Individual Goal Orientations,Team Empowerment,and Employee Creative Performance: A Case of Cross‐level Interactions

Intrigued by relationship between team motivational context and individual characteristics in the organizational reality, we developed and tested a cross‐level model to investigate the interactive effects of team empowerment and individual goal orientations on individual creative performance through the mediating mechanism of an individual's creative self‐efficacy. Using multi‐wave multi‐source data from 63 R&D teams in three IT companies, we found that (1) team empowerment, individual learning goal orientation, and individual performance orientation are all positively related to individual creative performance through mediation of creative self‐efficacy; (2) learning orientation and performance approach orientation could both supplement the effects of team empowerment on individual creative self‐efficacy. Our findings point to the importance of individual goal orientation in shaping the effects of team motivation climates and provide insights for both scholars and practitioners. The specific practical implications include but are not limited to (1) individuals with learning and performance approach orientations should be identified during hiring procedures given that they could still thrive in less empowered teams and maintain a relatively high level of creative self‐efficacy and creative outcomes; (2) managers should consider assigning employees who are more learning oriented to more empowering and open‐ended tasks in order to obtain better creative results.     

It's what you do and the way that you do it: Team task,team size,and innovation-related group processes

This article describes a study of the relationships between team inputs (task type and team size) and team processes in 87 cross industry Portuguese teams, some of which had high and some low requirements to innovate. Team processes were measured using the Team Climate Inventory (TCI), which focuses on clarity of and commitment to team objectives, levels of participation, support for innovation, and quality emphases. Three hypotheses were tested. The first proposed that teams carrying out tasks with a high innovation requirement would have high scores on a measure of team processes. This was supported insofar as such teams reported higher levels of participation and support for innovation. The second hypothesis proposed that large teams would have poorer team processes. This hypothesis was confirmed. The third hypothesis concerned the interaction between size and innovation. The results suggested that large teams operating under a relatively high pressure to innovate have poorer team processes than large teams that do not have a high requirement to innovate.     

Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport

ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to develop a definition of team resilience and to identify the resilient characteristics of elite sport teams.Design and methodFocus groups consisting of a total of 31 participants were conducted with five elite teams from a range of sports. An interpretive thematic analysis using inductive and deductive reasoning was employed to analyze the data.Results and conclusionsTeam resilience was defined as a dynamic, psychosocial process which protects a group of individuals from the potential negative effect of the stressors they collectively encounter. It comprises of processes whereby team members use their individual and combined resources to positively adapt when experiencing adversity. Findings revealed four main resilient characteristics of elite sport teams: group structure, mastery approaches, social capital, and collective efficacy. This study extends resilience research in sport psychology by providing greater conceptual clarity of resilience at a team level. The implications of the findings for those conducting research in this area and for those consulting with elite sport teams are discussed.     

Individual autonomy in work teams: The role of team autonomy,self-efficacy,and social support

Task autonomy is long recognized as a means to improve functioning of individuals and teams. Taking a multilevel approach, we unravelled the constructs of team and individual autonomy and studied the interplay between team autonomy, self-efficacy, and social support in determining individual autonomy of team members. Hierarchical regression results of a survey among 733 members of 76 health care teams showed that individual autonomy was related not only to the level of team autonomy, but also to self-efficacy and social support. Moreover, results suggested that social support moderates the extent to which team autonomy is incorporated into the individual tasks of team members. In highly autonomous teams, individuals experiencing moderate support from co-workers and supervisors reported higher individual autonomy than members experiencing either low or very high support.     

