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Seekers who visit professional virtual communities (PVCs) are usually motivated by knowledge-seeking, which is a complex cognitive process. How do seekers search for knowledge, and how is their search linked to prior knowledge or PVC situation factors? From the cognitive process and interactional psychology perspectives, this study investigated the three-way interactions between seekers’ expertise, task complexity, and perceptions of PVC features (i.e. knowledge quality and system quality) on knowledge-seeking strategies and resultant outcomes.

A field experiment was conducted with 119 seekers in a PVC using a 2 × 2 factorial design of seekers’ expertise (i.e. expert versus novice) and task complexity (i.e. low versus high).

The study reveals three significant insights: (1) For a high-complexity task, experts adopt an ask-directed searching strategy compared to novices, whereas novices adopt a browsing strategy; (2) For a high-complexity task, experts who perceive a high system quality are more likely than novices to adopt an ask-directed searching strategy; and (3) Task completion time and task quality are associated with the adoption of ask-directed searching strategies, whereas knowledge seekers’ satisfaction is more associated with the adoption of browsing strategy.

We draw on the perspectives of cognitive process and interactional psychology to explore potential two- and three-way interactions of seekers’ expertise, task complexity, and PVC features on the adoption of knowledge-seeking strategies in a PVC context. Our findings provide deep insights into seekers’ behavior in a PVC, given the popularity of the search for knowledge in PVCs.

The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between humble leadership, project success, and service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and how task complexity may moderate this relationship. The study aims to determine if humble leaders are more likely to promote service-oriented OCB among team members and if this behavior in turn leads to greater project success, especially in complex task environments. These relationships are examined through the lens of the conservation of resources theory.

The data were collected from the employees working in software companies using a closed-ended questionnaire, and a total of 214 complete questionnaires were analyzed. The research model was tested using structural equation modeling with the help of Smart PLS 3 software.

Humble leadership is positively associated with service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), which in turn is linked to project success. Task complexity does not appear to have a significant impact on this relationship.

Humble leadership is positively related to IT project success through its influence on service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior and task complexity. Implications include the importance of fostering a humble leadership style to enhance IT project success, as well as the potential benefits of promoting service-oriented behavior among employees. It also highlights the need to consider task complexity when evaluating project success.

The research explores the relationship between “humble leadership” and project success, and how it relates to “service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior” and “task complexity”. It presents an original perspective on the role of leadership in project success and the impact of organizational culture on project outcomes through the lens of the conservation of resources theory.

Task complexity is one of the significant factors that influences and is used for forecasting employee performance and determining labor cost. However, the complexity level of tasks is unstructured, dynamic and complicated to perform. This paper develops a new method for evaluating the complexity level of tasks in the production process to support production managers to control their manufacturing systems in terms of flexibility, reliability to production planning and labor cost.

The complexity level of tasks will be analyzed based on the structuralist concept. Using the structure of task, the factors that significantly affect the task complexity in an assembly line will be defined, and the complexity level of the task will be evaluated by measuring the number of task components. Using the proportional 2-tuples linguistic values, the difference between the complexity levels of tasks can be compared and described clearly.

Based on the structure of the task, three contributory factors including input factors, process-operation factors and output factors that significantly affect the task complexity in an assembly line are identified in the present study. The complexity level of the task is quantified through analyzing the details of the three factors according to two criteria and six sub-criteria within the textile case study.

The proposed approach provides a new insight about the factors that have an effect on the complexity of tasks in production and remedies some of limitations of previous methods. The combination of experts' experience and scientific knowledge will improve the accuracy in determining the complexity level of tasks.

One core element of interactive information retrieval (IIR) experiments is the assignment of search tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical review of current practice in developing those search tasks to test, observe or control task complexity and difficulty.

Over 100 prior studies of IIR were examined in terms of how each defined task complexity and/or difficulty (or related concepts) and subsequently interpreted those concepts in the development of the assigned search tasks.

Search task complexity is found to include three dimensions: multiplicity of subtasks or steps, multiplicity of facets, and indeterminability. Search task difficulty is based on an interaction between the search task and the attributes of the searcher or the attributes of the search situation. The paper highlights the anomalies in our use of these two concepts, concluding with suggestions for future methodological research related to search task complexity and difficulty.

By analyzing and synthesizing current practices, this paper provides guidance for future experiments in IIR that involve these two constructs.

This study examines the mediating effect of effort on the relationship between performance incentives and audit judgment performance under different levels of task complexity.

Using an experimental research design, subjects are randomly assigned to three performance incentive groups: control, financial and feedback. Each subject is required to perform two experimental tasks of two complexity levels (low and high).

Results indicate that performance incentive variables are positively related to audit judgment performance. Hierarchical regressions of moderated‐mediation analyses support the hypotheses that the mediation effect of effort on the relationship between performance incentives and audit judgment performance occurs under low task complexity and not under high task complexity. In other words, the positive relationship between effort and audit judgment performance is weakened under high task complexity.

The external validity of this study is limited since the audit case contains less information than the real audit environment. This study contends that the expectancy theory can in fact be used to generate empirical prediction on audit judgment performance. The reliance on expectancy theory to supply theoretical mechanism by including the moderating variables provides explanation on when effort should and should not have positive effects on audit judgment performance.

Audit firms need to be careful on the performance incentives offered because incentives affect job output quality. Performance incentives may reduce job turnover and job tension among auditors. In addition, audit firms should ensure that the auditors have proper training to increase their skills and knowledge to help auditors to carry out various job complexities.

This paper can enhance knowledge and understanding on how motivational and environment factors influence audit judgment performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity on decisions by managers to continue or discontinue a new product after receiving negative performance feedback.

