Team learning,transactive memory system and team performance: A longitudinal study based on the IMOI approach

This study examines how team learning behaviors transfer into team effectiveness, and analyzes the dynamic mechanism of team learning within a time series framework. 99 teams were recruited as our initial sample at the first stage, and 55 teams were traced at the second stage. We employed the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) approach as proposed by Ilgen et al. (2005), instead of the traditional input-process-output (I-P-O) model in industrial and organizational psychology. Results show that the mediating effect of transactive memory system (TMS) on the relationship between team learning and performance is significant at both stages, which means TMS can adequately account for how team learning influences team performance as a mediator. Team performance, as an output received at the end of stage one, also acts as an important input variable at stage two, which in turn positively influences the subsequent team learning process. The circular causal model based on path analysis shows that the IMOI approach can be used to explain organizational mechanisms better than the classic I-P-O approach; the result is consistent with the new trends within the team relevant IO psychological understanding. Findings suggest that developing and maintaining a TMS is critical to achieving team outputs under a team learning setting. In addition, performance evaluation and feedback are also important factors within team learning processes. We argue that organizational behavior research based on an IMOI approach would have more generalizability and ecological validity than the traditional I-P-O model.     

Integrating organizational learning with high-performance work system and entrepreneurial orientation: a moderated mediation framework

This study proposes a moderated mediation model to investigate the relationship between organizational learning and firm performance. We argue that entrepreneurial orientation mediates the positive effect of organizational learning on firm performance. Furthermore, the relationship between organizational learning and entrepreneurial orientation is strengthened when firms employ a higher level of high-performance work system. Hypotheses are supported by data from 181 firms operating in the manufacturing and service industries in China. Statistical results further reveal that a high-performance work system has different moderating effects on exploitative learning and exploratory learning. This research extends our understanding of organizational learning theory, entrepreneurship and human resource management literature by cross-fertilizing constructs in these fields with empirical evidence.     

The Effects of Team Flexibility and Emotional Intelligence on Software Development Performance

As both business and technological environments change at an increasing rate, flexibility and emotional intelligence have become critical issues for project management. Even though previous research has examined the relationship between team flexibility and team performance and that between the emotional intelligence of teams and team outputs, there remains a gap in literature in respect to a holistic model. Accordingly in this paper, we examine the relationships among software team flexibility, emotional intelligence, and software project outputs (market success, speed to market, and the functionality of the new software product) using survey data from 86 software development projects. The results reveal positive a relationship between the diversity dimension of software project team flexibility and emotional intelligence. The first dimension of software team flexibility, team autonomy, positively affected market success, speed to market, and software functionality, whereas the second dimension, team diversity, positively affected only speed to market and software functionality. The emotional recognition of team members for both themselves and their teammates appears to be another important factor affecting the speed to market and functionality of the new software products. Managerial and theoretical implications of the study are discussed.     

Team and organizational resources, strategic orientations, and firm performance in a transitional economy

Firms in transitional economies are learning to develop strategies to exploit new market opportunities though bounded by their lack of market experience and resources as well as institutional and cultural heritage. This paper examines the managerial orientations of top managers in the transitional economy of China by focusing on a firm's team and organizational resources. Specifically, the following antecedents motivate a firm to put more emphases on strategic orientations: the firm has an effective top management team, strong managerial competences, and when the firm has ample endowment of slack resources, social network, and support from the institutional environment. Empirical results support that team orientation, managerial competence, social network, and local institutional support are instrumental in developing market-focused strategic orientations. In addition, strategic orientations with heavy emphases on overall low costs and product innovation relate to higher firm performance.     

冗余资源、董事会结构与上市公司业绩波动性的实证关系研

冗余资源对企业的价值评判,不应该只停留在公司的绩效的水平上,对企业的风险控制也同样值得我们去研究。本文以公司业绩波动性为因变量,考察董事会结构、冗余资源对公司业绩波动的影响,拟通过对上市公司的数据进行实证研究,表明:冗余资源存量能够降低企业的业绩波动性;董事会规模、独立性以及CEO权力可以调节冗余资源与业绩波动之间的相关关系。本文从企业风险控制角度探讨了冗余资源对业绩波动的作用,为研究冗余资源的问题提供了新的途径。     

Innovation, organizational learning, and performance

Literature examines the relationship between innovation and performance and asserts a positive relationship between organizational learning and both performance and innovation. However, few empirical studies analyze these relationships together. This article explores those relationships using SEM with data from 451 Spanish firms. The findings show that both variables — organizational learning and innovation — contribute positively to business performance, and that organizational learning affects innovation. Another finding of this study is that size and age of the firm, industry and environmental turbulence moderate these relations.     