A multiple-goal, multilevel model of feedback effects on the regulation of individual and team performance

When working as a member of a team, individuals must make decisions concerning the allocation of resources (e.g., effort) toward individual goals and team goals. As a result, individual and team goals, and feedback related to progress toward these goals, should be potent levers for affecting resource allocation decisions. This research develops a multilevel, multiple-goal model of individual and team regulatory processes that affect the allocation of resources across individual and team goals resulting in individual and team performance. On the basis of this model, predictions concerning the impact of individual and team performance feedback are examined empirically to evaluate the model and to understand the influence of feedback on regulatory processes and resource allocation. Two hundred thirty-seven participants were randomly formed into 79 teams of 3 that performed a simulated radar task that required teamwork. Results support the model and the predicted role of feedback in affecting the allocation of resources when individuals strive to accomplish both individual and team goals.     

A MULTILEVEL INVESTIGATION OF LEADER– MEMBER EXCHANGE,INFORMAL LEADER EMERGENCE,AND INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

This study examines the antecedents and outcomes of informal leader emergence in work teams. Drawing upon research in vertical and shared leadership, we hypothesized that the relationship between leader‐‐member exchange (LMX) quality and employees’ emergence as informal leaders is moderated by team shared vision such that there is a positive (negative) LMX—leader emergence relationship for teams with high (low) shared vision. Informal leader emergence, in turn, was expected to relate to higher individual and team performance. Results based on multisource and multimethod data collected at 3 points in time (361 followers in 74 work teams) provided support for these hypotheses. The findings highlight the role played by formal leaders and team shared vision in jointly promoting or inhibiting informal leader emergence and thereby impacting individual performance and team effectiveness.     

A multilevel examination of the relationships among training outcomes, mediating regulatory processes, and adaptive performance

This study examined whether cognitive, affective-motivational, and behavioral training outcomes relate to posttraining regulatory processes and adaptive performance similarly at the individual and team levels of analysis. Longitudinal data were collected from 156 individuals composing 78 teams who were trained on and then performed a simulated flight task. Results showed that posttraining regulation processes related similarly to adaptive performance across levels. Also, regulation processes fully mediated the influences of self- and collective efficacy beliefs on individual and team adaptive performance. Finally, knowledge and skill more strongly and directly related to adaptive performance at the individual than the team level of analysis. Implications to theory and practice, limitations, and future directions are discussed.     

The bigger they are, the harder they fall: Linking team power, team conflict, and performance

Across two field studies, we investigate the impact of team power on team conflict and performance. Team power is based on the control of resources that enables a team to influence others in the company. We find across both studies that low-power teams outperform high-power teams. In both studies, higher levels of process conflict present in high-power teams explain this effect fully. In our second study, we show that team interpersonal power congruence (i.e., the degree to which team members’ self-views of their individual power within the team align with the perceptions of their other team members) ameliorates the relationship between team power and process conflict, such that when team interpersonal power congruence is high, high-power teams are less likely to experience performance-detracting process conflict.     

Empowering Leadership and Effective Collaboration in Geographically Dispersed Teams

Our research integrates theoretical perspectives related to distributed leadership in geographically dispersed teams with empowering leadership theory to build a multilevel model of virtual collaboration and performance in dispersed teams. We test the model with procurement teams in a major multinational corporation. Our results show a significant cross‐level effect of empowering team leadership, such that under conditions of high empowering team leadership, a team member's virtual teamwork situational judgment (VT‐SJ) is positively and significantly associated with his or her virtual collaboration behaviors and also indirectly with his or her individual performance in the team. At the team level, our findings also suggest that the impact of empowering leadership on team members’ aggregate virtual collaboration, and indirectly on team performance, increases at higher levels of team dispersion. These findings shed important light on the role of team leadership in fostering effective collaboration and performance of geographically dispersed virtual teams.     

Goal orientation: effects on backing up behavior, performance, efficacy, and commitment in teams

The author examined the predictive validity of goal orientation in teams on both team process and outcome variables. Results indicate that when mean goal orientation scores were used as a way of describing team members' inputs, learning orientation was related to backing up behavior, efficacy, and commitment. The relationships between performance orientation and efficacy and commitment, however, were more complex and were clarified when task performance was also taken into account. Performance orientation had a negative effect on efficacy when task performance was low and a positive effect on commitment when task performance was high. The implications of these findings for theory and research on goal orientation in teams and team staffing are discussed.     

