Estrutura das redes de relacionamento e desempenho do trabalho em equipe: um estudo com times de futebol brasileiros

Abstract

This work research aims to analyze the relationship between the structure of a team during a football match and its performance. Such objective results from a disturbing question raised by the need of understanding the reasons why a team may have different performance level compared to other teams, using as research object the football environment: What is the relationship between network structure of a team during the football match and their performance? To elaborate on this research question and the search for the scope of the proposed objective its is going to be used the concepts proposed by the Networks Theory (Network Centralization and Density) proposed by Grund (2012) and supplemented by Balkundi and Harrison (2006). The hypotheses are: 1 – The network performance of a football team is positively related to its density; and, 2 - The performance of a football team is negatively related to the degree of centralization of its network. According Grund (2012), high levels of interaction, such as passes numbers among the players of a team during a match, leads to increase the performance of that teams and the centralized interactions into only one player causes a decrease in performance. Balkundi and Harrison (2006), corroborating Grund (2012) label the "performance density phenomenon" the increasing on team performance by the network density and the intensity of interaction among its members. For validating this research, the chosen method is quantitative descriptive one, using as study object two soccer teams, ranked on the first and on the last place in the Paulista’s Football Championship, A1 Series, 2014. The project contribution in the framework of the theory lies in order to offer a new application of the Theory of Networks in a survey of empirical evidence, based on secondary data, about the relationship between the structure of the networks and performance. With regard to management practices, the research should make it possible for football managers the opportunity to rethink their management methods for the improvement of their teams.