Stimulating teachers’ team performance through team-oriented HR practices: the roles of affective team commitment and information processing

Abstract

Teams of teachers are increasingly held accountable for the quality of education and educational reforms in vocational education and training institutions. However, historically teachers have not been required to engage in deep-level collaboration, thus team-oriented HR practices are being used to promote teamworking in the sector. This paper examines the relationship between team-oriented HR practices and team performance in terms of innovation and efficiency via teachers’ affective team commitment and engagement in information processing. To examine these associations, a team-oriented HRM research instrument was developed and validated based on the ability-motivation-opportunity model (N = 970, 130 teams) and hypothesised associations were examined using multilevel structural equation modelling (N = 704, 70 teams). The results show positive relationships between the team-oriented HR practices of recruitment, team development, team evaluation and teamwork facilitation, and team innovation. Additionally, all practices except team development were positively related to team efficiency. The relationships between team-oriented HR practices and these team performance indicators were often partially or fully mediated by affective team commitment and information processing. Because affective team commitment and information processing sometimes only partially mediated the links between team-oriented HR practices and team performance, other underlying mechanisms await identification.     

关于团队基础理论的若干思考

团队基础理论是整个团队体理论系中的一个重要组成部分,具有较高的学术价值和实践意义。文中在对团队研究概述的基础上,明确了团队结构的作用,探讨了团队型组织的理论基础,最后重点对团队角色理论展开了分析,强调团队工作是管理和开发人力资源的一种高效能方式。     

Teamworking and Lean revisited: a reply to Carter et al.

This paper is a reply to Carter et al.’s response to an earlier paper of ours in this journal on the subject of teamworking under Lean in the UK public services . Our reply covers the following issues which Carter et al. have raised: the literature we used to structure our findings; the way in which we used concepts such as autonomy and teamworking; our research methods and approach; how Carter et al.’s newly available data on teamworking might be interpreted; and how data drawn from an official employee attitude survey might best be understood. On the basis of this, we conclude that Carter et al.’s paper fails to meet its objectives. On some things, the authors are simply wrong; on others, they grossly misrepresent our position; on still others, their interpretations are, at best, highly questionable.     

Governing through Teamwork: Reconstituting Subjectivity in a Call Centre*

ABSTRACT This article focuses on teamworking as a form of governmentality whereby management seeks to govern by distance. This involves mobilizing the support and commitment of employees to teamworking and organizational goals by appealing to their autonomy, unity, sociability and desire for a more enriched work experience. It is the struggle over subjectivity that is of concern here, for teamworking can be seen as a technology that aims to transform individuals into subjects that secure their sense of meaning and significance through working as a team. We will explore through a case study of a call centre in a large building society how a discourse of teamworking has begun to impinge upon individuals so as to shape not only how they behave but also how they think, derive meaning and understand the world. In turn, we consider some of the tensions and inconsistencies of teamworking in relation to the secrecy of pay differentials, and the return to productivity pressures after a period of relaxation and trust. Ultimately the article examines how individuals respond to, agonize over, resist and baulk against the imposition of ‘team lives’ when this rubs up against what they understand to be their ‘private lives’. This will involve considering gender tensions that have so far been largely neglected in relation to call centres and teamworking. Teamworking, we will argue, reflects a will to govern rather than a mechanism of government.     

The interaction of human resource policies and practices with the implementation of teamworking: evidence from the UK public sector

Our study examines the interaction of human resource policies and practices with the implementation of teamworking. Put simply, do certain human resource policies and practices support the implementation of teamworking? Do certain human resource policies and practices work against the implementation of teamworking? It utilizes an illustrative case from the UK public sector – the Inland Revenue, the UK tax assessment and collection agency – to address the research question. The case of the Inland Revenue gives support to the argument that it is necessary to identify and understand the differences between a variety of forms of teamworking. With the variation in forms of teamworking that are implemented, there may be variations in the human resource management context. In short, a contingency approach to the interaction of the implementation of teamworking with human resource policies and practices may be appropriate. In the case, teamworking was implemented to facilitate the introduction of a new tax regime in the face of reduced numbers of middle managers and clerical employees, and certain human resource policies and practices had an effect upon its implementation. These were front line manager selection and development in particular, while team member selection and development and employee relations appeared less important.     

