Team leader experience in improvement teams: A social networks perspective

In this research, we disentangle the relationship between several key aspects of a team leader's experience and the likelihood of improvement project success. Using the lens of socio-technical systems, we argue that the effect of team leader experience derives from the social system as well as the technical system. The aspects of team leader experience we examine include team leader social capital (a part of the social system) and team leader experience leading projects of the same type (a part of the technical system).We examine four different, yet related, dimensions of a team leader's social capital, which we motivate based on the social networks literature. One dimension, team leader familiarity, suggests that social capital is created when team leaders have experience working with current team members on prior improvement projects, and that such social capital increases the likelihood of improvement project success. We develop three additional dimensions, using social network analysis (SNA), to capture the idea that the improvement team leader's social capital extends beyond the current team to include everyone the leader has previously worked with on improvement projects. Contrasting our SNA-based dimensions with team leader familiarity enables us to better understand the impact of a team leader's social capital both inside and beyond the team. We also examine the effect of a team leader's experience leading prior projects of the same type, and consider the extent to which organizational experience may moderate the impact of both team leader social capital and same-type project experience.Based on analysis of archival data of six sigma projects spanning six years from a Fortune 500 consumer products manufacturer, we find that two of our SNA-based dimensions of team leader social capital, as well as experience leading projects of the same type, increase the likelihood of project success. In addition, we show that organizational experience moderates the relationship between team leader same-type project experience and project success. However, this is not the case for the relationship between the dimensions of team leader social capital and project success. These results provide insights regarding how dimensions of team leader experience and organizational experience collectively impact the operational performance of improvement teams.     

Leader Emergence in Nascent Venture Teams: The Critical Roles of Individual Emotion Regulation and Team Emotions

This study advances a theory of how different aspects of emotion regulation influence individual leader emergence in the intensely emotional context of nascent venture teams. Despite the growing amount of research on the role of leadership in the entrepreneurial process, the emergence of leaders in nascent venture teams has rarely been explored. Drawing on theories and research on leadership emergence and emotion regulation, we argue that the two aspects of emotion regulation (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) exert opposite effects on the degree to which nascent venture team members come to perceive an individual as a leader. We also theorize that team emotions arising from affective events moderate the relationship between reappraisal and leader emergence in such teams. Data from 103 nascent venture teams without prior leaders show a negative relationship between individuals’ trait disposition to suppress emotions and their emergence as leaders, and a positive relationship between their trait disposition to reappraise emotions and their emergence as leaders. Moreover, we find that negative team emotions magnify the positive association between reappraisal and leader emergence, while positive team emotions mitigate it. We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial emotions, and leadership in general.     

Ambiguity Acceptance as a Function of Project Management: A New Critical Success Factor

This research examines the relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes within the Six Sigma improvement project context. Results find a curvilinear relationship between open communication and customer outcomes for project leaders. Results of multiple regression find a significant positive relationship between open communication and organization outcomes, as well as a significant positive relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes for team leaders, while there is a significant positive relationship between ambiguity acceptance and customer and organizational outcomes for team members. Theoretical and practical implications are examined.     

Linking employee boundary spanning behavior to task performance: the influence of informal leader emergence and group power distance

Driven by fierce global competition, flatter organizational structures and the growing complexity of tasks, boundary spanning behavior (BSB) in externally dependent work teams has increasingly been emphasized in both theory and practice. The current study aims to answer the questions of whether, when and how an individual’s BSB impacts his or her task performance within a team. Based on a sample of 272 employees from 57 new product development teams in China, we found that informal leader emergence mediated the relationship between an individual’s BSB and his or her performance within a team. Moreover, group-level power distance positively moderated the association between BSB and informal leader emergence. An overall mediated moderation model of the effect of the interaction between BSB and group power distance (PD) on task performance via informal leadership emergence was also confirmed. In particular, the relationship between BSB and task performance via informal leadership emergence was stronger for teams with less PD than for those with more PD. The implications of the research are discussed.     

