Development and performance of self-managing work teams: a theoretical and empirical examination

Several theories have been developed that prescribe the team development of self-managing work teams (SMWTs). Some of these have led to models with successive linear developmental phases. However, both the theory and the empirical data show little support for these models. Based on an extensive review of team development literature, we propose, instead of linear phases, describing team development in three general team processes. These processes, internal relations, task management, and external relations and improvement, were empirically explored in a longitudinal field-study of more than 150 blue-collar and white-collar SMWTs in a Volvo plant in Sweden. The three processes were found to be consistent over time and appeared to relate to one-year-later objective SMWT performance measures for product quality, the incidence of sick-leave and long-term sick-leave. Based on these findings, a result-oriented team development approach is proposed, in which the achieved results determine the processes followed to develop SMWTs further. Also, managers and HR practitioners are encouraged to monitor the three ongoing team processes and to relate these to the desired team performance. Such an analysis should be the starting point of a dialogue between manager and team to improve the functioning and performance of SMWTs.     

创业团队研究动态探讨

创业团队日益普遍的出现和存在,其创业绩效要好于个体创业的创业绩效,创业团队的组成是以情感的纽带为基础、为起始,以专长的互补为辅、为继。创业团队是有领导的。     

The Effect of Team Affective Tone on Team Performance: The Roles of Team Identification and Team Cooperation

Affective tones abound in work teams. Drawing on the affect infusion model and social identity theory, this study proposes that team affective tone is related to team performance indirectly through team identification and team cooperation. Data from 141 hybrid‐virtual teams drawn from high‐tech companies in Taiwan generally supported our model. Specifically, positive affective tone is positively associated—while negative affective tone is negatively associated—with both team identification and team cooperation; team identification is positively associated with team cooperation; and team cooperation is positively associated with team performance. Managerial implications and limitations are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

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.     

Are multinational teams more successful?

Teams have become increasingly multinational in many sectors. The impact of national diversity on team performance is, however, controversial. On the one hand, multinational teams may have access to a greater variety of task-relevant expertise, which should increase the team performance. On the other hand, national diversity may complicate team collaboration and increase team conflict. Applying panel econometrics to 4284 team observations in a globalized sector, we find evidence that multinational teams perform worse than teams with less national diversity.     

Linking capacities of high‐quality relationships to team learning and performance in service organizations

This study examines the impact of intrateam and external high‐quality relationships (HQRs) on learning processes and performance. Data collected from 178 teams in the service sector indicate that (a) intrateam HQRs (i.e., between team members and between team members and their manager) are related to psychological safety, which in turn facilitates learning processes; (b) external HQRs are associated directly with team learning; and (c) team learning is positively associated with enhanced team performance. The findings highlight the importance of both internal and external HQRs to facilitate learning and enhance performance in service organizations. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Experiencing meaningfulness climate in teams: How spiritual leadership enhances team effectiveness when facing uncertain tasks

This study integrates social information processing theory with leadership and climate literature, and aims to produce novel theoretical insights into whether and how spiritual leadership and task uncertainty foster conditions to enhance meaningfulness climate and subsequent team effectiveness in China. Team effectiveness was operationalized as team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Based on data collected at three time points over 12 months from multiple sources of 123 teams in China, we found that spiritual leadership was positively related to team performance and team OCB through meaningfulness climate. Further, the relationship between spiritual leadership and meaningfulness climate was stronger for teams with high task uncertainty than teams with low task uncertainty.     

Counteracting Free‐Riding With Team Morale—An Experimental Study

This study focuses on a behavioral perspective to examine the detrimental effects of free‐riding on team performance, and investigates team morale as a key factor that counteracts the tendency of free‐riding among team members. Results of the empirical test imply that enhancing team morale can effectively reduce the scale of free‐riding behavior in project teams; in addition, controlling team size also provides help to constrain the undesired behavior. The two means can be carefully applied to project management during early stages of project development before the commitment of significant resources. Implications for both research and team practices are discussed.     

