural Development Teams‪.‬

Introduction Teams in organizations are specialized forms of work-groups which are characterized by strong interdependence, autonomy, and shared responsibilities (Guzzo & Dickson 1996). Work teams are being increasingly used in a diverse range of organizations with positive results (Emery & Barker 2007, Neuman & Wright 1999). Researchers have identified cognitive, motivational, and behavioural processes and emergent states that are essential to the effective performance of teams (Kozlowski & Ilgen 2006). Personalities of team members have been found to have considerable influence on group processes (Barrick et. al. 1998, Frederick et. al. 2005, Suzanne 2007). Similarly, self-efficacy beliefs have been found to be robust predictors of learning in training and performance in a wide range of situations (Gist 1987, Stajkovic & Luthans 1998). Team member self-efficacy affects decision making in teams (Jeffery et. al 2003), group cohesion (Pillai & Willaims 2004), and outcome expectancy (Stone & Bailey 2007).