知识惯性一定会阻碍服务企业绩效的提升吗？——基于KIBS企业的实证

文章基于知识管理和组织学习理论,针对知识惯性悖论,以组织学习为中介变量,构建知识惯性影响服务企业绩效的概念模型,并对长三角和珠三角地区211家KIBS企业进行实证研究。研究结果显示：（1）程序惯性和资讯惯性均会直接阻碍服务企业绩效的提升,程序惯性还会通过利用式学习和探索式学习这两种组织学习活动间接阻碍服务企业绩效的提升,资讯惯性则仅通过利用式学习间接阻碍服务企业绩效的提升;（2）经验惯性不仅不会阻碍服务企业绩效的提升,反而会通过利用式学习和探索式学习间接促进服务企业绩效的提升;（3）利用式学习和探索式学习均会对服务企业绩效产生显著的直接促进作用。     

Pattern of information technology use and relationship learning in international customer-supplier relationships

While information technology (IT) has been widely applied in global supply chain relationships, academic research in this area is still limited. Drawing on resource-based view (RBV) and interpartner learning theory, we investigate how different pattern of IT use (IT exploitation and IT exploration) influences relationship learning and performance in international customer-supplier relationships. Further, we look into two contingent conditions including technological uncertainty and cultural distance in the proposed model. Based on 240 Taiwanese-based electronics suppliers, this empirical study reveals that only exploration side of IT use was significant on relationship learning and finds significant positive relationship between relationship learning and relationship performance. Moreover, the effect of IT exploration on relationship learning was positively moderated by technological uncertainty but negatively moderated by cultural distance. However, the effect of IT exploitation on relationship learning was negatively moderated by technological uncertainty but positively moderated by cultural distance.     

Disentangling the effect of exploratory learning and exploitative learning in product innovation process

Although studies have highlighted the importance of exploratory and exploitative learning in new product development, little is understood about the distinctiveness of team‐level exploratory and exploitative learning in the distinct phases of the product development process. This study uses a two‐phase product innovation process model to examine the differences in the effects of the two distinct learning strategies in the initiation and implementation phases. The findings from 126 teams show that (a) the effect of exploratory learning on innovativeness in the initiation phase is greater than that of exploitative learning and (b) exploitative learning can strengthen the link between the initiation phase's innovativeness and new product success more than exploratory learning. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Industry globalization and the performance of emerging market firms: Evidence from China

In this study, we explore the extent to which industry globalization affects the performance of firms in China, an emerging market. We focus on the period between 1996 and 2001 and track the globalization levels for six different Chinese industries as well as the performance of 166 public listed firms in these industries. The results validate our major premise: high levels of industry globalization positively impact the performance of Chinese firms. We also find that when their industries globalize, firms with slack resources experience greater performance improvement than other firms without these resources.     

Cross-functional interface and disruption in CRM projects: Is marketing from Venus and information systems from Mars?

Because of the inherently cross-functional nature of customer relationship management, the use of cross-functional teams in CRM project implementations is virtually mandatory to achieve critical marketing and sales objectives. This study examines the effects of functional membership as well as team and individual performance evaluations on project members' perceptions of disruption and cooperation during CRM project implementations. The results show that IS project members are more likely to perceive internal volatility and manifest interfunctional conflict and less likely to perceive interfunctional cooperation than project members from either sales/marketing or general management. We also find that team performance evaluations are negatively associated with disruption and positively associated with cooperation, while individual evaluations are negatively associated with internal volatility.     

Team Climate,Team Cognition,Team Intuition,and Software Quality: The Moderating Role of Project Complexity

Teams represent a prevailing approach to getting work done in today’s hypercompetitive business environment. Although there is a widely held assumption that team-related capabilities determine the success of new product development projects, empirical research on team capabilities is scant. Based on the resource-based view of the firm, organizational learning theory, and situated learning theory, this study investigates the interrelationships among team climate, two information-processing capabilities (i.e., team cognition and team intuition), and software quality. As well, this study explores the moderating effect of project complexity between the information-processing capabilities and the quality of the software. In studying the data from 139 software development projects using the partial least squares structural equation modeling methods, we found that team climate has a direct influence on team cognition. Moreover, the findings showed that team cognition was positively related to the quality of the software product in general; in particular, this relationship was found to be far more significant when project complexity was used as a moderator. This finding indicates that the software development team’s ability to process information logically in order to interpret situations effectively allows the team to launch superior software products when unexpected and undesirable events make a project complicated and challenging to perform. In particular, managers should encourage teams to benefit from new ideas and make collective efforts for reaching goals. Managers should also enable teams to specialize in their tasks and improve their collective information-processing capabilities.     

Strategic resource decisions to enhance the performance of global engineering services

This paper extends our understanding of the internationalisation and firm performance (I-FP) relationship of service firms by considering the influence of strategic decisions on three types of slack resources. The research focusses on an important type of service operations ? global engineering services, which are a major part of the global economy and represent a distinctive business model in the contemporary business environment. In doing so, we theorise the I-FP relationship by addressing the knowledge-intensive, project-based and people-centric features of engineering service firms (ESFs); and test the relationship with a carefully assembled dataset containing 12 years’ data from 242 ESFs. We identify a negative overall I-FP relationship, i.e. ESFs’ international expansion leads to worse financial performance in general. The presence of slack resources explains why such a result exists. Our findings have significant implications, both for future research on internationalisation and performance and for firms to effectively deploy their resources to support global service operations in a strategic manner.     