Sink or Swim: Empowering Leadership and Overload in Teams' Ability to Deal with the Unexpected

The notion of improvisation has recently emerged in managerial studies as a viable solution to flexibly dealing with unexpected occurrences in work environments. However, past research on team improvisation has overlooked the contingencies that allow teams to effectively improvise. Drawing upon demand‐control theory, we investigate how empowering leadership and overload affect the improvisation‐performance relationship in the context of 48 work teams. Our results suggest that empowering leadership positively moderates the relationship between improvisation and performance, while overload attenuates the same relationship. Moreover, we found a joint effect of overload and empowering leadership influencing the improvisation‐performance link, such that improvisation is most positively related to performance when empowering leadership is high and overload is low. Conversely, we found that empowering leadership is particularly detrimental to the improvisation‐performance relationship when team members perceive high degrees of overload. Our findings make important contributions to the extant team literature as well as to the emerging literature on team improvisation. We outline several significant insights for HR managers and team leaders who are responsible for supporting teams that face unexpected events in the work environment. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Open-mindedness in diverse team performance: investigating a three-way interaction

Studies have shown that open-minded dynamics contribute to diverse team effectiveness; however, there are few studies on the factors that influence the impact of open-mindedness. Survey data from 218 members of 47 professionally diverse teams support a significant relationship between open-mindedness and performance. Professional identification and professional salience were found to moderate the relationship with opposing effects. The study data indicate that although open-mindedness provides a context that facilitates the open exchange and discussion of diverse ideas and perspectives in interprofessional teams, this is less influential when members strongly identify with their profession. Conversely, member focus on professional differences enhances the value of team interaction characterised by receptiveness and openness. Analysis confirms a three-way interaction between open-mindedness, professional identification and salience on performance.     

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。     

A Socio‐Psychological Perspective on Team Ambidexterity: The Contingency Role of Supportive Leadership Behaviours

In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that socio‐psychological factors (i.e., team cohesion and team efficacy) may help team members to resolve paradoxical challenges and to combine exploratory and exploitative learning efforts. In addition, we theorize that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels. In doing so, we develop a multilevel contingency framework and propose that the effectiveness of teams to achieve ambidexterity is contingent upon supportive leadership behaviours at the organizational‐level. Using multilevel, multisource, and temporally separated data on 87 teams within 37 high‐tech and pharmaceutical firms, we not only reveal how team cohesion and efficacy may matter for the emergence of team ambidexterity but also show that the effectiveness of supportive leadership behaviours from senior executives varies across cohesive and efficacious teams.     

When is Effort Contagious in New Venture Management Teams? Understanding the Contingencies of Social Motivation Theory

Consistent with social motivation theory, prior research on managerial motivation suggests that effort is contagious across management team members. In this study, we draw on belongingness theory to develop a model on important boundary conditions to social motivation theory in the management team context. The model predicts that new venture managers react to their teammates’ higher effort levels by investing higher effort levels themselves primarily when they are confronted with a threat – namely, low venture performance and high environmental hostility – but that effort is less contagious when managers face little threat. We test our model with a sample of 103 new venture managers nested in 51 management teams in a longitudinal setting capturing managerial effort over 26 weeks. While we do not find a direct relationship between teammates’ effort and a new venture manager’s subsequent effort, we find support for the crucial role of threat in triggering the contagion of managerial effort. We discuss the contributions of our study for research on management teams, performance feedback, and entrepreneurial effort in new ventures.     

对团队绩效考核体系的战略性思考

绩效考核如何反映企业战略要求一直是困扰人力资源管理理论研究者和实践者的一个棘手问题。而如何对团队进行绩效考核更是一个时下急需解决的问题。本文将从对团队绩效考核的有关实践来说明绩效考核中的一些主要问题,并对团队绩效考核体系的设计提出一些建议。     

National diversity and team performance: the moderating role of interactional justice climate

In this team-level study, we present and test a model in which two aspects of interactional justice climate, its level and its strength, interact to moderate the effects of national diversity on team performance. Connecting the literatures on team diversity and (interactional) justice climate, we hypothesize that a high level of interactional justice exhibited by the line manager promotes the performance of nationally diverse teams, but only when team members share this perception (i.e. when the climate is strong). Using time-lagged performance measurement, we conducted a multisource field study using data from 272 employees clustered in 45 teams who worked for a local subsidiary of a multinational enterprise. The findings confirm our hypothesis and have implications for the diversity and justice literatures, while advancing knowledge that promotes the effective management of increasingly diverse workforces in this era of globalization.     

