Rhyme and Reason: Emotional Capability and the Performance of Knowledge-Intensive Work Groups

Organizations greatly depend on the performance of small, autonomous, knowledge-intensive work groups. These groups can be perceived as bundles of knowledge-based resources that reside in the groups' individual members. In addition to developing individual skills and know-how, performance of knowledge-intensive work groups depends on the successful integration of diverse individual skills. In particular, the integration of highly specialized individual knowledge can occur only when groups foster an atmosphere that encourages cooperation and divergent thinking. In this article, we develop a general model on the role of emotions in knowledge-intensive work groups by integrating literatures in the areas of psychology, organizational behavior, organization theory, and strategic management. Intense social interactions within knowledge-intensive work groups, and the turbulence that characterize their environments, generate many events that elicit emotions among group members. Moreover, through social interaction, emotions transmit from member to member. Consequently, it is critical that knowledge-intensive work groups develop emotional capability, or the ability to recognize and regulate emotions of group members.     

供应链伙伴间的信任、承诺对合作绩效的影响

本文通过问卷调查的方式探讨供应链伙伴间的信任、关系承诺对合作绩效的影响。研究结果显示组织信任、个人信任与合作绩效存在正相关关系,组织信任通过关系承诺对合作绩效的间接影响明显高于其直接影响,个人信任通过关系承诺对合作绩效的间接影响明显不及其直接影响。     

When leader–member exchange differentiation improves work group functioning: The combined roles of differentiation bases and reward interdependence

Drawing on social hierarchy theory, we develop a contingency model of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation in which LMX differentiation is positively and negatively related to group cooperation and group social undermining, respectively, when it is based on the group members’ performance, but the relations are reversed (i.e., negative and positive, respectively) when it stems from a leader's personal liking of the members. In addition, we propose that the moderating effects of the performance and personal liking bases of LMX differentiation are magnified by the levels of reward interdependence. Specifically, under a high (vs. low) level of reward interdependence, LMX differentiation based on performance more strongly relates to high group cooperation and low group social undermining, whereas LMX differentiation with a personal liking basis is more likely to decrease group cooperation and increase group social undermining. Group cooperation and social undermining are then hypothesized to convey the three‐way interactive effects of LMX differentiation, its two bases, and reward interdependence on subsequent group performance. Analyses of data from 328 sales groups of a large retailer support the core part of our contingency model of LMX differentiation.     

The influence of norms and social identities on children's responses to bullying

Background. Research on bullying increasingly focuses on social processes, showing that group membership affects children's responses to bullying scenarios. Additionally, correlational research has shown links between norms of cooperation and prosocial behaviour, and between competition and more aggressive forms of behaviour. Aims. This paper focuses on how children's peer group membership affects their group‐based emotions in response to an intergroup bullying incident, and the action tendencies that these emotions predict, in the context of different background norms (for competitive or cooperative behaviour). Sample. Italian schoolchildren, 10–13 years old (N= 128, 65 males) took part in this study. Methods. Participants were randomly assigned to the group of a perpetrator, target, or third‐party group member described in a scenario. Next, they played a game designed to induce a cooperative, competitive, or neutral norm, and read the scenario. They then answered a questionnaire measuring their group‐based emotions. Results. Results underscored the role of norms and group processes in responses to bullying. In particular, children exposed to a cooperative norm expressed less pride and more regret and anger about the bullying than those in other conditions. Conclusions. This study indicates that the influence peer groups have on bullying may be tempered by the introduction of a cooperative normative context to the school setting.     

Social Context and the Dynamics of Cooperative Choice

Recent work using decontextualized economic games suggests that cooperation is a dynamic decision‐making process: Automatic responses typically support cooperation on average, while deliberation leads to increased selfishness. Here, we performed two studies examining how these temporal effects generalize to games with richer social context cues. Study 1 found that time pressure increased cooperation to a similar extent in games played with in‐group members and out‐group members. Study 2 found that time pressure increased cooperation to a similar extent in games described as competitions and games described as collaborations. These results show that previous positive effects of time pressure on cooperation are not unique to neutrally framed games devoid of social context and are not driven by implicit assumptions of shared group membership or cooperative norms. In doing so, our findings provide further insight into the cognitive underpinnings of cooperative decision making. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Seeing is believing”: The effects of facial expressions of emotion and verbal communication in social dilemmas

