ACHIEVING STYLES AS A GAUGE FOR CO-WORKER PRODUCTIVITY IN COLLEGE STUDENT CO-CURRICULAR ENVIRONMENTS

This study focused on the Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (L-BLA) model of achieving styles. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between co-worker achieving style compatibility (as measured by the Achieving Styles Inventory - ASI) and productivity of paired college students (as measured by the Desert Survival Problem - DSP). Significant results would support the use of the L-BLA achieving styles model as a discriminating filter for assigning effective work groups. A pool of 282 undergraduate students involved in co-curricular activities participated in this study. Each subject took the ASI in its three forms; SELF, LPC and MPC. From the scores of these inventories, subjects were assigned a SELF, LPC (least preferred co-worker) and MPC (most preferred co-worker) achieving style correlating to the highest style score for each subject's inventory. From this pool of subjects, three subsets of 20 pairs each were randomly formed. One pool consisted of complementary pairs of students, each possessing the other's MPC achieving style. Another group consisted of disharmonic pairs of students, each possessing the other's LPC achieving style. The final group consisted of randomly assigned pairs of students. Each pair engaged in the DSP. Scores from the DSP were analyzed to test the following hypotheses: (1)(a) The outcome of paired achievement will be greater when compatible achieving styles are matched. (b) The outcome of paired achievement will be even greater when compatible achieving styles equal the subjects' own achieving styles. (2) The outcome of paired achievement will be less when incompatible achieving styles are matched. The results of the three forms of the ASI (SELF, LPC and MPC) indicate discrimination among a subjects SELF, LPC and MPC achieving styles. Yet when using them as a sorting filter for assigning teams to engage in the DSP, statistics run on the DSP scores were found to be non-significant. These results indicate that presently there is no support for using the L-BLA achieving styles model as a sorting filter for designing effective work groups.