On the Same Side of the Faultline: Inclusion in the Leader's Subgroup and Employee Performance

Extending theory on faultlines and subgroups, we argue that faultlines splitting a team into homogeneous subgroups can have different effects on team members' individual performance, depending on different intra‐subgroup processes. Specifically, we propose that the effect of faultline strength on individual performance depends on whether a team member's subgroup includes the team leader. Building on the notion of faultline triggers, we further propose that organizational crises exacerbate this interaction because they make social support by the team leader especially important. We tested these assumptions with objective performance data collected over a period of four years from 3263 financial consultants (325 teams) while controlling for the effects of relational demography. Results showed that in teams with strong faultlines, consultants' performance decreased to a lesser extent in crisis years if the consultants shared a subgroup with their team leader. Thus, faultlines had different effects on team members from different subgroups.     

Team familiarity—Boon for routines,bane for innovation? A review and future research agenda

Teams play a vital role in achieving an organization's goals, so achieving high levels of team familiarity is regarded as essential to HRM strategies. This paper aims to stimulate the debate on team familiarity: the effectiveness, antecedents, outcomes, and theoretical underpinnings. Our systematic literature review uses a VOSviewer-based bibliometric analysis, combined with qualitative thematic analysis. The current dominant viewpoint is that team familiarity leads to positive performance outputs at work, higher team performance and organizational success. Existing studies also agree that familiarity enhances team cognition and takes time to develop. However, we reveal that existing studies use a limited range of theoretical underpinnings, remain vague on the meaning of “time” and “how long it takes for teams to become familiar”, and avoid critical discussions on potential counterproductive outcomes that may lead to a decline in team performance. Based on these gaps, we suggest advancing the team familiarity literature and provide ideas for future research. Overall, we argue that whereas team familiarity is favorable for routine and structured contexts, it might be less effective for innovative task environments. Our future research agenda also suggests 1) advancing the theoretical underpinnings around team relationships, social roles, and team formation; 2) engaging in discussion on the key antecedent “time”, with longitudinal studies to reveal which moments matter most in devolving team familiarity; 3) considering positive social outcomes for individuals and groups; and importantly, 4) contributing fresh knowledge on potential counterproductive outcomes and U-shaped developments in innovation work.     

知识工作团队中组织公民行为的作用机制实证研究

组织公民行为是员工做出的超越基本工作职责要求的积极主动合作行为,这类行为在整体上有利于组织的有效运作。本研究以12家高科技组织中的50个知识工作团队作为研究对象,探讨团队成员整体上表现出的组织公民行为对团队绩效的影响作用机制。研究结果表明,团队整体水平的组织公民行为对团队绩效具有积极的影响作用,并且群体效能感在组织公民行为对团队绩效产生影响时起到中介作用。     

An exploratory study of gender in project management: Interrelationships with role,location, technology,and project cost

This study explores whether gender differences in project managers are related to gender differences in their team members. Gender differences are explored in the context of project managers' and team members' location to one another, the project team's use of technology, and the cost and size of the project teams. Using log‐linear analysis of 563 project team members' responses, several significant findings are reported—including the likelihood of same‐gender project manager and team member dyads as well as gender differences in project contextual factors. Implications for organizational and project management researchers and decision makers conclude the article.     

A multilevel examination of the relationship between role overload and employee subjective health: The buffering effect of support climates

Although the belief that support alleviates the detrimental effect of job demands on employee health is intuitive, past research has produced an equivocal picture, requiring a renewed evaluation of this relationship. In the present study, we examine three sources of support (from the organization, leader, and team) that employees may draw from to reduce the negative effect of a specific job demand, that is, role overload. Unlike most prior research, we focus on these sources of support at the group level of analysis to determine the relative effectiveness of organizational support climate, leadership climate, and team climate as moderators of the role overload–subjective health relationship. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 2,288 employees nested in 132 workgroups in a state administration of Switzerland revealed that, after controlling for individual perceptions of support, team climate weakened the negative relationship between role overload and health. We did not find support for the buffering effect of organizational support or leadership climates. The article provides a nuanced test of the support‐buffering hypothesis by simultaneously exploring individual and group‐level sources of support and by demonstrating that some sources of support matter more than others in ameliorating the negative outcomes of role overload.     

