The work teams literature is replete with studies examining the antecedents of high performing teams and team development interventions designed to facilitate high levels of performance. Yet many work teams in organizations serially underperform over time, and team members in these situations seem satisfied with their experience on the team. In this extended abstract, we conceptually explore potential reasons behind this discrepancy or divergence in team effectiveness indicators. We consider both internal and contextual antecedents that may influence team members to have positive affective responses to their team, even as their teams remain stalled in mediocre performance trajectories.