This paper uses a classroom experiment design and uses logistic regression and a chi-square test to analyze the data.

The findings of this paper show that self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity have not only main effects but also interactive effects on managers’ go or no-go decisions; further, the main effects are mediated by interactions. The effect of self-efficacy is moderated by process feedback and task complexity. Process feedback and task complexity also have an interactive effect on decisions about new products by decision-makers.

This paper extends the theory of escalation of commitment (EOC) by showing that self-efficacy, process feedback and task complexity can influence decision-makers’ go or no-go decisions after they have received negative performance feedback.

This paper provides useful guidelines for managers on how to reduce the likelihood of EOC.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its being the first to examine the effects of process feedback and task complexity on the EOC.

Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings of the effects that task conflict has on creative outcomes, with some research finding a negative relationship but others holding a positive or even no significant relationship. Drawing on the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect approach, this paper aims to investigate the curvilinear relations between task conflict and creative idea generation as well as the mediating role of task reflexivity and the moderating role of task complexity.

Two studies were carried out to test the proposed relationship. In Study 1, multisource and lagged data collected from 533 employees and 140 corresponding supervisors were used to test the curvilinear relationship between task conflict and creative idea generation as well as the moderating effect of task complexity. In Study 2, the authors extended the findings by exploring the mediating effect of task reflexivity using a matched sample of 350 employees and 99 corresponding supervisors.

Task conflict had an inverted U-shaped relationship with creative idea generation, and task reflexivity partially mediated this relationship. Besides, this association was moderated by task complexity such that the curvilinear relationship was more pronounced for tasks with lower complexity.

This study was more or less contaminated by common method variance because some variables were derived from the same sources. Also, task conflict might be necessitated to differentiate and more situational variables should be considered to draw a complete picture.

Managers should undertake conflict management according to the levels of task conflict and task complexity. At a lower degree of task conflict, managers might motivate employees to think more about task-related issues; at higher levels of task conflict, managers should act as conflict mediators to reduce the underlying negative effects, especially for simple tasks.

These findings could help us understand the boundary conditions under, and the underlying mechanisms by, which task conflict has an impact on creative idea generation.

This study investigates the moderating effects of age, experience and educational qualification on the relationship between uncertainty and subjective task complexity among lawyers working in private law firms in Lagos State, Nigeria.

A survey method was adopted and data were gathered using questionnaires. The analysis was carried out based on partial least squares structural equation modelling using SmartPLS 2.0 M3 software.

Results showed that the effect of uncertainty on subjective task complexity is significantly moderated by age, educational attainment, experience of the lawyers under study.

Although data were collected in the most populated state and commercial hub of Nigeria, generalisation based on findings may still need to be made with caution.

Attainment of higher educational qualification is highly important for lawyers even though the minimum requirement to practice as a lawyer is a degree. Lawyers with higher degrees (LLM and PhD) had less uncertainty and perceived their tasks to be less complex compared to their counterparts who had the first degree (LLB).

The demographic profile of professionals (age, education and experience) has proven to have an impact on their perception about task complexity as determined by uncertainty as found in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate information retrieval (IR) in the context of authentic work tasks (WTs), as compared to traditional experimental IR study designs.

The participants were 22 professionals working in municipal administration, university research and education, and commercial companies. The data comprise 286 WTs and 420 search tasks (STs). The data were collected in natural situations. It includes transaction logs, video recordings, interviews, observation, and daily questionnaires.

The analysis included the effects of WT type and complexity on the number of STs, queries, search keys and types of queries. The findings suggest that simple STs are enough to support most WTs. Complex WTs (vs more simple ones) and intellectual WTs (vs communication, support and editing WTs) include more STs than other WT categories.

Further research should address the problems related to controllability of field studies and enhance the use of realistic WT situations in test-based studies, as well.

The study is an attempt to bring traditional IR studies and realistic research settings closer to each other. Using authentic WTs when studying IR is still rare. The representativeness of the WT/ST types used in interactive IR experiments should be carefully addressed: in the work flow, people seldom consciously recognise separate “STs”. This means that STs may mainly be an academic construct even to the point that studying IR without a decent context does violence to the further understanding of the phenomenon.

This paper aims to identify the relationship pattern between intra-team trust and team innovation and the influence of moderating variable task complexity on the relationship. It also describes why and how intra-team trust is a unique antecedent for team innovation, as too much or too less influence of the variable can have detrimental effects on team innovation.

The paper uses survey research. The data were collected by distributing questionnaires to work teams. After the individual-level data were aggregated into team-level data, hierarchical linier regression was conducted to test the hypotheses.

The paper provides empirical findings that (1) intra-team trust and team innovation have a curvilinear relationship pattern, (2) task complexity does not influence curvilinear relationship (3) and the increase in task complexity improves the possibility of team innovation to occur.

The paper has two limitations. First, as intra-team trust was also represented by aggregated perception of team members’ trust for outside parties (not only members’ perception for their teams), the future research is expected to include the representation in the instrument. Second, recent research studies have shown that contextual factor of task interdependence, instead of task complexity, also had an effect on the relationship pattern between intra-team trust and team performance (i.e. team innovation). Therefore, for future researchers, it is suggested that the use of task interdependence would be an alternative moderating variable on the relationship between intra-team trust and team innovation.

The paper discusses the strategy to enhance team innovation by revealing strategies to manage interplay among intra-team trust, team complexity and the desired team innovation.

The paper identifies the need to conduct empirical research on how an interplay among intra-team trust, task complexity and team innovation could be enabled.