In social dilemmas, verbal communication of one's intentions is an important factor in increasing cooperation. In addition to verbal communication of one's intentions, also the communication of emotions of anger and happiness can influence cooperative behavior. In the present paper, we argue that facial expressions of emotion moderate verbal communication in social dilemmas. More specifically, three experiments showed that if the other person displayed happiness he or she was perceived as honest, trustworthy, and reliable, and cooperation was increased when verbal communication was cooperative rather than self‐interested. However, if the other person displayed anger, verbal communication did not influence people's decision behavior. Results also showed interactive effects on people's perceptions of trustworthiness, which partially mediated decision behavior. These findings suggest that emotion displays have an important function in organizational settings because they are able to influence social interactions and cooperative behavior. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing Competing Models of Sales Force Communication

Based upon findings from the organizational communication, management, and marketing literatures, this study evaluates three competing models describing sales force communication. The results of the analysis suggest that the theorized PEO (Sales Manager Communication Practices? Sales Force Communication Environment? Salesperson Communication and Job Outcomes) Model best accounts for the relations between sales manager communication practices and salesperson communication and job outcomes. Specifically, the PEO Model holds that sales manager communication practices are positively associated with salesperson perceptions of communication quality. Communication quality is positively associated with salesperson satisfaction with communication; salesperson communication satisfaction is positively related to salesperson's job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These results and their implications for developing an effective sales force communication environment are detailed.     

A Repertoire of Marketers' Trust-Building Strategies Within The Sales-Marketing Interface

Examining how sales and marketing personnel interrelate is analogous to studying intergroup cooperation wherein two groups – sales and marketing – are required to work cooperatively to achieve specific firm-level objectives. While extensive literature in psychology and management has implied that trust is an important precursor of enhanced intergroup cooperation, no extant scholarly work has explicated the specific activities sales and marketing personnel may engage in to build trust within the sales-marketing interface (SMI). We use qualitative methodology and in-depth interview data collected from 29 sales and marketing executives in Saudi Arabia to investigate the specific activities that may help marketers build trust with their sales counterparts and signal to them that they are a dependable partner. Study findings suggest that when marketers (a) act as salespeople's ambassadors to senior leaders; (b) stay invested in salespeople's success; and (c) act as a semipermeable barrier between salespeople and the leadership, they are able to engender trust with salespeople. In addition to providing a preliminary thesis regarding how marketers may build trust within SMI, study findings highlight how the specific trust-building activities may contribute to strategic phenomena such as marketing-strategy making, sales buy-in of marketing strategies, and organizational learning.     

Sharing moral values: anticipated ingroup respect as a determinant of adherence to morality-based (but not competence-based) group norms

This research examines how moral values regulate the behavior of individual group members. It argues that group members behave in line with moral group norms because they anticipate receiving ingroup respect when enacting moral values that are shared by ingroup members. Data from two experimental studies offer evidence in support. In Study 1 (N = 82), morality-based (but not competence-based) ingroup norms determined whether members of a low-status group opted for individual versus collective strategies for status improvement. This effect was mediated by anticipated ingroup respect and emerged regardless of whether group norms prescribed collectivistic or individualistic behavior. These effects were replicated in Study 2 (N = 69), where no comparable effect was found as a result of moral norms communicated by a higher status outgroup. This indicates that social identity implications rather than interdependence or more generic concerns about social approval or importance of cooperation drive these effects.     

How communication increases interpersonal cooperation in mixed-motive situations

Evidence from two experiments indicates that task-related communication promotes cooperation in mixed-motive situations by activating interpersonal norms related to fairness and trust. In Experiment 1, task-related communication increased cooperation between individuals in a three-choice prisoner’s dilemma game (PDG-Alt) but task-unrelated communication did not. In Experiment 2, cooperation was increased both by sending a task-related message to one’s counterpart and receiving a cooperative task-related message from one’s counterpart. Mediation analyses revealed that task-related communication increased cooperation by activating fairness and trust norms (Experiments 1 and 2). Specifically, whereas sending (relative to receiving) a task-related message increased cooperation by activating fairness norms, receiving (relative to sending) a task-related message increased cooperation by activating trust norms (Experiment 2).     

