The big five model of teamwork and human autonomy teams: a scoping review

Teams play a critical role in society and represent a key area for Human Factors and Ergonomics. Salas et al.'s Big Five model is widely cited; however, the increasing use of Human-Autonomy Teams (HATs) has fuelled debate over its continued relevance. It is important to reflect on how the Big five model has been applied, in what contexts, and whether applications to contemporary teams are emerging. This article presents the findings from a scoping review undertaken to identify and synthesise the peer reviewed literature describing applications of the Big Five model. Articles were deemed eligible for inclusion if they were published in the peer reviewed literature and described an application of the Big Five model to study teamwork. 38 articles were included in the review and no applications of the Big Five model to study HATs were identified. Over half of the studies were undertaken in healthcare and a range of assessment methods have been used (e.g., questionnaires, surveys, interviews, observer-rating scales, communication transcript analysis). Just under a third of included studies evaluated all model components (i.e., the five processes and three coordinating mechanisms) and few considered the relationships between model components or between model components and team effectiveness. Research is required to explore the validity of the Big Five model for HATs, to gather evidence for the relationship between model components and team effectiveness, and to develop more precise Big five-based measures.

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Publication Details

Journal
Applied Ergonomics
Published
2026-02-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2026.104761
Primary Topic
Team Dynamics and Performance
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

The big five model of teamwork and human autonomy teams: a scoping review

Shayne Loft, Gemma J. M. Read, Nancy Cooke, Eduardo Salas et al.
Applied Ergonomics
Team Dynamics and Performance
article

The big five model of teamwork and human autonomy teams: a scoping review

Shayne Loft, Gemma J. M. Read, Nancy Cooke, Eduardo Salas, Scott McLean, Paul M. Salmon, Darcie Hall, Jason Thompson, Brandon King
article en

Abstract

Teams play a critical role in society and represent a key area for Human Factors and Ergonomics. Salas et al.'s Big Five model is widely cited; however, the increasing use of Human-Autonomy Teams (HATs) has fuelled debate over its continued relevance. It is important to reflect on how the Big five model has been applied, in what contexts, and whether applications to contemporary teams are emerging. This article presents the findings from a scoping review undertaken to identify and synthesise the peer reviewed literature describing applications of the Big Five model. Articles were deemed eligible for inclusion if they were published in the peer reviewed literature and described an application of the Big Five model to study teamwork. 38 articles were included in the review and no applications of the Big Five model to study HATs were identified. Over half of the studies were undertaken in healthcare and a range of assessment methods have been used (e.g., questionnaires, surveys, interviews, observer-rating scales, communication transcript analysis). Just under a third of included studies evaluated all model components (i.e., the five processes and three coordinating mechanisms) and few considered the relationships between model components or between model components and team effectiveness. Research is required to explore the validity of the Big Five model for HATs, to gather evidence for the relationship between model components and team effectiveness, and to develop more precise Big five-based measures.

Applied ErgonomicsVol. 135
The University of Melbourne (AU), University of the Sunshine Coast (AU), The University of Western Australia (AU), Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AU), Arizona State University (US), Rice University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 49%
Team Dynamics and Performance
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