Team vision in product development: How knowledge strategy matters

In today’s more complex multinational and technologically sophisticated environment, the group has re-emerged in importance as the project team. Work teams are important to organizations in general, but are especially critical in product development because they span many functional areas including engineering, marketing, manufacturing, finance, etc., and new product teams must frequently be composed of individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives. In these circumstances, this paper addresses the contingency role that knowledge strategy plays in explaining the relationship between team vision and product development performance. After studying the team vision on 78 new product developments from a wide variety of firms, we found that effective team vision varies depending on the knowledge strategy—defined in terms of punctuated equilibrium in the explorative cycle, low ambidexterity and high ambidexterity. Our results demonstrate that while trade-off is positively associated with success in all strategies, clarity is only associated with low ambidexterity strategies and strategy-fit is only associated with high ambidexterity strategies.     

Leadership and innovation: relations between leadership,individual characteristics and the functioning of R&D teams

The main focus of this paper is the functioning of R&D teams, the role of the team leader and the characteristics of individual team members. After a brief overview of recent literature on leadership and innovation, some research results are presented from a study of leadership in self-managing teams; these teams have a number of characteristics in common with R&D teams, such as dependent tasks and job autonomy. The results lead to an integrated model for the effective functioning of R&D teams, with a focus on the relations between leadership behaviour, individual characteristics, team functioning and outcome variables.     

Managing sourcing team effectiveness: The need for a team perspective in purchasing organizations

To meet today’s high demands on the purchasing function, sourcing teams have become the standard in contemporary corporate purchasing organizations. Sourcing teams are often started with high expectations. However, after making a promising start many of these teams appear to be unable to operate effectively and to meet management expectations. This study shows that sourcing team effectiveness is particularly hindered by a lack of team perspective in many purchasing organizations. In this paper, the results of a large-scale, cross-sectional survey to address the success factors for sourcing teams are discussed. We aim to clarify the factors behind sourcing team performance, taking into account the specific task and organizational context. It is concluded that purchasing executives should shift their focus towards employee involvement and team processes, to enable teams to actually meet and even surpass the expectations placed on them.     

Co‐workers' voice climate and affective commitment towards the team: A test of mediation and moderation

This article examines the consequences of co‐workers' voice climate, defined as a shared perception regarding how individuals who work together within the same unit and who do not have formal authority over each other judge the ability to participate in decision making inside teams. We argue that co‐workers' voice climate may influence individuals' perception of quality of social exchange with the team, operationalised through team–member exchange. These high‐quality exchanges with the team should, in turn, promote higher individual affective commitment towards the team. Furthermore, we hypothesised that the social exchange with the supervisor, operationalised through leader–member exchange, buffers the effect of co‐workers' voice climate on team–member exchange. These hypotheses were tested using a sample of 183 employees belonging to 31 teams. Our findings supported the theoretical model that was proposed, attesting to the importance of considering co‐workers' justice climate in the prediction of individual work attitudes. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Trust,individualism and job characteristics as predictors of employee preference for teamwork

Employee resistance has long been recognized as a key constraint on the success of organizational change initiatives. However, it is only recently that employee attitudes towards working in teams has been specifically investigated as a factor influencing team effectiveness. Using data from 218 employees in 40 self-managing work teams, we examined the relationship between trust, individualism, job characteristics and team members' attitudes towards teamwork. Providing a partial test of Mayer et al.'s (1995) relational model of trust, the results indicate that the two situational forms of trust (trust in co-workers and trust in management) were stronger predictors of an employee's preference for teamwork than propensity to trust. Trust in co-workers was found to partially mediate the relationship between a person's propensity to trust strangers and their preference for working in a team. The importance of considering the dispositional variables of propensity to trust and individualism as factors that influence an employee's preference for teamwork, as well as their trust in management, trust in co-workers and their opportunity for skill utilization are discussed.     

