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This paper aims to explore the role of goal‐oriented attitudes and behaviors as antecedents of conflict management and the subsequent impact of conflict management on team outcomes in virtual teams. Of particular interest is the role of “commitment to team goals” as a predictor of successful conflict management and the subsequent impact of conflict management on team outcomes.

This paper describes the results from a quasi‐experimental study examining the relationships among commitment to team goals, conflict management and team outcomes in virtual teams. First, it provides an in depth review of relevant empirical findings. Next, it describes a study examining the relationships between three sets of variables: commitment to team goals; conflict management; and team outcomes (performance and attitudinal) in the context of virtual teams. Data were collected from 141 students grouped in 39 teams size 3 to 4 that were part of four cohorts of an Engineering Management course.

The results provide some preliminary evidence that conflict management mediated the relationships between goal commitment and team outcomes. Results suggest that commitment to team goals is a significant predictor of successful conflict management. Findings also suggest that teams that are more actively involved in preventing and solving their conflict experience a significant increase in the relationship between commitment to team goals and team performance, suggesting that use of effective conflict management can support team effectiveness in the context of virtual teams. Finally, limitations and suggestions for future research are presented.

This paper sheds some light into the role conflict as a mediator on the relationship between goal commitment and virtual team effectiveness. It provides preliminary evidence that conflict management plays a critical role in enhancing virtual team effectiveness.

This study aims to examine the role of team coaching in regard to team innovation by considering motivational and behavioral intervening mechanisms.

Based on a multisource approach, data was gathered from 97 work teams (341 members and 97 immediate supervisors) in a public safety organization.

Results of structural equation modeling analyses indicate that the relationship between team coaching and team innovation is mediated by team goal commitment and support for innovation. Specifically, team coaching has a direct effect on support for innovation and an indirect effect on this behavioral team process through team goal commitment. In turn, support for innovation may improve the implementation of successful team innovation.

In a global competitive context, innovation represents a key leverage to generate a competitive advantage. Team leaders who engage in coaching behaviors toward their subordinates are likely to foster innovation within their work team. Thus, organizations may benefit by designing and implementing interventions aimed at developing team leaders’ coaching skills and encouraging them to consider coaching as a core managerial responsibility.

On the whole, this study highlights the role of team coaching as a key leverage to stimulate successful innovation in work teams and the motivational and behavioral mechanisms that intervene in this relationship.

This paper aims to examine the effect of shared leadership on student project team processes and outcomes. The authors focused on shared leadership and its association with team processes (coordination, goal commitment and knowledge sharing) and team performance.

To examine the shared leadership, team processes and performance model, the authors conducted two separate surveys of 158 graduate and undergraduate students working in project teams at a large southwestern university.

Results showed that shared leadership positively affected coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing, which in turn positively affect team performance. Each team process factor had a mediation effect, although shared leadership had no direct effect on team performance.

This research adds to the knowledge of important team process factors through which shared leadership indirectly affects team performance.

Based on the findings, the authors provided implications for students and instructors that shared leadership can facilitate team performance by enabling team members to coordinate activities, commit to goals and share knowledge effectively.

This study presents an initial understanding of the shared leadership-team performance relationship by introducing influential variables, such as coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing in a team.

Based on commitment system theory and commitment-trust theory, this study aims to reveal the effects of participating teams’ multiple commitments (i.e. synergistic commitments and conflicting commitments) on the performance of open innovation projects through the mediating role of trusted knowledge interaction and vigilant knowledge interaction.

Primary survey data collected from 242 respondents of 47 open innovation projects in the manufacturing industry was used to test eight hypotheses. Correlations between multiple commitments, knowledge interaction and the performance of open innovation projects were investigated.

The findings reveal that synergistic commitments improve the performance of open innovation projects through enhancing trusted knowledge interaction. Synergistic commitments reduce the level of vigilant knowledge interaction, and the performance of open innovation projects follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with vigilant knowledge interaction. Conflicting commitments negatively moderate the effect of synergistic commitments on trusted knowledge interaction and vigilant knowledge interaction.

The authors extend commitment system theory and commitment-trust theory to open innovation project field. The findings bridge the gaps in isolated and static focus in previous commitment literatures and innovation management literatures, and provide practical guidance for how to better manage the dynamic combination of multiple commitments and knowledge interaction among participating teams in open innovation projects.

The purpose of this paper is to expand our understanding on team listening by incorporating an action component. The authors empirically test the effect of this expanded concept, namely team action listening on team success, and investigate how team commitment moderates the relationship between team trust and team action listening.

The authors explored listening in teams in the field and in the lab, both qualitatively and quantitatively, through studying 474 team members representing 100 teams. The authors tested the hypotheses by structural equation modeling augmented with in-depth team interviews.

The findings showed that: teams demonstrate that they listen by taking action, teams that exhibit action listening are more successful, there is a direct relationship between team trust and team action listening and team commitment negatively moderates this relation in larger teams.

Managers should encourage taking action in team discussions. Yet, they should be wary of the detrimental effects of team commitment to team action listening particularly in teams with high trust. Commitment increases the risk of groupthink and decreases the participation to team discussions and listening. In particular, managers may benefit from keeping the team smaller, as in large teams, commitment suppresses the relationship between trust and team action listening.