Characteristics of affected third parties and cooperative behavior in social dilemmas

ABSTRACT

The studies described in this article explore the influence of an under-emphasized determinant of cooperative behavior in social dilemmas: affected third parties. Two experiments examined the effect of characteristics of third parties on individual cooperative behavior in social dilemmas, and identified mechanisms associated with these relationships. Study 1 demonstrated that third-party need affects individual cooperative behavior, and tested prosocial motivation and intra-group trust as mediators of this relationship. Study 2 provided further elaboration by demonstrating that individual cooperative behavior was reduced when a needy third party was low on reliability, and by showing that prosocial motivation and intra-group trust mediated this relationship. This research connects the literatures on individual cooperation in social dilemmas and relational job design, and demonstrates why third parties influence individuals’ cooperative behavior.     

Group transformation: How demonstrability promotes intra-group cooperation in social dilemmas

Intra-group cooperation in a social dilemma is increased after a group has discussed and reached a decision, especially if the dilemma is easily understood (‘demonstrable’). This paper examines how demonstrability affects the decision of a group that consists entirely of participants who are initially non-cooperative. Thirty-eight 6-person groups with unanimous prior preference for cooperation or non-cooperation discussed a prisoner’s dilemma before making a group decision. When demonstrability was low groups reflected the prior (either cooperative or non-cooperative) preferences of their members. When demonstrability was high we found that groups showed no effect of prior preference. Specifically, groups of prior non-cooperators made more cooperative group decisions and subsequently their members remained cooperative when asked to express preferences individually. The combined advantages of group process and high demonstrability for facilitating optimal cooperation are discussed.     

Sales manager cost control engagement: antecedents and performance implications

Many organizations face competing agendas by which they are expected to simultaneously grow sales output while controlling associated costs. At the interface of this organizational pressure and the sales force’s implementation of such initiatives is the sales manager. However, questions with significant implications remain regarding how a sales manager’s requisite engagement with cost control affects sales performance. To address this issue, the authors conceptualize and operationalize the notion of sales manager cost control engagement. Results from a survey of 178 business-to-business sales managers show the antecedent and consequence effects of sales manager cost control engagement. A variety of organizational factors are shown to effectively direct the sales manager’s attention to cost control, which in turn has a positive impact on cost-related sales performance. These findings add to an emergent body of research aimed at understanding key skills required of sales managers for driving sales performance as well as provide a novel perspective for sales managers to consider when balancing pressures between cost inputs and sales outputs. Several theoretical and managerial implications are offered, as are future research directions.     

Individual and structural origins of friendship and social position among professionals

Friendship affects individual and organizational well-being through direct relations, social positions, and complex network structures. In this study, the authors use longitudinal data from 2 groups of master's of business administration students to increase understanding of how friendship networks develop. The authors propose and test a dynamic model in which attribute similarity facilitates dyadic friendship ties, as well as similar network centrality and social position; early friendship increases later similarity in structural position and centrality; and early structural similarity enhances the likelihood of future friendship. Findings largely supported the model, demonstrating how homophily and early social contacts can jointly shape maturing friendship networks.     

Social Capital and Organizational Commitment

Organizational scientists have been investigating the role of human relationships vis-à-vis firm productivity for some years. Recently, Social Capital has been theorized to play a central part in the reduction of organizational transaction costs. We briefly position Social Capital among several theories claiming a role for interpersonal capital, review its theoretical nuances, and test this theoretical structure using a sample of 469 sales professionals from a leading medical services firm. Our findings indicate that trust, communication, and employee focus have significant direct and moderate indirect affects on organizational commitment.     

