We are excited to introduce Selina Stracke, a PhD student who recently visited us here down under, all the way from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Get to know Selina through our short Q&A and learn more about her research.
âď¸Tell me a bit about yourself?
ď§I am Selina, 29, living in Munich. I have a passion for the stories of other people, so I love listening about their experiences, mindsets etc. ď§I also love Australia, it seems like the perfect mix of diversity, productive work, chilled places, awesome people, and, obviously amazing beaches.
âď¸What will you do / are you doing at CTWD / FOWI?
ď§Connected with amazing people, talked about research but also other things. Primarly, I investigated the potential impact of AI on team effectiveness.
âď¸How did you find the experience?
ď§I loved my experience at FOWI, especially the fact that there were many social events that made me feel comfortable with most of the people really quickly.
âď¸What does the future of work look like to you?
ď§I hope that the future of work will look like the perfect balance of work and life, where borders are really clear. This will be achieved through shorter work weeks, more flexibility, but also lots of opportunities to socialize still.
âď¸If you were a book or a movie, what would it be?
ď§Probably Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse â constantly on the search for new things about myself.
âď¸One thing not many people know about you?
ď§I participated in a robot world cup at some point with my team (just did the research part though)!
Selina's seminar, titled "Immersed in Negativity: The Concept and Effects of Collective Rumination in Teams," delves into the emerging field of collective rumination and its impact on organizational outcomes.
Hereâs an overview of what was covered in her research seminar:
Research on collective rumination has recently been proposed to affect organizational outcomes. However, the extent to which collective rumination manifests in teams and consequently affects their functioning has yet to be explored. Therefore, this research investigates collective rumination in teams, defined as excessive and repetitive discussions about work-related problems.
First, based on rumination theory and exploratory semi-structured interviews, we aim to propose a conceptual model of collective rumination in teams and identify its core dimensions. Second, drawing on the theory of group emotions, we build and test a research model about collective rumination and its impact on team functioning.
To investigate our model, we developed and validated a 15-item measure of collective rumination through three studies involving 720 team members (Studies 1 & 2) and 58 teams (Study 3). We are now about to test it in a three-wave study with 40 teams (Study 4). Our results show that collective rumination in teams is negatively related to team cohesion, team work engagement, and team performance, partly mediated by team negative affect.
Our work contributes to the rumination and group (emotion) literature and informs practice on how to identify and counteract collective rumination in work teams.
We are thrilled to have Selina share her research and insights with us. We look forward to seeing her thrive in the field of work design and team effectiveness research.