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1 – 10 of 263Lynne J. Millward, Adrian Banks and Kiriaki Riga
The purpose of this paper is to describe and defend a generative model for understanding effective self‐regulating teams from a distinctively psychological perspective that has…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and defend a generative model for understanding effective self‐regulating teams from a distinctively psychological perspective that has implications for both research and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper complements Hackman's work on the critical conditions for effecting “self‐regulated” teamwork with an understanding of team psychology, as the basis for evolving a propositional model of effective teamwork.
Findings
Assuming various structural pre‐requisites, it is proposed that effective teamwork is generated by a social self‐identification process, upon which there are “emergent states” across affective (commitment, cohesion), motivational (drive to secure and maintain positive self‐esteem), cognitive (shared cognition) and behavioural (intra‐team and inter‐team processes) dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
Considerations for further testing, conceptual and methodological refinement, are highlighted.
Practical implications
The model affords clear pragmatic implications for leveraging more effective teamwork in organizational contexts.
Originality/value
The propositional model in the paper integrates and builds on previous thinking into a more generative understanding of effective team work (i.e. what makes teamwork possible and how can this be sustained) that takes into account the importance of context in accounting for team success.
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Dedong Wang and Peng Wang
As the risks and uncertainties faced by construction projects increase, the study of organizational resilience becomes more and more important for construction project management…
Abstract
Purpose
As the risks and uncertainties faced by construction projects increase, the study of organizational resilience becomes more and more important for construction project management. Therefore, this study aims to deepen the understanding of the micro-mechanisms of organizational resilience in construction projects and explore the impact of employee resilience on organizational resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
By combining the conservation of resources, this study constructs the mechanism of employee resilience on organizational resilience in construction projects and considers the mediating role of task types. A partial least squares structural equation model (SEM) was used to test hypotheses based on data collected from 224 respondents.
Findings
The results show that employees' work resilience has a direct positive impact on the organizational resilience in construction projects and is also mediated by inter-team tasks. However, the psychological resilience of employees will have a direct adverse effect on the organizational resilience in construction projects and will be mediated by inter-team tasks and intra-team tasks.
Originality/value
This study verifies the impact mechanism of employee resilience on organizational resilience, including direct effects and indirect effects through different types of team tasks, and reveals the micro-mechanisms of using employee resources to build organizational resilience. This article sheds light on how project managers and employees can develop resilience to deal with the uncertainty and complexity of construction projects.
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Shuqin Zhang, Qian Huang, Hefu Liu and Youying Wang
This study aims to explore how team task-related social media usage (TSMU) and social-related social media usage (SSMU) affect employees' perceptions of intra-team cooperation and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how team task-related social media usage (TSMU) and social-related social media usage (SSMU) affect employees' perceptions of intra-team cooperation and competition and further individual creativity.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a questionnaire survey on enterprises in China that have implemented social media and obtained 348 useable questionnaires from 55 work teams.
Findings
The results revealed that employees' perceptions of intra-team cooperation and competition can promote employees' creativity. Employees' cooperation perception can be significantly positively affected by TSMU and SSMU, whereas employees' competition perception can be significantly positively affected by TSMU. Regarding congruence, the results indicated that the more balanced between TSMU and SSMU, the stronger the competition perception.
Practical implications
Managers should pay critical attention to the role of team social media usage (SMU) in shaping employees' perceptions of their team environments. They should realize the different outcomes and the joint effects of the different types of SMU.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the social media literature by explaining the impact of team SMU on employees' perceptions and evaluations of team environments based on the social information processing theory. The study presents the relationships among team SMU, employees' perceptions of cooperation and competition and employee creativity. Moreover, this study expands research on the trade-off of SMU by exploring the impact of balanced and imbalanced SMU in a work team.
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Helena Desivilya and Michal Raz
The purpose of this paper is to discern the legacies of social divisions, notably protracted social conflict on team members’ relations, collaborative interactions and ways of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discern the legacies of social divisions, notably protracted social conflict on team members’ relations, collaborative interactions and ways of coping with such work-life reality.
Design/methodology/approach
This study constitutes a pilot phase of a research on nationally and ethnically diverse nurses’ teams operating in medical centers. It used qualitative methodology: a semi-structured individual interviews with 12 nurses.
