Examining Project Commitment in Cross-Functional Teams: Antecedents and Relationship with Team Performance

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to test a model positing both antecedents and consequences of project commitment for members of cross-functional teams. Signaling theory and previous research guided study hypotheses.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We collected primary data from 142 team members and 31 team leaders across 24 cross-functional product development teams nested within six manufacturing organizations in the US and Canada.

Findings

Findings suggest that project commitment among team members is an important driver of team performance as rated by the team leader. In addition, several factors contribute toward shaping project commitment among cross-functional team members, including team leaders’ encouragement of self-expectation, as well as team members’ perceptions of an organization’s support for the team project.

Implications

Cross-functional teams are often charged with completing projects critical to the profitability, growth, and even survival of a firm. Especially as we show that members’ project commitment is a meaningful predictor of team performance, managers may draw insight from study results as to what actions may be taken to promote the development of this important psychological state among members of cross-functional teams.

Originality/Value

Use of cross-functional teams for accomplishing a wide variety of firm objectives is becoming commonplace in organizations. Although theorized as an important construct in cross-functional team settings, empirical examinations of the nature and implications of project commitment have been limited. By examining both antecedents and potential team performance consequences of project commitment in multiple organizations, we contribute toward filling this gap.     

Relapse/Recurrence Prevention in Major Depressive Disorder: 26-Month Follow-Up of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Versus an Active Control

We conducted a 26-month follow-up of a previously reported 12-month study that compared mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to a rigorous active control condition (ACC) for depressive relapse/recurrence prevention and improvements in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Participants in remission from major depression were randomized to an 8-week MBCT group (n = 46) or the ACC (n = 46). Outcomes were assessed at baseline; postintervention; and 6, 12, and 26 months. Intention-to-treat analyses indicated no differences between groups for any outcome over the 26-month follow-up. Time to relapse results (MBCT vs. ACC) indicated a hazard ratio = .82, 95% CI [.34, 1.99]. Relapse rates were 47.8% for MBCT and 50.0% for ACC. Piecewise analyses indicated that steeper declines in depressive symptoms in the MBCT vs. the ACC group from postintervention to 12 months were not maintained after 12 months. Both groups experienced a marginally significant rebound of depressive symptoms after 12 months but were still improved at 26 months compared to baseline (b = –4.12, p <= .008). Results for life satisfaction were similar. In sum, over a 26-month follow-up, MBCT was no more effective for preventing depression relapse/recurrence, reducing depressive symptoms, or improving life satisfaction than a rigorous ACC. Based on epidemiological data and evidence from prior depression prevention trials, we discuss the possibility that both MBCT and ACC confer equal therapeutic benefit. Future studies that include treatment as usual (TAU) control conditions are needed to confirm this possibility and to rule out the potential role of time-related effects. Overall findings underscore the importance of comparing MBCT to TAU as well as to ACCs.     

Global Collaborative Team Performance for the Revision of the International Classification of Diseases: A Case Study of the World Health Organization Field Studies Coordination Group

Background/Objective: Collaborative teamwork in global mental health presents unique challenges, including the formation and management of international teams composed of multicultural and multilingual professionals with different backgrounds in terms of their training, scientific expertise, and life experience. The purpose of the study was to analyze the performance of the World Health Organization (WHO) Field Studies Coordination Group (FSCG) using an input-processes-output (IPO) team science model to better understand the team's challenges, limitations, and successes in developing the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Method: We thematically analyzed a collection of written texts, including FSCG documents and open-ended qualitative questionnaires, according to the conceptualization of the input-processes-output model of team performance. Results: The FSCG leadership and its members experienced and overcame numerous barriers to become an effective international team and to successfully achieve the goals set forth by WHO. Conclusions: Research is necessary regarding global mental health collaboration to understand and facilitate international collaborations with the goal of contributing to a deeper understanding of mental health and to reduce the global burden of mental disorders around the world.     

