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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of three different types of budget goals (egocentric individual, groupcentric individual and group) on group performance of an additive task, assigned within an individual budget-based incentive contract. While previous research has established that budget-based incentive contracts motivate higher group performance than piece rate contracts for additive group tasks, no studies, which we are aware of, have considered explicitly the type of goal within this context.

We conduct a 3 × 2 experiment in which we manipulate the presence of an individual goal (egocentric, groupcentric and absent) and a group goal (present and absent) on group performance of an additive task.

Group performance is higher for groups assigned groupcentric individual goals than for groups assigned egocentric individual goals, either alone or in combination with a group goal.

Egocentric individual goals may reinforce an individualistic orientation, which may work against the potential gains from having group members adopt more of a group focus.

This paper considers how groupcentric individual goals may improve group performance. The management accounting literature typically examines just egocentric individual goals.

Previous research has shown that diversity is related to both task and relationship conflict in groups. The purpose of this paper is to posit that leadership is an important factor for maintaining high group performance and morale under conditions of conflict. Specifically, the paper argues that leader conflict management, emotion management, and transformational behaviors determine the impact of conflict on group outcomes.

Data were collected from 585 people in 89 workgroups from eight public service organizations in Australia. The authors used hierarchical regression to test the hypotheses regarding group performance and morale. To test mediation and moderation, the authors followed the procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny. Finally, they used the formulas provided by Preacher, Rucker and Hayes to test for moderated mediation.

Results showed that diversity increased task conflict but was unrelated to relationship conflict. Both task and relationship conflict were negatively associated with group performance and morale, and effective leadership reduced these negative effects to zero. There was also a partial support for the authors’ theoretical model predicting that leadership moderates the indirect effect of diversity on group outcomes occurring through the mediator of conflict.

A greater amount of variation in the diversity of work groups included in the sample would have been useful for overcoming problems of restriction of range, which likely reduced ability to observe an association between diversity and group outcomes. Based on the results, in order to prevent negative emotions from task and relationship conflict from damaging group performance, leaders of diverse groups can act to manage those emotions among their group members. Results from this study implicate conflict management training. While training for conflict management is beyond the scope of this research, further research should examine this issue.

The study extends research in the area of diversity, leadership and group work. In particular, it demonstrates that transformational leadership is an important factor for maintaining high group performance and morale under conditions of conflict. It also offers practical assistance to individuals entrusted with the responsibility of managing culturally diverse workgroups.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how dimensions related to teamwork and team climate can influence decision making and learning of teams (performance). In order to understand which factors are more effective, several relevant group and team characteristics drawn from classical literature on groups and more recent empirical team simulation research have been considered.

The paper presents the results of a longitudinal study carried out during four months. A total of 183 Italian participants, divided into 50 teams of three (n=24), four (n=19) and five (n=7) members, have been involved in a business game developed by several European savings banks and simulating a real stock market environment. The aim of each team is not only to earn virtual money, but also learning long-term strategies to develop profitable investments without losing sight of economic factors.

Based on literature review, the authors tested three group levels (intragroup relations level, self-member level and group-design level) by making three hypotheses concerning the teams involved in the simulation and investigated the communication and innovation (CI) dimension from the Italian version of the team climate inventory (TCI) by Ragazzoni et al. A correlation between team performance and CI was found (r=0.301 p=0.048), which is in line with the hypothesis that such factors as communication and support for innovation can affect the decision-making performance.

The results presented in the paper let practitioners understand which dynamics characterize teamwork activities and how such aspects as communication and support for innovation can lead to group learning and decision-making performance. The simulation used in this research is an empirical way to study team performance and group learning without other noise variables.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of “feeling trusted asymmetry” on work group performance and individual outcomes. The author adopts the term “feeling trusted asymmetry” to differentiate the subject from studies of trust asymmetry that consider differences in (mutual) ratings of trust between members of a dyad.

The author tested this effectiveness with data from a sample of 293 subordinate–supervisor dyads in 63 work groups from the People’s Republic of China.

Results of multilevel analysis reveal that group feeling trusted asymmetry (the degree to which subordinates differ in perceptions of the level of trust from their immediate manager in their group) lowers group performance. Furthermore, individual feeling trusted asymmetry (a subordinate perceiving more or less trust from their immediate manager than other subordinates in the group) affects employees’ workplace satisfaction, but not individual performance and creativity.

These findings have important practical implications, as they provide companies with a feasible way to manage employee’s relations based on their perception of trust from the direct supervisor.

School‐based management (SBM) or school self‐management has been an important worldwide school restructuring movement since 1980s. This paper aims to map out how SBM in terms of self‐management at the school, group and individual levels is related to school performance at different levels. From a sample of 82 schools, the strength of multi‐level self‐management in school was found to be strongly related to the quality indicators of organizational performance, moderately correlated to the quality indicators of group social norms of teachers, and individual teacher job performances. The profiles of strong and weak self‐management schools were also found to be significantly different in most indicators of school performance at different levels. The findings provide preliminary evidence to support that the success of SBM implementation for achieving school quality depends on the involvement of the school, groups and individual teachers as a whole in continuous self‐management and self‐learning cycles.

A theoretical analysis evidences the existence of multiple patterns of collective leadership and serves as foundation for the proposal of a two-dimensional model of collective leadership, which evaluates leadership sharedness (the extent to which leadership roles are shared by group members), and leadership distribution (the extent to which different leadership roles are permanently assigned to group members). The relationship between these dimensions and committee effectiveness is further tested.

A social networks methodology is used with a sample of 28 committees. Two complementary network properties (centralization and density) are used to operationalize leadership sharedness and a new measure is developed to operationalize leadership distribution. Stepwise regressions test the relation between collective leadership dimensions and performance.

