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Early efforts in the study of groups had an inherently temporal dimension, notably work on group dynamics and the related study of phases in group problem solving. Not surprisingly, the majority of work linking time to groups has focused on team development. By contrast, work on team performance has tended to take the form Input-Process-Output, in which the passage of time is implied. There is rarely a discussion of how processes might be affected by timing. We suggest ways in which the two literatures might be brought together. We review models of group development and group performance, propose ways in which temporal issues can be integrated into performance models, and conclude by raising questions for future theory and empirical investigation.

Prior experimental budgeting research has focused primarily on individuals’ budget setting and little experimental research has examined budgeting in a group setting. Using a controlled experiment, this study extends prior participative budgeting research by examining the effects of aggregation levels of performance feedback and task interdependence on budgetary slack and the effects of different levels of feedback on group performance in a group participative budget setting.

The results suggest that aggregation levels of performance feedback differentially impact budgetary slack and group performance. Providing both group and individual performance feedback increases group performance and reduces budgetary slack compared to providing group performance feedback only. Providing information about other subordinates’ performance further increases group performance and reduces budgetary slack beyond the effects of providing individual workers information only about their own performance. The results indicate that task interdependence also affects the level of budgetary slack. Specifically, high task interdependence groups created more budgetary slack than did low task interdependence groups.

Research on strategic industry groups provides numerous examples of the tensions between theory and methodology in strategic management research. After an initial explosion of largely non-theoretical, methods-driven studies led to mounting criticisms, researchers recognized the need for more theoretical guidance concerning the nature of groups and their potential influences on firm performance. This refocusing on theory has produced different research streams, each with its own methodological concerns. This chapter reviews these developments with the objective of understanding how researchers balance theory and methods in current research.

In this paper, we review the literature on pay variation (e.g., pay dispersion, pay compression, pay range) in organizations. Pay variation research has increased markedly in the past two decades and much progress has been made in terms of understanding its consequences for individual, team, and organizational outcomes. Our review of this research exposes several levels-related assumptions that have limited theoretical and empirical progress. We isolate the issues that deserve attention, develop an illustrative multilevel model, and offer a number of testable propositions to guide future research on pay structures.

Despite the potentially vital implications of time pressure for group performance in general and team effectiveness in particular, research has traditionally neglected the study of time limits and group effectiveness. We examine the small, but growing, body of research addressing the effect of time pressure on group performance and introduce our Attentional Focus Model of group effectiveness (Karau & Kelly, 1992). We examine recent research on the utility of the model and identify selected implications of the model for how time pressure may interact with other factors such as task type, group structure, and personality to influence team performance. Finally, we discuss methodological issues of studying attention, interaction processes, and team performance.

This chapter examines how emotional intelligence may influence the performance of groups. I first address relevant issues concerning emotional intelligence at the individual level of analysis. I then describe the range of composition models by which group emotional intelligence constructs can be created, from the emotional intelligence of the members of the group, articulate mechanisms by which each construct may be related to performance, and use Steiner's (1972) typology of group tasks to identify when each construct may best predict performance. I also use the mechanisms of multiplication and compensation to consider how group emotional intelligence may combine with other group constructs to predict performance. I end this chapter with a discussion of research implications.

The resource-based view of the firm and strategic groups research are two of the most investigated frameworks in strategic management. Historically, assumptions behind these two views have seemingly put them at odds. The resource-based view of the firm argues that sustained competitive advantage is best attained when firms have unique resources, while strategic groups research argues that a number of firms within the same industry can achieve sustained profitability with strategies that are similar to one another, but distinct from other industry members. The two views focus on different levels of analysis and each largely ignores the other’s focal level. Yet neither offers any propositions that are incompatible with the tenets of the other. Thus, conceptual integration that crosses levels of analysis is possible and potentially fruitful. Indeed, some strategic groups research has begun to bridge the gap between these two theories by suggesting that firm differences exist both within and between strategic groups. This article adopts a multi-level view by developing propositions concerning contingencies when firm differences, group processes, or both may lead to sustained competitive advantage. Implications for practitioners as well as suggestions for future theory building and empirical tests are also discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the question of whether there is an optimal level of time pressure in groups.

Design/approach – We argue that distinguishing performance from productivity is a necessary step toward the eventual goal of being able to determine optimal deadlines and ideal durations of meetings. We review evidence of time pressure's differential effects on performance and productivity.

Findings – Based on our survey of the literature, we find that time pressure generally impairs performance because it places constraints on the capacity for thought and action that limit exploration and increase reliance on well-learned or heuristic strategies. Thus, time pressure increases speed at the expense of quality. However, performance is different from productivity. Giving people more time is not always better for productivity because time spent on a task yields decreasing marginal returns to performance.

Originality/value of chapter – The evidence reviewed here suggests that setting deadlines wisely can help maximize productivity.

Scanning both the academic and popular business literature of the last 40 years puzzles the alert reader. The variety of prescriptions of how to be successful (effective, performing, etc.) 1 Organizational performance, organizational success and organizational effectiveness will be used interchangeably throughout this paper.1 in business is hardly comprehensible: “Being close to the customer,” Total Quality Management, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value maximization, efficient consumer response, management reward systems or employee involvement programs are but a few of the slogans introduced as means to increase organizational effectiveness. Management scholars have made little effort to integrate the various performance-enhancing strategies or to assess them in an orderly manner.

This study classifies organizational strategies by the importance each strategy attaches to different constituencies in the firm’s environment. A number of researchers divide an organization’s environment into various constituency groups and argue that these groups constitute – as providers and recipients of resources – the basis for organizational survival and well-being. Some theoretical schools argue for the foremost importance of responsiveness to certain constituencies while stakeholder theory calls for a – situation-contingent – balance in these responsiveness levels. Given that maximum responsiveness levels to different groups may be limited by an organization’s resource endowment or even counterbalanced, the need exists for a concurrent assessment of these competing claims by jointly evaluating the effect of the respective behaviors towards constituencies on performance. Thus, this study investigates the competing merits of implementing alternative business philosophies (e.g. balanced versus focused responsiveness to constituencies). Such a concurrent assessment provides a “critical test” of multiple, opposing theories rather than testing the merits of one theory (Carlsmith, Ellsworth & Aronson, 1976).

In the high tolerance level applied for this study (be among the top 80% of the industry) only a handful of organizations managed to sustain such a balanced strategy over the whole observation period. Continuously monitoring stakeholder demands and crafting suitable responsiveness strategies must therefore be a focus of successful business strategies. While such behavior may not be a sufficient explanation for organizational success, it certainly is a necessary one.