Investigating a process model for leader affective presence,interpersonal emotion regulation,and interpersonal behaviour in teams

Leader affective presence is the tendency of leaders to elicit feelings that are consistent among other individuals, and has been supported as a relevant personality trait for understanding teamwork. Drawing on a model that integrates personality and emotion regulation, this study aimed to expand research on affective presence by proposing team members’ perceptions of leader interpersonal emotion regulation as a process that explains how leader affective presence is related to team member behaviour. In the model, teamness—the perception that interdependence and reflexivity are required in the team—is presented as a boundary condition to the effects of affective presence via emotion regulation. Results of a study conducted with 99 teams showed that team member ratings of leader positive affective presence were linked to their perceptions that leaders had used affect-improving emotion regulation which in turn was associated with greater team citizenship behaviour. Contrariwise, team member ratings of leader negative affective presence were associated with perceived use of affect-worsening emotion regulation by leaders which in turn was associated with lower levels of team citizenship, but only when teams were low in teamness. These findings contribute to understanding how leaders’ individual differences are related to teamwork through affective processes.     

A multilevel study of leadership, empowerment, and performance in teams

A multilevel model of leadership, empowerment, and performance was tested using a sample of 62 teams, 445 individual members, 62 team leaders, and 31 external managers from 31 stores of a Fortune 500 company. Leader-member exchange and leadership climate related differently to individual and team empowerment and interacted to influence individual empowerment. Also, several relationships were supported in more but not in less interdependent teams. Specifically, leader-member exchange related to individual performance partially through individual empowerment; leadership climate related to team performance partially through team empowerment; team empowerment moderated the relationship between individual empowerment and performance; and individual performance was positively related to team performance. Contributions to team leadership theory, research, and practices are discussed.     

A test of the impact of collective efficacy in routine and novel performance environments

Collective efficacy was predicted to influence coordination processes and team performance in both routine and novel environments. Two hundred thirty‐seven undergraduates from a large mid‐Atlantic university formed 79 three‐member tank platoon teams and participated in a low fidelity tank wargame simulation exercise. Findings indicated that in routine situations, teams with higher levels of collective efficacy evidenced stronger coordination processes, whereas in novel situations teams with lower levels of collective efficacy displayed better coordination processes. Collective efficacy boosted team performance in both routine and novel environments. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to the role of team confidence in challenging performance situations.     

The motivating potential of teams: Test and extension of cross-level model of motivation in teams

Although individual- and team-level studies of motivational processes abound, very few have sought to link such phenomena across levels. Filling this gap, we build upon Chen and Kanfer’s (2006) multilevel theoretical model of motivation in teams, to advance and test a cross-level model of relationships between individual and team motivation and performance. Data from two samples of undergraduates performing simulated team tasks supported the direct and mediated cross-level relationships between team-level prior performance, efficacy, and action processes with individual-level self-efficacy, goal striving, and performance. The findings provide support for a multilevel, system-based formulation of motivation and performance in teams. Findings also contribute to the on-going debate on whether motivational processes account for performance once controlling for prior performance.     

Outcome interdependence shapes the effects of prevention focus on team processes and performance

Although the effects of regulatory focus on individual-level performance have often been studied, relatively little is yet known about team-level effects. Filling this void, we integrate the notion that promotion-focused individuals are concerned with progress and achievement, whereas prevention-focused individuals are concerned with security and vigilance, with the insight that team processes and performance depend on outcome interdependence (individual versus team rewards). The hypothesis that prevention-focused teams react more strongly than promotion-focused teams to differences in outcome interdependence was tested among 50 teams performing an interactive command-and-control simulation. Regulatory focus and outcome interdependence were both manipulated. The results showed that prevention-focused teams working for team rather than individual rewards reported higher work engagement and less error intolerance, coordinated more effectively, and performed better. Promotion-focused teams were not influenced by outcome interdependence. We discuss the implications of our results for theory and effective team management.     