Formal and Informal Practices of Knowledge Sharing Between Project Teams and Enacted Cultural Characteristics

This article investigates the process of knowledge sharing between project teams and uses a case study approach. This is especially relevant, as organizations face both the needs for separating work into projects and integrating knowledge created in projects into the organization. The results provided by the analysis technique of GABEK^® indicate that, although projects create boundaries, employees and project team leaders use formal mechanisms and develop informal practices for knowledge sharing between project teams. Furthermore, the article identifies organizational cultural characteristics enacted in these practices that can stimulate the discussion in “knowledge culture research” regarding the relationship of organizational cultural characteristics and (specific) knowledge processes.     

Work Teams: Perceptions of a Ready-Made Support System?

Much research on work teams has been focused at the team-level, considering such issues as effectiveness, productivity, and overall interaction. Using qualitative in-depth interviews, the author has asked the question: what is the experience of the individual working within a team? This paper discusses one theme to have emerged, that of perceptions of support being provided within the team. Respondents' accounts presented an expectation that support would be forthcoming from other team members. The discussion considers the experiences of respondents both when this support was received and when it was not, prompting a reconsideration of our understanding of work teams. Further discussion shows how the expectation and provision of this support has implications for how individuals view both teams and organizational work in general, and how consideration of this issue can assist managers in the renewal of employees' energy and well-being.     

The role of capital investment project teams in organisational learning

The management and organisation of capital projects in the British National Health Service (NHS) is dependent upon project teams. An analysis of four case studies shows how these teams also act as agents of learning for individuals and the organisation. This article considers the process by which learning came about. In particular it identifies the ability of the project teams to develop a parallel organisation within a wider organisational context. These teams develop specific rules, roles and relationships which help individual project team members to more effectively share their knowledge with others and their organisation.     

How project management office leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement

The purpose of this study is to shed light on how project management office (PMO) leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement. Twenty leaders of PMOs were interviewed; findings were validated by two focus groups. The research reveals that PMO leaders facilitate cross‐project improvement by embedding accumulated knowledge from past project experiences into project management routines that are utilized across multiple projects. The research also points to the phenomenon of “red light learning,” where lessons learned sessions can be enculturated as punitive, undermining individual and organizational learning. Recommendations focus on enhancing the social capital of the PMO leader and improving the quality and quantity of reflective practice over the course of the project life cycle.     

Blending service provider–client project teams to achieve client trust: Implications for project team trust,cohesion, and performance

The objective of the present research is to examine the effectiveness of “teaming with the client,” using blended service provider–client teams as an organizational strategy for achieving effective co‐production engagements. The results show that having a blended team creates a more trusting relationship between the project manager and client. The client's trust results in greater team trust, team cohesion, and team performance. However, the research also demonstrates an important limitation to the use of blended teams. In blended teams, when the client does not trust the project manager, significant problems arise for the team itself as compared to non‐blended teams.     

Multi‐Level Efficacy Evidence of a Combined Interprofessional Collaboration and Project Management Training Program for Healthcare Project Teams

Project work is essential for the improvement of healthcare organizations; yet, project management and collaboration in the project context are not taught to healthcare professionals. Three half‐day training workshops integrating project management and collaboration were designed and delivered to 14 interprofessional healthcare project teams. Multivariate measures were taken over the course of 36 weeks. Individual, team, and project‐level results showed high satisfaction and perceptions of utility; improved self‐efficacy for project‐specific task work and teamwork; increased goal clarity and coordination; and a significant impact on the functional performance of projects. This study provides initial benchmark measures regarding the pertinence of project management and interprofessional collaboration training for healthcare project teams.