一种网络协作环境下的虚拟研发团队合作伙伴甄选方法研究

本文针对一种基于网络协作的虚拟研发团队合作伙伴甄选问题提出了决策评判方法,首先分析了基于网络协作的虚拟研发团队合作伙伴甄选的决策思路和过程,然后构建其合作伙伴甄选的评价指标体系,并利用模糊综合评判方法建立合作伙伴甄选的决策模型,最后通过实例分析证明该方法的有效性和可行性。     

Project Team Communication in Financial Service Innovation

We examine the role of communication during the innovation process of new financial services from an information processing perspective. A contingency framework is developed on the role of communication and its impact on new financial services success. In order to assess the unique nature of the services context of this study, this framework also depicts the moderating impact of the specific services characteristics (intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability) on project communication during the innovation process. Project team communication is conceptualized by three types of communication: (1) intra-project communication, (2) extra-project communication involving (i) organizational liaisons, which refer to the transfer of intra-organizational communication by project members and (ii) gatekeepers of information, which refer to the transfer of extra-organizational information by customer-contact personnel. The relationship between project team communication and the reduction of innovative uncertainty on new financial service success is examined. Our contingency model implies that managers have to recognize the critical communication roles that project members and frontline employees may fulfill. The communication flows mediated by these individuals foster the uncertainty reduction during the innovation process. Moreover, financial service innovation management should conceive the service characteristics as sources of task uncertainty, as they may lower project communication effectiveness, i.e. the reduction of innovative uncertainty. Following the managerial implications of our model, we finally formulate directions for future research.     

团队多元性对团队行为的研究综述

团队多元性是近20年来组织行为学中研究的热点问题,引起了国内外学者的广泛关注。文章在国内外相关理论基础上,介绍了团队多元性的概念、维度与测量方法,评述了团队多元性对团队行为的影响,对未来的研究提出一些建议。     

管理团队冲突辨析及其冲突管理有效性研究

本文对星火集团公司进行了调查研究,辨析了亿禾百货管理团队的冲突,运用冲突管理等方法进行分析和改进,实现了管理团队冲突辨析及其冲突管理有效性研究的深入和拓展,为管理团队领导和团队成员更深刻、更全面地利用冲突和运用冲突管理理论来提高管理团队的有效性提供了思考和分析的框架。     

Power, Mastery And Organizational Learning

The topic of power has not featured strongly in debates about organizational learning, a point that is illustrated in a discussion of influential studies of teamworking. Despite the insights that such studies have provided into the nature of expertise and collaboration they have tended not to explore the relevance of issues of hierarchy, politics and institutionalized power relations. The paper addresses the problem by exploring the links between power, expertise and organizational learning. Power is analysed both as the medium for, and the product of, collective activity. The approach emphasizes how skills and imaginations are intertwined with social, technical and institutional structures. While studies of teamworking have concentrated on situations where imaginations and structures are tightly linked, unexpected developments may occur when these relations are loosened. Such situations occur when the needs of the moment overshadow normal routines and relationships and there is no single overview or centre of control. It is suggested that organizational learning can be conceptualized as the movement between familiar and emergent activities and between established and emergent social relations. Events in a two-year action research project are used to illustrate the approach and explore episodes of decentred collaboration.     

Teamworking structures and worker perceptions: a cross-national study in pharmaceuticals

Teamworking has been implemented in many organizations in different countries over the last few years, and it has taken a range of forms in practice. In this paper, we draw upon findings from a comparative analysis of teamworking structures and team member perceptions at a British and a German subsidiary of a multinational pharmaceutical company. Interviews were conducted with approximately fifty managers, supervisors and process operators, and 120 questionnaires were analysed. We conclude that, despite major differences, both at national level and in the structure of teamworking, team member perceptions are surprisingly similar at the two sites. This finding challenges the under-researched yet commonly assumed link between structures and perceptions, while calling for more emphasis on the examination of sectoral effects and intra-organizational strategies.     

复杂产品系统研发团队的交互记忆系统与团队效能关系研究

本文采用实证研究,针对复杂产品系统的研发团队,从团队成员所具有的心理资本出发,探索团队成员心理资本对团队成员交互记忆系统的形成及发展的影响,进而得出其对团队效能的影响。从而为复杂产品系统中研发团队的建设提供建议,进而提升团队效能。     

Teamworking and performance: the extent and intensity of teamworking in the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98)

This article uses the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey to address two main issues: whether a relationship between teamworking and performance can be said to exist; and, if it can, how that relationship might be explained. For the first of these we construct a variable that measures the extent of teamworking within an establishment. This is found to be positively and significantly related to productivity and financial performance. To address our second main issue we examine the idea that the key factor in performance is the degree of teams' decision-making autonomy. We look at this by constructing a measure of teamworking intensity. This is found to be positively and significantly associated with productivity and quality levels. Taken alongside other studies, these results are used to suggest that, in looking at the teamworking-performance relationship, the focus of attention should be on the structural properties of teams rather than the individual team members' experiences of work.     

