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As described in Working in Groups by Engleberg and Wynn, team role theory is when " members assume roles that are compatible with their personal characteristics and skills.

Dr. Meredith Belbin, a psychologist, first explored the concept of team-role theory in the 1970s when he and his research team went about observing teams and wanted to find out what made teams work and what did not.

According to Belbin and his research team " the research revealed that the difference between success and failure for a team was not dependent on factors such as intellect, but more on behavior " ( Belbin ).

They began to identify separate clusters of behaviors and found that behavior was more influential on a team than anything else.

These separate clusters of behaviors are known as the " Team Roles ".

The nine " team roles " are as follows: coordinator / chairperson, shaper, innovator, resource investigator, monitor / evaluator, implementer, teamworker, completer / finisher, and specialist.