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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.

Using a multilevel model, this study examined how paternalistic leadership behaviors, including authoritarianism, morality and benevolence, influence followers' performance.

A sample of 556 leader–follower dyads from 66 groups in a manufacturing firm in China was collected for analysis. Descriptive statistics and multi-level regression analyses were used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that group efficacy mediates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and followers' performance and that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between benevolent leadership and followers' performance. In addition, the positive relationship between self-efficacy and followers' performance is weaker when followers exhibit higher levels of group efficacy.

The data were collected in a manufacturing firm in China, it is difficult to generalize the results to other settings.

Managers should use their abilities and skills to interpret which paternalistic leadership styles their followers prefer, so as to improve their performance.

This study developed a multilevel model to examine the mediating processes of group efficacy and self-efficacy in the effect of PL behaviors, including authoritarianism, benevolence and morality, on followers' performance.

This study aims to shed light on the relationship between gender diversity and group performance by considering the moderating role of relative cultural distance. Drawing from the categorization–elaboration model (CEM), the authors hypothesize that gender-diverse collaborative learning groups perform better when a low level of relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism or power distance exists among group members.

To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a study on 539 undergraduate students organized into 94 groups. The assessment of group performance was based on scores given by external raters.

The authors found that relative cultural distance significantly moderated the gender diversity–group performance relationship such that gender diversity was positively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group included members who similarly valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was low) and was negatively related to group performance when the collaborative learning group comprised members who differently valued individualism–collectivism or power distance (i.e. relative cultural distance was high).

This study contributes to understanding when gender diversity is positively associated with group performance by expanding the range of previously examined diversity dimensions to include relative cultural distance in country-level individualism–collectivism and power distance.

The objective of this study is to understand the mediating role of student engagement between future time perspective and group task performance. In addition, the study examines the interaction effect of group cohesion task with student engagement on group performance.

Data were collected from 170 (a total of 34 groups of five members each) business management students for three consecutive months. To analyze the data, multi-level modeling was carried out.

The results of the three-wave multi-level analysis indicate support for the hypotheses and suggest that future time perspective affects group performance through student engagement. Moreover, group cohesion interacts with student engagement to predict group task performance.

The findings show how the application of engagement theory can help in understanding the relationship between two distant variables, namely, future time perspective and group performance.

The educators are encouraged to engage students for facilitating the positive impact of future time perspective on group task performance. The findings also imply that the students with future orientation perform well and thus, the educators may need to teach students to have futuristic perspective.

This study in one of its kinds to test the mediating role of student engagement between future time perspective and group task performance as well as the interaction effect of group cohesion task with student engagement on group performance at both the individual and group level over a period of time.