Findings
The findings underscore the challenge of engaging diversity in mixed work teams operating in the shadow of protracted conflict. The results indicated inter-group biases, implicit discrimination and tensions due to the salience of social categorization and the faultline phenomenon. These tensions mount in crisis situations, such as violent incidents associated with the national conflict. The major coping pattern was directing the disagreements to a hidden sphere. The findings showed paucity of organizational level efforts to engage diversity and social divisions-related issues. In spite of the complexities associated with diverse workplaces, the nurses revealed high capability of maintaining cooperative interactions and effectively performing their healthcare tasks.
Research limitations/implications
The current study represents a pilot phase of a larger research project. Subsequent stages will extend the sample size and use additional research instruments for data collection.
Practical implications
Human resources managers need to address the organizational issues related to diversity and social divisions, including policy and training activities.
Social implications
Engaging “otherness” remains a considerable challenge in diverse work setting, especially when team work constitutes the main work pattern. It should be faced by work organizations and social institutions.
Originality/value
The study involves an innovative element as it attempts to elucidate the ramifications of diversity and inter-group tensions in “real-life” circumstances; namely, work setting in the context of a divided society. Most of the previous research examined such phenomena in the laboratory and/or on ad hoc groups.
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John W. Cadogan, Nick Lee, Anssi Tarkiainen and Sanna Sundqvist
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the role managers and peers play in shaping salespeople's ethical behaviour. The model specifies that sales manager…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the role managers and peers play in shaping salespeople's ethical behaviour. The model specifies that sales manager personal moral philosophies, whether sales managers themselves are rewarded according to the outcomes or behaviours of their salespeople, sales team job security, intra‐team cooperation, and sales team tactical performance all influence sales team ethical standards. In turn, ethical standards influence the probability that sales team members will behave (un)ethically when faced with ethical dilemmas.
Design/methodology/approach
The model is tested on a sample of 154 Finnish sales managers. Data were collected via mail survey. Analysis was undertaken using structural equation modelling.
Findings
Ethical standards appear to be shaped by several factors; behaviour‐based management controls increase ethical standards, relativist managers tend to manage less ethically‐minded sales teams, job insecurity impedes the development of ethical standards, and sales teams' cooperation activity increases ethical standards. Sales teams are less likely to engage in unethical behaviour when the teams have strong ethical standards.
Research limitations/implications
Cross‐sectional data limits generalisability; single country data may limit the ability to generalise to different sales environments; additional measure development is needed; identification of additional antecedent factors would be beneficial.
Practical implications
Sales managers should consciously develop high ethical standards in sales teams if they wish to reduce unethical behaviour. Ethical standards can be improved if sales managers change their own outward behaviour (exhibit a less relativistic ethical philosophy), foster cooperation amongst salespeople, and develop perceptions of job security. How sales managers are rewarded may shape how they approach the management of ethical behaviour in their sales teams.
Originality/value
This paper appears to be the first to simultaneously examine both sales manager‐specific and sales team‐specific antecedents to sales team ethical standards and behaviours. As such, it provides an important base for research in this critical area.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate into the relationships among citizenship behavior within medical and nursing teams, cooperation among these teams within hospital units…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate into the relationships among citizenship behavior within medical and nursing teams, cooperation among these teams within hospital units and job satisfaction of members of those teams.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were gathered via questionnaires, administered to 107 doctors and nurses of a small hospital in Israel, regarding their job satisfaction, their evaluation of the citizenship behavior within their own professional team (medical or nursing) and the extent of cooperation of their own team with the other professional team. Preacher and Hayes’s mediation analyses were carried out on the data.
Findings
The findings show that medical–nursing cooperation mediates the relationship between citizenship behavior within the professional team (medical or nursing) and job satisfaction. When analyzed separately for doctors and nurses, results show that job satisfaction is predicted by the cooperation between the medical and nursing staff within hospital units, for nurses only. Citizenship behavior is shown to predict job satisfaction for each of the two professional sectors. Although for nurses, both factors affect their levels of job satisfaction, whereas for the doctors, cooperation affects citizenship behavior within the medical team, which, in turn, affects their job satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
The research sample is small and culturally specific, thus limiting the generalization potential of this study.
Originality/value
The unique nature of teamwork within hospital departments is hereby investigated. The findings shed light on a critical issue of hospital human resource management, which has not been previously investigated, and may have practical implications regarding hospitals’ overall management policies.
