Context-specific definitions of organizational concepts: Defining 'team effectiveness' with use of the Delphi Technique

Definitions are social constructions rather than objective descriptions. They set clear boundaries for what is considered normal in a situation. Common words in organizations, like effectiveness or success, carry different meaningss in different contexts. In this paper, we evaluate the Delphi Technique as a method for explicating context-specific definitions and illustrate its use in formulating a context-specific definition of ‘an effective health care team’. Eight multi-disciplinary organization members participated in the study and reached consensus on characteristics assigned to team effectiveness in three rounds. The final definition implies the influence of organizational values, underscoring the importance of context specificity in organization studies