Team behavioral integration links team interdependence with team performance: an empirical investigation in R&D teams

Drawing on the input–mediator (a blend of team process and emergent state)–output (IMO) framework, we develop a conceptual model in which team behavioral integration is conceived of as a team-level mediator that links team interdependence (input) with team performance (output). Using a three-wave research design, we test the hypothesized model with the data of 102 R&D teams from three information technology companies in China. Results indicate that team interdependence positively influences team behavioral integration, and that team behavioral integration positively affects team performance. In addition, team behavioral integration is found to mediate the relationship between team interdependence and team performance. The theoretical and managerial implications of these results are discussed.     

Effects of individual resources and team-member exchange on service quality

While workplace resources are generally viewed as positively affecting performance, some studies indicate that not all resources increase performance. This study addresses the controversial disparate effects of workplace resources on performance by exploring functionally classified workplace resources in self-managing service teams and their relative impacts on team service quality. Considering membership dynamics and consequences between members, a field experiment was conducted in a cafeteria, with data collected through a working diary for workplace resources and a customer survey to evaluate service quality. Results suggest that efficacy-resources in self-managing teams should be controlled with caution as they may adversely affect team service quality. Supporting the person–situation interactionism perspective, workplace resources interact dynamically with individual employees and with situations. Esteem-resources were found to increase team service quality, while team-member exchange not only improved team service quality but also moderated the impact of esteem-resources on team service quality.     

Effects of transactional leadership,psychological empowerment and empowerment climate on creative performance of subordinates: A cross-level study

This research surveyed 101 teams, involving 497 team members and 101 team leaders, in a large multinational company in China. A hierarchical linear model is used to examine the hypothesized mediated moderation model. It is found that: (1) individual psychological empowerment is positively related to creative performance; (2) the relationship between transactional leadership and subordinates’ creative performance is moderated by team empowerment climate; (3) individual transactional leadership behavior is positively related to subordinates’ creative performance in teams with higher empowerment climate, but negatively related to subordinates’ creative performance in lower empowerment climate; and (4) the relationship between transactional leadership, team empowerment climate and creative performance is partially mediated by subordinates’ psychological empowerment perception. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are also discussed.     

财务松弛对公司业绩的影响研究——基于融资约束和代理成本的视角

财务松弛政策由现金持有政策和负债冗余政策组成.文章以我国1998-2007年的上市公司为实证研究对象分析财务松弛对企业绩效的影响,并进一步分析代理成本和融资约束对财务松弛经济后果的影响.研究发现财务松弛和企业业绩正相关,融资约束进一步提升了企业财务松弛的价值,对财务松弛-业绩敏感性产生显著正向影响,代理成本对财务松弛-业绩敏感性的负向影响只在非融资约束的情况下较为明显.     

The Impact of Top Mana(g)ement Team Process on Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance

This article aims to explore how top management team (TMT) process affects strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR), and in turn, how strategic CSR influences firm performance. In addition, this article examines whether CSR mediates the relationship between TMT process and firm performance. The sample consists of 203 hotels from the tourism and hospitality industry in the southeast China. TMT processes assessed are communication and cohesion. Results indicate that (1) corporate social responsibility is positively related to firm performance, (2) top management team process (communication and cohesion) is positively related to corporate social responsibility, and (3) corporate social responsibility fully mediates the relationship between top management team process and firm performance. Results highlight upper echelons mechanisms that underpin the TMT process–firm performance relationship. This study contributes to understanding how TMT process affects firm performance both directly and indirectly, through strategic CSR.     

High performance work systems and corporate performance: the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning

This study investigates the functioning mechanisms of how high performance work systems (HPWS) affect organizational performance. We propose that (HPWS) can positively affect organizational performance through the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation. An organization with high performance work systems can perform better if it enjoys high level of organizational learning. We design and administer a survey questionnaire to high-level executives or founders of companies from manufacturing and service industries and receive 176 valid responses. The results of the empirical data indicate that the relationship between high performance work systems and corporate performance is more positive when organizational learning is stronger. Entrepreneurial orientation partially mediates the relationship between high performance work systems and organizational performance. This study opens new research avenues by extending and incorporating explanations and predictions of HPWS and entrepreneurial orientation, two areas that largely have been considered independently of each other. Implications for practice and directions for future research are provided.     

Training older workers: resource‐oriented strategies

The goal of this paper is to outline resource‐oriented strategies which may help practitioners provide training that caters for the needs of older workers. Building on resource‐oriented frameworks, we review research that directly or indirectly examines the relationship between age and training performance. We identify three personal and three organizational resources which support training performance and participation. The personal resources comprise prior experience, individual characteristics and personal strategies. The organizational resources comprise providing room for time control and autonomy in training, supporting learning‐inclined team climates and participative training designs. Practical recommendations focus on personal and organizational resource assessments and personal and structural interventions to optimize resource constellations at the personal and organizational level.