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Florian Jentsch, Raegan M Hoeft, Stephen M Fiore and Clint A Bowers
Most traditional research on work groups has studied groups and teams that are homogeneous with respect to culture. To alleviate the dearth of material on culturally heterogeneous…
Abstract
Most traditional research on work groups has studied groups and teams that are homogeneous with respect to culture. To alleviate the dearth of material on culturally heterogeneous teams, this chapter provides an overview of the impact of cultural diversity on groups and teams in today’s workforce. First, we focus on the problems involved in defining the constructs of “teams” and “culture.” Second, we provide a brief review of the cultural factors that have been identified as affecting human performance. This review serves as the basis for the third section of this chapter, which investigates if – and how – cultural heterogeneity affects team performance. Finally, we conclude with how culturally diverse workplaces can be managed and how to improve performance when faced with cultural diversity.
Katarzyna Czernek-Marszałek, Patrycja Klimas, Patrycja Juszczyk and Dagmara Wójcik
Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological…
Abstract
Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.
This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex.
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Torbjørn Bjorvatn and Andreas Wald
With faster innovation and shorter product cycles, time pressure is a highly relevant factor affecting contemporary business processes. This study aims to extend prior research on…
Abstract
Purpose
With faster innovation and shorter product cycles, time pressure is a highly relevant factor affecting contemporary business processes. This study aims to extend prior research on the effects of velocity at the firm level by considering the effect of time pressure on knowledge transfer effectiveness (KTE) on the team level and the role of trust as a mediator of this effect.
Design/methodology/approach
We empirically assess the impact of time pressure on knowledge transfer effectiveness in teams. Further, we test the mediating effect of trust on this relationship. We study a sample of 285 project teams applying partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The authors find that time pressure is negatively associated with KTE. Moreover, trust among team members has a complementary mediating effect on this relationship. Thus, while trust is urgently needed for enhancing KTE under time pressure, time pressure reduces trust-building too.
Research limitations/implications
This study establishes empirically the importance of time pressure and trust as drivers of KTE in teams. The contribution connects the field of knowledge management to important streams in the wider business literature: organization studies, management, strategic management, project management, innovation etc. Whereas the model is parsimonious, it has high explanatory power and high generalizability to other contexts.
Practical implications
Team managers should take care to allow enough time for knowledge transfer within the team. This is particularly important when knowledge sharing is central, e.g. in innovation, development and change processes. If this is not possible, measures should be taken to maintain trust among team members.
Social implications
Effective knowledge management enhances the performance of business entities and public-sector organizations alike. Today, both the private and public sectors are under considerable pressure to increase both efficiency and effectiveness. Effective knowledge transfer within teams is a core capability to achieve this goal. More effective organizations result in more competitive private firms, more employment opportunities and improved public services to citizens.
Originality/value
Time pressure is an increasingly relevant factor in contemporary business but so far little explored in research. This study extends current knowledge by considering the effect of time pressure on KTE.
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Ernesto Tavoletti, Robert D. Stephens and Longzhu Dong
This study aims to assess the effect of peer evaluations on team-level effort, productivity, motivation and overall team performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess the effect of peer evaluations on team-level effort, productivity, motivation and overall team performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study explores the impact of a peer evaluation system on 895 multicultural and transnational global virtual teams (GVTs) composed of 5,852 university students from 130 different countries. The study uses a quasi-experiment in which the group project is implemented under two conditions over two sequential iterations. In the first condition, team members do not receive peer evaluation feedback during the project. In the second condition, participants completed detailed peer evaluations of their team members and received feedback weekly for eight consecutive weeks.
Findings
Results suggest that when peer evaluations are used in GVTs during the project, teams show: higher levels of group effort; lower levels of average productivity and motivation; and no clear evidence of improved team performance. Results cast doubts on the benefits of peer evaluation within GVTs as the practice fails to reach its main objective of improving team performance and generates some negative internal dynamics.
Practical implications
The major implication of the study for managers and educators using GVTs is that the use of peer evaluations during the course of a project does not appear to improve objective team performance and reduces team motivation and perception of productivity despite increases in teams’ perceptions of effort and performance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the scanty literature regarding the impact of peer evaluation systems on group-level dynamics and performance outcomes.
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