Assessing Emotion Regulation in Social Anxiety Disorder: The Emotion Regulation Interview

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is thought to involve emotional hyper-reactivity and emotion dysregulation. However, the precise nature of the emotion dysregulation in SAD has not been well characterized. In the present study, the Emotion Regulation Interview (ERI) was developed to quantify the frequency and self-efficacy of five emotion regulation strategies specified by Gross’s (Review of General Psychology 2: 271–299, 1998) process model of emotion regulation. Forty-eight individuals with SAD and 33 healthy controls (HCs) were interviewed about responses during (a) a laboratory speech task and (b) two recent social anxiety-evoking situations. Individuals with SAD reported greater use of avoidance and expressive suppression than HCs, as well as lesser self-efficacy in implementing cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. These regulation deficits were not accounted for by differences in emotional reactivity. These findings highlight specific emotion regulation deficits in SAD, and support the idea that the Emotion Regulation Interview may be usefully applied to other clinical disorders.     

Faith and the practising analyst

Abstract: In this brief essay, I reflect on three questions: What is ‘faith’ in a modern and post‐modern cultural context? Do I, a Jungian analyst, have ‘faith’ or do I not? Does having ‘faith’ or not make a difference in the practice of analysis? I make reference to Jung's understanding of ‘faith’ and his frequent disclaimers about making metaphysical claims. I conclude that a post‐credal ‘faith’ is possible for contemporary Jungian analysts, that I do have such a faith personally, and that in my experience this makes a significant difference in analytic practice at least with some patients. Traditional faith statements must be translated into depth psychological terms, however, in order for them to be applicable in post‐modern, multicultural contexts.     

Superior encoding enhances recall in color-graphemic synesthesia

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which particular stimuli, such as letters or sound, generate a secondary sensory experience in particular individuals. Reports of enhanced memory in synesthetes raise the question of its cognitive and neurological substrates. Enhanced memory in synesthetes could arise from the explicit or implicit use of a synesthetic cue to aid memory, from changes unique to the synesthete brain, or from both, depending on the task. To assess this question, we tested nine color-graphemic synesthetes using standardized neuropsychological measures that should not trigger color-graphemic synesthesia (visuo-spatial tests) and measures that should trigger color-graphemic synesthesia (verbal tasks). We found a synesthetic advantage on both types of tests, primarily in the initial encoding of information. The pattern of results adds to existing evidence of advantages in synesthetic memory, as well as provides novel evidence that synesthetes may have enhanced encoding rather than superior recall. Synesthetes learn more initially, rather than forgetting less over time.     

What is The Red Book for analytical psychology?

Abstract: The Red Book enters the field of analytical psychology belatedly, yet presents itself as a foundational text. In this paper, I try to estimate how it will affect the field and to reflect on how it can be used by contemporary readers and clinicians. Jung's own works remain the baseline for theorizing and teaching the fundamental perspectives of analytical psychology, and yet the field has grown far beyond his own contributions. Is this late inheritance of central value or only of peripheral interest for the field? It can be used in various ways and certainly shows many interesting features that link it to Jung's later works, but does it detract or does it add? And if it adds, what does it add? In The Red Book, Jung is speaking to us from the grave. What is he saying? In this paper, I explore how it can be used as an inspirational text for keeping alive the spirit of the ancestors in the field and for linking the present to the deep past.     

Institutional Affiliation and Satisfaction Among Feminist Professors

Do feminist professors of psychology who teach at women's colleges derive more satisfaction from their academic lives than feminist professors who teach at coed colleges or at (coed) universities? If one assumes that gynocentric environments are more pleasing to feminists, the answer should be yes. Using questionnaire and interview data from 76 self-identified feminist psychology professors, we tested the expectation that feminist women teaching at women's colleges are more satisfied than their counterparts elsewhere. We found that feminist professors were generally satisfied with their pedagogical situations and were generally dedicated to and successful at teaching. Institutional affiliation produced little difference in satisfaction or practice, but feminists at women's colleges generally did feel more supported than feminists elsewhere.     

Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processes in Emotion Generation: Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms

ABSTRACT— Emotions are generally thought to arise through the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes. However, prior work has not delineated their relative contributions. In a sample of 20 females, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of negative emotions generated by the bottom-up perception of aversive images and by the top-down interpretation of neutral images as aversive. We found that (a) both types of responses activated the amygdala, although bottom-up responses did so more strongly; (b) bottom-up responses activated systems for attending to and encoding perceptual and affective stimulus properties, whereas top-down responses activated prefrontal regions that represent high-level cognitive interpretations; and (c) self-reported affect correlated with activity in the amygdala during bottom-up responding and with activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during top-down responding. These findings provide a neural foundation for emotion theories that posit multiple kinds of appraisal processes and help to clarify mechanisms underlying clinically relevant forms of emotion dysregulation.