In the delivery of assistance in crisis, the recipient of the services is influenced by the nature of the system that delivers the aid. The term system in this thesis is used to describe the individuals, and teams of various organizations who work within an environment with the assistance of technology. The teams-on-site play a critical role in the deliverance of aid. These teams specialize in providing aid through the setting up refugee camps, delivery of food and clothing, protection, and the rebuilding of infrastructure and finally monitoring and maintaining established rehabilitations. Based on a review conducted on existing literature and interactions with relief workers, a need was identified for better preparation and training of the teams-on-site. Taking this need as a starting point, the purpose of this research study was to study the performance attributes of the teams-on-site. Objectives included identifying the factors affecting and contributing to the functioning of the teams-on-site, and quite specifically, the international relief team involved in providing assistance during natural and war disasters. This monograph is not meant to provide conclusive data hut to increase knowledge in the domain and contribute toward future endeavors.

An analysis of the literature on team performance provided a base to propose and develop a framework for the study of team performance in the international relief domain in which the following antecedents were identified: team characteristics, task characteristics, individual influences, organizational influences, technological influences, and environmental influences. Methods employed to gather data were through interviews, questionnaires, observations, and documents. Material was collected from international relief operation leaders, former and current team members, support personnel, and veterans on five different occasions. Analysis concludes that the data supports the framework to a certain extent and further field research needs to be conducted to support findings. However, the monograph has contributed toward the identification of critical elements in the factors that influence team performance and the diminishing the lack of empirical research in this domain. The analysis of the empirical material resulted in a number of findings, for which the most important are summarized below.

The analysis revealed that the findings show support for the idea that studying performance in context can be difficult and complex task. However, studying team performance in context is critical for further improvements within the domain. The need fora holistic approach for identifying training needs was also supported in the findings in this monograph. It demonstrated that there are many integrated factors that contribute toward team performance. Attempting to study it from an integrated perspective proved to be a complex task hut it will be pursued further in the future.