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This paper reviews the empirical research dealing with two types of intragroup interdependence at both the group and individual levels of analysis. Based on this review we identify directions for further research, including attention to levels‐of‐analysis issues, the effects of interdependence over time, and the development of prescriptive theory. The paper ends with the description of a theory‐based intervention framework, intended as a tool for choosing the appropriate intervention in work teams and for stimulating the development of such a prescriptive theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of group conflict norms and task interdependence on individuals' willingness to help others under conditions of task conflict to better understand how group characteristics influence individual helping behavior.

A total of 81 university students participate in a scenario study. The scenario has a 2 (task interdependence: high vs low) ×2 (group conflict norm: open vs avoiding) design.

The results suggest that in groups characterized with open conflict norms and high‐task interdependence members are less willing to help than members in groups with avoiding conflict norms and high‐task interdependence.

This research implies that helping behavior in high‐task interdependent workgroups is highest when groups have an avoiding conflict norm. Limitations include amongst others discussing the explicit request for help coming from the group used in this study and the external validity of scenario studies.

The findings suggest that managers or supervisors can help to provide circumstances in which task conflict does not prohibit helping behavior.

The paper offers a first step to experimentally investigate how individuals react to intragroup task conflict and the consequence for constructive behavior.

The verbal and nonverbal behaviors that individuals display (i.e., their communication styles) influence the status positions they attain in their task groups. Prior research has generally concluded that communication behaviors that convey agency (i.e., characteristics denoting intelligence, ambition, and dominance) are more effective for obtaining a high-status position in a task group than communication behaviors that convey communality (i.e., characteristics denoting warmth, sincerity, and agreeableness). The message from these prior studies is that it is more status enhancing to be smart than to be social. The objective of this chapter is to challenge this assertion and argue that in some task groups it may be more status enhancing to be social rather than to be smart. I suggest that the status benefits of particular communication styles depend on the characteristics of the group to which an individual belongs to. Thus, in contrast to prior research in this area, I argue for a more contextual approach to the study of communication styles and status conferral, focusing on how structural and process differences between groups influence how the group members’ words and actions are evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the study considers research on creativity and innovation in the field of general management and hospitality. Second, the paper develops a theoretical model to integrate individual- and group-level creativity particularly for service organizations.

This paper provides a comprehensive, albeit non-inclusive, review of research on creativity and innovation in organizations. The review reveals that hospitality research on creativity and innovation has not matched the new advances in management research, particularly the multilevel nature of creativity and the outcomes of creativity. Thus, to advance research in hospitality, this paper proposes a multilevel model of creativity based on a strategic contingency power theory. This model examines how individual- and group-level uncertainties hinder creativity. Moreover, the model also considers several uncertainty coping strategies and examines individual- and group-level outcomes of creativity.

The proposed theoretical model integrates individual- and group-level uncertainty determinants of creativity and yields a multilevel approach to creativity. Several testable hypotheses are proposed.

This paper highlights the strategic contingency power approach between individual- and group-level uncertainties in creativity. Uncertainty coping practices that alleviate the negative effects of uncertainties on creativity will be useful to managers and service organizations.

The proposed model provides plausible guidelines that advance creativity research in hospitality management.

The current study focused on intra‐group conflict by attempting to elucidate individual and situational factors underlying choices along two dimensions of conflict management patterns: engagement versus avoidance and constructive versus destructive. In the study, the role of two types of self‐efficacy (global and social) among group members was investigated, as was the sense of group identification in team dispute resolution preferences modes. Sixty‐seven members of volunteer community service communes in the Israeli Scouting youth movement, 48 females and 19 males, representing 13 intact teams, participated in the study. Self‐report structured questionnaires (previously used and adapted for this study) served as research instruments. Both global self‐efficacy and group identification independently predicted the conflict engagement‐destructive pattern of domination. Social self‐efficacy served as the sole predictor of the preference to manage intra‐team conflict by means of integrating—the engagement‐constructive mode. In contrast, the choice of compromising was also fostered by the joint contribution of social self‐efficacy and group‐identification, beyond the direct effect of social self‐efficacy. The study corroborates the assumption that conflict management patterns within an intact team are related to dispositional variables on the individual level, i.e., global and social self‐efficacy, and to the team‐related variable of group identification.

This chapter provides a definition of group as used by group communication scholars or inferred by articles published by group communication scholars. The chapter considers group size, group identity, group member interdependence, group goal, and group structure as fundamental to groups. Additionally, the chapter examines the distinction between the use of the group and team labels, and the role of context in defining groups.

Purpose – Leadership is a very large topic with a long history of scholarship. Despite this, existing theories of leadership have been mostly silent about group-level phenomena and challenges that leaders of small teams face. Our chapter begins to address this problem by specifying four functions or challenges that any theory of group leadership should address if it is to be helpful to small-group scholars looking for answers about leading teams.

Approach – In order to identify main group functions that should be managed by leaders and be developed into refined leadership theories, we review both leadership and team studies. Based on the four functions that we establish, we briefly review a selection of major leadership theories that we believe can provide the foundations for new and better group-level leadership theories.

Findings – By using two theoretical categorization (managing individual group members vs. managing group; affective/motivational vs. cognitive functions), we suggest that leaders of small groups deal with the four key leadership functions – (1) managing within-group interpersonal dynamics, (2) within-group coordination of information/resources, (3) group-level affect management, and (4) managing group boundaries for information/resources flow and group identity.

Value – This chapter provides specific group functions that groups and teams scholars can use as a foundation to develop better theory of small-group leadership.

Accumulating evidence suggests that Team-member exchange (TMX) influences employee work attitudes and behaviours separately from the effects of leader-member exchange (LMX). In particular, little is known of the effect of LMX differentiation (in-group versus out-group) as a process of social exchange that can, in turn, affect TMX quality. To explore this phenomenon, this chapter presents a multi-level model of TMX in organizations, which incorporates LMX differentiation, team identification, team member affect at the individual level, and fairness of LMX differentiation and affective climate at the group-level. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our model for theory, research, and practice.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to broaden the understanding of the three negative member (bad apple) behaviors – withholding of effort, interpersonal deviance and negative affect – put forth by Felps et al. (2006).

An integrative review of extant literature was conducted to understand the impact of the negative member behaviors on other team members. Potential interventions to control this bad apple behavior are identified with supporting evidence from recent empirical studies.

A review of empirical findings in the literature indicate that perceived coworker loafing may lead to counterproductive work behavior toward coworkers and interpersonal deviance may affect the task cohesion of the group. However, the presence of affectively negative individuals is empirically proven to improve the group performance, especially when the group task is related to creativity or information processing (decision-making and idea generation).

Despite the empirical attention paid to “bad apple” behaviors, the implications for managing negative member behaviors are unclear and scattered. In this paper, building on the framework proposed by Felps et al. (2006), the authors focus on three behaviors and provide a concise review of literature and interventions to control or exploit these behaviors.

Many papers have been written about group reflexivity. Testimonials by practitioners often contain strong claims about its performance benefits. Research papers, by scientists, seem to support such claims at first glance, but a closer look reveals methodological problems and weak results, even in the studies that show performance benefits, and there are several studies that show no performance benefits. We have begun our own program of research on group reflexivity, and so far, we have found no performance benefits either. All of this suggests that enthusiasm for group reflexivity should be tempered, until more and better research has been done.