The model proposed advances the understanding of collective leadership’s internal dynamics and facilitates empirical comparisons of the effectiveness of various forms of collective leadership. The highest committee performance was found in groups where members contribute equally to charismatic and supportive leadership but only when these equal contributions were high. In collective directive and participative leadership, however, equality of contribution was associated to higher performance independently on the strength of members’ contributions. No relationship was found between the distribution of leadership roles among group members and committee performance.

A small sample size may have reduced hypothesis testing power. The intraclass corrections (ICC(2)) were lower than recommended. Finally, results cannot be extrapolated beyond committees, which have very unique characteristics due to their low typical interaction.

Organizations can improve committee performance by ensuring high and equal participation of members in their group’s leadership through training and selection. Enhancing participation of all members in leadership requires special attention to women and members of minorities, that are typically attributed less leadership influence and whose commitment to the group may be hurt by lack of involvement.

The two-dimensional model proposed goes beyond previously published models in exploring several aspects of collective leadership internal dynamics by advancing the understanding how different aspects of collective leadership patterns affect group performance.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of diversity management research published in hospitality and tourism-specific and business discipline-based journals. The study objectives include attempting to assess the progress of diversity management research in hospitality and tourism, identifying gaps between the general business diversity management literature and the hospitality and tourism literature and providing hospitality and tourism scholars with suggestions to advance knowledge in diversity management.

The study is a critical review of the existing diversity management literature in the general business and hospitality and tourism disciplines in an attempt to identify gaps and make suggestions for expanding this knowledge in the hospitality and tourism fields.

There are significant gaps between the diversity management scholarship conducted in hospitality and tourism disciplines and the general business field. Diversity management research in general business is far more in-depth and uses sociological and social psychological theoretical frameworks.

There are lessons to be learned from the general business literature that uses strong theoretical foundations deeply grounded in sociological, psychological, social-psychological and management theories. The general management literature also explores the conditions under which diversity management adds value or creates challenges for organizations.

The hospitality and tourism industry has employed large numbers of ethnic minorities, women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for decades. As such, it is critical that scholars explore the implications of such a diverse workforce not only on organizational outcomes, but also on individual and group performance. The general business diversity management research suggests that workgroup composition can influence individual and group performance, as well as the quality of co-worker relationships. Given the team-oriented, interdependent nature of work in the hospitality and tourism industry, it is imperative that researchers conduct studies that help practitioners understand the most effective perspectives and approaches to diversity management.

The critical literature review demonstrated that there is extremely scarce research on diversity management focusing on employees with disabilities. It is imperative to shed more light on best diversity management practices, workplace etiquette of this under-represented group of employees and their interaction with their co-workers.

This study’s results provide insight into areas of exploration that can significantly enhance the scholarship on diversity management in the hospitality and tourism literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if team personality composition has any effect on group work performance of undergraduate students in China.

Using a questionnaire based on the Big-Five framework to collect data on personality traits, this study investigated whether in the Chinese education setting overall effectiveness of university students working in groups was related to the different personalities of the group members. Students of two undergraduate business programs jointly run by an Australian university and a Chinese university in Shanghai participated in the research.

The findings reveal that aggregated personality traits have no effect on team effectiveness but homogeneity in emotional stability among group members does have a positive impact on group performance. Based on a comprehensive review of studies concerning the Chinese education approach, it is believed that the outcome of this study may reflect to a certain extent the influence of traditional learning method on how university students interact with team members in group work hence affecting group performance.

This study has surveyed 166 undergraduate students on their personality traits and performance in group work. A larger sample size can help improve the generalizability of the findings.

The findings of this study shed light on how group work can be used more effectively in learning through proper assessment task design and guidance from the facilitator.

The outcome of this research also provides insight on how group work in higher education can better prepare students for the Chinese workforce.

While studies on relationship between personality mix and team effectiveness in business setting are plenty, there is relatively little research on how team personality composition can impact on group performance in education especially in Asian countries. This study is one of the first attempts to supplement the inadequacy in this regard.

The purpose of the paper is to test whether retail stores’ creativity predicts several indicators of performance through stores’ potency.

A sample of 45 stores (n = 317 employees) of a Brazilian retail chain was included, and a group/store level of analysis was adopted. Performance was measured through objective measures. To reduce the risks of common method variance, group creativity and group potency were measured with data from different store members.

The findings show that store creativity predicts indicators of store performance through store potency.

The study was carried out within a single organization, and the stores’ sample is small. Other causalities are plausible, and future studies should adopt a longitudinal design to test reciprocal effects between the variables of the study.

Cultivating creativity (via the selection of creative individuals and nurturing contextual conditions that encourage creativity) may have at least indirect effects on store performance.

While the few empirical studies relating group creativity (still an under-researched topic) and performance have mostly used subjective performance measures, this study uses objective measures.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate aspects of the literature on strategic and performance groups and explicitly derive strategic/performance groups which exhibit differences with respect to both strategy and performance, as well as display associations and potential interrelationships between the two sets of variables.

A two‐way clusterwise bilinear spatial model was formulated (e.g. a scalar products or vector multidimensional scaling model (MDS)) for the analysis of two‐way strategic and performance data which simultaneously performs MDS and cluster analysis. An efficient alternating least‐squares procedure was devised that estimates conditionally globally optimum estimates of the model parameters within each iterate in analytic, closed‐form expressions.

This bilinear MDS methodology was deployed in the context of strategic/performance group estimation using archival data for public banks in the NY‐NJ‐PA tri‐state area. For this illustration, four strategic/performance groups and two underlying dimensions were found.

Consideration of both strategy and performance data should be employed in describing the heterogeneity amongst firms competing in the same industry.

The paper provides a new spatial methodology to derive strategic/performance groups in any given industry to more completely summarize intra‐industry heterogeneity.