高校教学团队的概念、特征与组织要素分析

本研究基于团队的概念,对高校教学团队的内涵和特征进行了分析,基于二分法,明确教学团队的构成要素和管理要素,提出要注意审慎进行团队负责人的遴选,把握适度的团队规模和合理的团队结构,建设合理的教学团队考核体系和激励机制,才能够顺利推进高校教学团队的建设。     

Workgroup emotional intelligence: Scale development and relationship to team process effectiveness and goal focus

Over the last decade, ambitious claims have been made in the management literature about the contribution of emotional intelligence to success and performance. Writers in this genre have predicted that individuals with high emotional intelligence perform better in all aspects of management. This paper outlines the development of a new emotional intelligence measure, the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile, Version 3 (WEIP-3), which was designed specifically to profile the emotional intelligence of individuals in work teams. We applied the scale in a study of the link between emotional intelligence and two measures of team performance: team process effectiveness and team goal focus. The results suggest that the average level of emotional intelligence of team members, as measured by the WEIP-3, is reflected in the initial performance of teams. In our study, low emotional intelligence teams initially performed at a lower level than the high emotional intelligence teams. Over time, however, teams with low average emotional intelligence raised their performance to match that of teams with high emotional intelligence.     

Founding team composition and early performance of university—Based spin-off companies

The start-up of business ventures (university spin-offs—USOs) is an important channel that universities can use to transfer the results of public research to the economic system.Several empirical investigations however show that the majority of public-research spin-offs perform rather poorly (see for example Mustar et al., 2008. Science and Public Policy 35(2), 67–80). Therefore, identifying and analysing the obstacles that limit the success of this type of high-tech start-ups appears extremely important to better understand and, where possible, leverage their potential contributions in terms of innovation and growth.The existing literature on the performance of USOs studies these companies as any other high-tech start up, overlooking the peculiarities related to the presence of academic personnel in the entrepreneurial/management team. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by analysing the relationship between founding teams and USO performance through a multi-level approach to the team demography. In particular, we try to account for some of the peculiar features which may shape the functioning of USO founding teams and arise mostly from the need to properly balance the scientific and commercial orientation with one another. The empirical analysis, carried out on a sample of 103 Italian USOs, shows that founding teams with a composition that promotes simultaneously differentiation and integration of academic and non-academic profiles, exhibit superior levels of performance in terms of growth.     

Managing Task Interdependencies in Multi-Team Projects: A Longitudinal Study

abstract    In this article we examine project-level and team-level managerial functions aimed at managing inter-team task interdependencies and investigate their effect on the performance of teams in a multi-team product development project. We hypothesize that team interface management (a team-level function) performed in the concept phase of a project, rather than the later development phase, is positively related to team performance at the project's conclusion (i.e. product quality, product cost, development budget, development time). Furthermore, we argue that project structuring and support (a project-level function) is important in both the concept and the development phases. We test our hypotheses empirically based on a 36 months longitudinal study of a product development project in the European automotive industry comprising 39 teams. The results show that team interface management is particularly important during the concept phase of the project. Project structuring and support is most important in the development phase of the project, while hindering team performance in the concept phase. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

研发团队多元性与团队绩效关系的实证研究

研发团队的团队绩效直接影响我国自主创新和经济结构转型。文章在回顾文献的基础上对团队多元性和团队绩效分别提出4个维度进行研究,并通过212份有效问卷的数据分析,采用SPSS统计工具做实证研究。结果表明,研发团队多元性的各个维度对团队绩效的各个维度分别有不同程度的影响。