Antecedents of team potency and team effectiveness: an examination of goal and process clarity and servant leadership

Integrating theories of self-regulation with team and leadership literatures, this study investigated goal and process clarity and servant leadership as 3 antecedents of team potency and subsequent team effectiveness, operationalized as team performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Our sample of 304 employees represented 71 teams in 5 banks. Results showed that team-level goal and process clarity as well as team servant leadership served as 3 antecedents of team potency and subsequent team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, we found that servant leadership moderated the relationships between both goal and process clarity and team potency, such that the positive relationships between both goal and process clarity and team potency were stronger in the presence of servant leadership.     

THE EVOLVING MANAGER STEREOTYPE: THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRY GENDER TYPING ON PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS FOR LEADERS AND THEIR TEAMS

This study examined how external evaluators' assessments of a management team and its leader are impacted by congruence between the leader's gender and the gender typing of the industry in which the team works. We experimentally tested our theory using industries that are either male typed or gender neutral, with teams led by male and female leaders. Results indicate that performance expectations for the team were more favorable when the leader's gender was congruent with the industry's gender typing, but expectations for the leader were not affected by gender congruence. These findings paradoxically suggest that evaluators form performance expectations for teams based upon individual characteristics of their leaders, even when these characteristics have no effect on the conscious assessments of the leaders themselves.     

Why individuals in larger teams perform worse

Research shows that individuals in larger teams perform worse than individuals in smaller teams; however, very little field research examines why. The current study of 212 knowledge workers within 26 teams, ranging from 3 to 19 members in size, employs multi-level modeling to examine the underlying mechanisms. The current investigation expands upon Steiner’s (1972) model of individual performance in group contexts identifying one missing element of process loss, namely relational loss. Drawing from the literature on stress and coping, relational loss, a unique form of individual level process, loss occurs when an employee perceives that support is less available in the team as team size increases. In the current study, relational loss mediated the negative relationship between team size and individual performance even when controlling for extrinsic motivation and perceived coordination losses. This suggests that larger teams diminish perceptions of available support which would otherwise buffer stressful experiences and promote performance.     

Using Brunswikian theory and a longitudinal design to study how hierarchical teams adapt to increasing levels of time pressure

Brunswikian theory and a longitudinal design were used to study how three-person, hierarchical teams adapted to increasing levels of time pressure and, thereby, try to understand why previous team research has not necessarily found a direct relationship between team processes and performance with increasing time pressure. We obtained four principal findings. First, team members initially adapted to increasing time pressure without showing any performance decrements by accelerating their cognitive processing, increasing the amount of their implicit coordination by sending more information without being asked and, to a lesser extent, filtering (omitting) certain activities. Second, teams began and continued to perform the task differently with increasing time pressure, yet often achieved comparable levels of performance. Third, time pressure did affect performance because there was a level of time pressure beyond which performance could not be maintained, although that level differed for different teams. And, fourth, some adaptation strategies were more effective than others at the highest time pressure level. Taken together, these findings support the Brunswikian perspective that one should not necessarily expect a direct relationship between team processes and performance with increasing time pressure because teams adapt their processes in different, yet often equally effective ways, in an effort to maintain high and stable performance.     

Type A Personality Characteristics and the Effect on Individual and Team Academic Performance

Type A personality has been conceptualized in part as high need for achievement combined with aggression, hostility, and self-esteem issues. In teams of undergraduate business students, high levels of Type A personality significantly correlated with high levels of depression and high levels of social monitoring; and negatively correlated with social desirability, communality, and individual performance across time. In team settings, the more Type A's were balanced in a team with low Type A's, the more there was team commitment and the more team synergy behaviors; while if teams had a greater number of Type A's, there was more individualistic behavior, and team project scores were lower.