Social Context in HCl: A New Framework for Mental Models,Cooperation, and Communication

This article considers current research in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer-mediated communication (CMC), and distributed artificial intelligence (DAl). These areas need an articulated model of social contexts to bridge the persisting gap between social and technological dimensions in computer system design and use. A conceptual model of context is presented to account for both cooperation-conflict and communication-negotiation processes. The model conceives of contexts as including not only physical objects and other people but also social norms which influence both individuals and organizations. It assumes that computer system use occurs in social scenarios in which the features cannot be reduced to any type of input or data in the world that designers and users can process along with other information coming from the current task. The model is built on three levels: from social contexts as normative order (Level 1), to specific and intrinsically complex situations (Level 2), to person-computer interactions for the performance of particular tasks (Level 3). The model has three main implications. First, Human-Computer Interaction (HCl) studies—especially scenario-based design—may profit from a fresh topdown approach to designers' and users' mental models taking into account normative social processes which have been neglected in previous research. Second, CSCW may realize how deeply discrepant perspectives affect multi-agent environments and why in real working life negotiation is intertwined with cooperation. Designers may use this insight to design systems allowing more place for negotiation among actors. Third, we should dismiss the view that CMC lacks adequate social cues and fosters impulsive behavior. Cognitive processes such as categorization, stereotype construction, and social identification can make electronic environments even more strongly sensible to social norms than face-to-face communication. Context, according to our model, is not restricted to the physical copresence of other people but consists mainly of processes providing situations with socially recognizable meaning.     

Adaptive Flexibility,Cooperation, and Prosocial Motivations: The Emotional Foundations of Becoming Human

ABSTRACT

Humans are highly motivated to cooperate, share, and help others. The evidence for this claim comes from examining prosocial behaviors as they show up very early in development, and by systematic comparisons between young children and mankind’s closest great ape relatives. Highly cooperative and social species that care for kin and nonkin members of their group are rare in nature and call for an evolutionary explanation. Based on the work of Michael Tomasello and others, I offer a possible explanation based on a two-phase model. The first phase of the evolution of cooperation and sociability is induced by climate change taking place during a critical period of human evolution. Climate variability produced shifts from wet, monsoon landscapes to dry and arid landscapes in East Africa, the home of many of humanity’s ancestors. Shifting environmental conditions produced selective pressures favoring adaptive flexibility and forced cooperation and interdependence among our hominin ancestors, who had to search for food (cooperative foraging) and protect each other from predators. Forced interdependence came together with two biosocial adaptations: a cooperative form of raising young children (cooperative breeding) and long-term mating patterns (pair bonding). These biosocial adaptations help explain how the species might have begun to develop emotionally modern intersubjective mind-reading capacities. During a second phase of the evolution of cooperation, the emergence of shared social norms, social reputations, the cumulative effects of cultural knowledge passed on over many generations, and cultural differences produced a new form of evolution: cultural evolution. In turn, cultural evolution produced a new cycle of innovations consisting of symbolic capacities and language. When it comes to psychotherapy, the same conditions that made one human—adaptive flexibility, cooperation, helping others and mutual enjoyment in sharing—are the same conditions that make for a strong therapeutic alliance.     

人际同步对合作行为的促进机制及解释模型

同步作为集体仪式的核心要素, 对群体生存和发展具有重要意义。人际同步是一种特殊的协调行为, 具有锁时锁相的特征。近年来研究发现同步能够促进合作等亲社会行为, 具体的促进机制包括神经生理的激活、社会联结感的增强、认知灵敏度的提高和积极情绪的唤起, 学者们也从不同角度提出了三种不同的解释模型：自我-他人重叠模型、合作加强模型和集体沸腾模型。未来的研究需要进一步剖析同步行为的亲社会功能, 厘清同步效应的调节机制、特异性和普适性。     

The perceived value of team players: a longitudinal study of how group identification affects status in work groups

Theory and research on status attainment in work groups primarily focuses on members’ abilities and characteristics that make them appear competent as predictors of their status in the group. We complement the abilities perspective with a social identity perspective by arguing that another important determinant of a member’s status is based on the extent to which the member serves the group’s interests. Specifically, we assert that a member’s identification with the group affects performance on behalf of the group, which in turn affects other members’ assessment of the member’s status. We test this social identity perspective on status attainment by studying the influence of members’ group identification on their performance and status in the group, while controlling for the members’ abilities and status characteristics. In a three-wave longitudinal field study following 33 work groups during a six-month group project, we find that members’ identification enhances their performance on behalf of the group, which in turn increases their status within the group. As such, our study advances insights in the determinants of status attainment in work groups and points to the relevance of the social identity approach for research on the antecedents of status in work groups.