An Investigation on the Effects of Flow State on Team Process and Outcomes

Abstract

There has been an abundance of research on flow state at the individual level and it is often applied to experiences that are typically intended to be enjoyable (e.g., video games and sports). Research has shown that flow state can also be experienced in traditional work environments and several antecedents to its achievement in such environments have been identified. Despite this, there remains some ambiguity regarding the applicability of flow state to teams. Additionally, the majority of the research regarding the experience of flow state in teams revolves around athletic teams. In this paper an argument is presented towards the view that the effect of flow state on team performance is similar to the effect of flow state on individuals but with an additional impact on team processes. The experiment conducted yielded results suggesting a linkage between team flow state and team processes and performance for a complex planning task.

Keywords

Flow Teams Team Performance Communication Collaboration

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