THE EFFECTS OF FAILURE ON SUBSEQUENT GROUP-PERFORMANCE IN A PROFESSIONAL SPORTS SETTING

Recent management theories and research studies have devoted increasin g attention to work teams, usually on the assumption that teams will b e successful. Virtually no research has been focused on the effects of failure on work teams; therefore, we extrapolated theories about fail ure at the individual level to the group level to study subsequent per formance of work teams that had failed. Using a strong-inference metho dology (Platt, 1964), we examined data for all National Football Leagu e games in the United States for three seasons (1987-1988, 1988-1989, and 1989-1990). Among teams that suffered very large losses, subsequen t performance significantly worsened.