基于虚拟团队的MBA学习模式探究

随着通讯信息技术的不断发展,国外的MBA教育已逐渐将竞争的焦点投射在如何在信息社会中,借助现代通讯信息技术提升MBA教育的有效性上。虽然中国的MBA教育从无到有取得巨大成绩,但在信息沟通技术飞速发展的今天却比较忽视信息沟通对MBA教育的影响。本文首先对国内MBA教育发展的现状进行了回顾,然后对应用虚拟团队于MBA学习的特征和作用进行了分析,对提高基于虚拟团队的MBA学习的有效性提出了建议。文章最后显示应用基于虚拟团队的MBA学习模式,对我国MBA教育质量的改善将会起到积极的影响作用。     

Main Determinations of Female Entrepreneurs in the Construction Industry in Malaysia

This paper explores the determination of female entrepreneurs in the construction industry based on masculine and feminine characteristics in the Malaysian construction industry, using the Bem Sex‐Role Inventory (BSRI). The median split method determined that female construction entrepreneurs have masculine traits. The results are not robust because of the limited number of responses; nonetheless, the findings can be used as a platform for future research on female construction entrepreneurs in the construction industry in Malaysia. To enhance the findings’ contributions, this paper also discusses the industry characteristics, which are considered to have significantly contributed to the masculinity of female construction entrepreneurs.     

Uncomfortable truths – teamworking under lean in the UK

A recent contribution in this journal – Procter, S. and Radnor, Z. (2014) ‘Teamworking under Lean in UK public services: lean teams and team targets in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25:21, 2978–2995 – provides an account of teamworking in the UK Civil Service, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), focused on the relationship between recently implemented lean work organisation and teams and teamworking. Procter and Radnor claim in this work that it delivers a ‘more nuanced’ analysis of lean in this government department and, it follows, of the lean phenomenon more generally. Our riposte critiques their article on several grounds. It suffers from problems of logic and construction, conceptual confusion and definitional imprecision. Methodological difficulties and inconsistent evidence contribute additionally to analytical weakness. Included in our response are empirical findings on teamworking at HMRC that challenge Procter and Radnor’s evidential basis and further reveal the shortcomings of their interpretation.     

The impact of teamwork on skills: employee perceptions of who gains and who loses

The move to teamworking and the accompanying changes in job boundaries and responsibilities have been viewed as exerting a postitive impact on levels of employee knowledge and skills, particularly where there is also increased training and regular job rotation. However, given the diverse positions of different occupational groups prior to teamworking, in practice a more differentiated relationship between teamworking and skills may be anticipated, with some groups experiencing a much more favourable outcome in terms of the knowledge and skills than others. The study reported here considers the impact of a move to teamworking across an entire manufacturing workforce, incorporating former craft and production grades and different levels in the former job classification hierarchy. Longitudinal findings are reported, with entire workforce surveys undertaken prior to and following the introduction of teamworking. The result is a more finely grained account of the impact of teamworking on skills that also hightlights the need to differentiate the effects of workplace change on different groups of employees.     

团队氛围对个体创造力与团队创造力的影响

本文基于前人相关研究成果,提出了团队氛围、个体创造力与团队创造力之间关系的理论假设,继而运用结构方程建模的方法对这些假设进行了检验。研究结果表明,团队氛围对个体创造力有显著影响,对团队创造力有间接影响,个体创造力与团队创造力正相关。     

MST视角的GVT沟通影响因素案例研究

GVT作为一种新兴的团队组织形式，正以其低成本、高效率、响应迅速的优势被广泛应用于各个领域，但以信息与通信技术沟通为主的协作方式也为GVT管理带来了挑战。本研究以媒体同步性理论为基础，构建GVT沟通影响因素的初步理论模型，并以大连软件园两家软件公司中的4组团队为案例访谈对象，通过案例分析进一步修正和检验模型。分析结果显示：媒体同步性主要受传输速率和并行性影响；沟通过程与媒体同步性相适配的状态对沟通绩效有促进作用；GVT成员的语言能力、媒体经验和明确的沟通规范都会对沟通工具的使用产生重要影响。     

Team Formation and Self-serving Biases

There is extensive evidence which indicates that people learn positively about themselves. We build on this finding to develop a model of team formation. We show that under complete information learning positively about oneself prevents efficient team formation. Agents becoming overconfident tend to ask for an excessive share of the group outcome. Positive learning generates divergence in workers' beliefs and hampers efficient team formation. Interestingly, in a context of incomplete information regarding the partner's ability, extensive learning biases may reduce the divergence in agents' beliefs and facilitate efficient team formation as a result. We apply our model to coauthorship and organizational issues.