Team adaptability and task cohesion as resources to the non-linear dynamics of workload and sickness absenteeism in firefighter teams

ABSTRACT

The current study builds on the non-linear Dynamic Systems (NDS) perspective to test the assumption that change in sickness absenteeism is non-linear, and that such change is due to workload, team adaptability and task cohesion. Participants were 37 firefighter teams (n = 250 individuals) from a main European capital city. The research hypotheses were tested using SPSS and the “cusp” package, in the statistical software R. The results suggest that change in sickness absenteeism behaviours over time is non-linear, with the cusp catastrophe model predicting such behaviours better than the linear and logistic models. In our model, task cohesion functions as an asymmetry factor (i.e., the independent variable that determines the strength and discrepancy between the two stable states of the dependent variable) leading to a linear change in sickness absenteeism. Interestingly, both workload and team adaptability function as bifurcation (i.e., the independent variable that determines the change between the two stable states of the order parameter) and asymmetry factors leading to non-linear and linear change in sickness absenteeism over time. This study contributes to the growing evidence that incorporating the NDS perspective enables a better understanding of action teams, namely those working in extreme environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Complex adaptive systems
• non-linear dynamic systems
• team adaptability
• task cohesion
• sickness absenteeism

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the action editor and the reviewers for their constructive feedback, which was very helpful in the development of this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank the Lisbon City Hall—Fire Brigade Department, for having agreed with this project. Finally, we would also like to thank the Firefighting men and women that give their best, every day, exchanging one life for another.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [Grant numbers SFRH/BPD/114934/2016 and UID/PSI/04810/2019].