This study extends research on team listening by adding the action aspect that distinguishes successful teams. It is one of the first to investigate the interrelationships between team trust, commitment, team action listening and success in teams.

The purpose of the study was to maximize team members' collaboration and develop relationships in a newly formed team to engage with internal and external partners to achieve open innovation (OI) in product development. The authors examine the role of collaborative human resource management (HRM) and relational leadership (RL) in this process.

The study took a two-stage qualitative methodological approach to examine relational leadership as it emerges in a newly formed cross-functional team at a large German fashion house. In stage one, 10 interviews were conducted with members of the new project team over three months and in stage two six external knowledge exchange partners were interviewed.

Collaborative HRM promotes greater social exchange, trust and commitment of team members internal and external to the organization to support the emergence of RL, which is critical for OI. The authors found that collaborative HRM practices such as team-based recruitment, team-based training, team-based performance management with rewards systems and job design support the emergence of RL. Moreover, RL practices such as congruence and commitment towards team goals subsequently promoted the development of knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) to support OI.

The study is the first to demonstrate how collaborative HRM enables RL practices to help newly formed teams overcome challenges with achieving KSS to successfully engage with internal and external partners for OI. The authors contribute to HRM theory development of the relationship between HRM and OI by conceptualizing the OI process as a social construction through collaborative HRM and relational leadership.

Teamwork in the construction industry has attracted much attention from both academic and industrial circles. Most importantly, improving team effectiveness will increase the likelihood of successful project delivery. Recognising the factors influencing team dynamics is important for enhanced team performance.

Based on a detailed literature review, a survey questionnaire containing 10 aspects and 25 attributes of teamwork relevant to construction is used to collect feedback from Malaysian construction practitioners from client, consultant and contractor organisations to prioritise these hypothesised variables. The data are then subjected to reliability analysis, descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies), a one-sample t-test, the Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA and exploratory factor analysis.

The significance of these aspects and attributes is then presented. The three most crucial aspects are “project performance”, “decision-making capability” and “problem-solving ability”. The most influential attributes are “effective communication between project team members”, “efficient team leadership”, “well-defined team responsibilities and roles”, “clear team goals and objectives” and “good collaboration between all project leaders”. The Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA reveals five attributes having statistically significant differences with respect to company size, namely “clear team goals and objectives”, “commitment to the project”, “adequate resources”, “team or task processes” and “creativity and innovation”. Six underlying dimensions are found, comprising (1) participative engagement and task commitment; (2) team responsibility structure and accountability; (3) culture of trust and respect; (4) leader's skills and abilities; (5) top management support; and (6) synergic working environment.

The identification of these dimensions for team effectiveness provides rigorous basis for formulating useful team-building strategies for integrating a collaborative environment among project stakeholders and consequently improving project performance.

This paper bridges the identified knowledge gap concerning the dimensionality of teamwork attributes in construction-based setting and adds to existing knowledge of how team effectiveness can be leveraged to improve project performance in the construction management literature.

Teams are best positioned for success when certain enabling conditions are in place such as the right mix of individuals. Effective team staffing considers team members’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) as well as the configuration of team member KSAOs and their relations, called team composition. In practice, however, how to integrate team composition considerations into team staffing to facilitate outcomes such as team cohesion can seem nebulous. The purpose of this chapter is to describe how team member KSAOs and their configurations and relations affect team cohesion, and suggest how this information can inform team staffing. We frame team cohesion as an aspect of team human capital to understand when it may be an important consideration for staffing. We describe multilevel considerations in staffing cohesive teams. We summarize theories that link team composition to team cohesion via interpersonal attraction, a shared team identity, and team task commitment. Finally, we propose a six-step approach for staffing cohesive teams, and describe a few areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to model the nature of intra-group conflicts and to show how conflict process phases that are beneficial to the organization can be supported and how disadvantageous conflict process phases can be prevented or managed. Task (process) and relationship conflicts can appear alternately in the same conflict process, so the overperformance cannot be estimated by the number of intra-group conflicts alone. By exploring the intra-group conflict processes, the author can identify patterns of employee commitment that can increase, mitigate or prevent certain phases of conflict processes.

The study presents three intra-group conflicts from the same multinational company using the narrative tool. Qualitative methods are particularly suitable for modeling feelings, thoughts, fears and workplace attitudes. The cases come from the immediate managers of the conflict-affected groups.

The process of intra-group conflicts can typically be divided into four phases: task (process) conflict; relationship conflict; task (process) conflict; end of conflict (end of teeming). Task conflict, which provides overperformance for the organization, is supported by the employees’ normative and professional commitment, while the prevention of relationship conflict, which is detrimental to performance, is supported by increasing the employees’ affective commitment. The relationship between affective commitment and relationship conflict is moderated by transformational leadership. Finally, the minimum of team performance is affected by both the degree of relationship conflict and the lack of affective commitment, while the maximum of team performance is positively affected by the degree of task (process) conflict and the employees’ normative and professional commitment.

In the future, the results should be confirmed by researches using quantitative methods.

The results suggest to managers that enhancing employees’ affective commitment is primarily important for preventing the disadvantageous relationship conflicts, while enhancing their normative and professional commitment is important for fostering the performance-related task conflict. The results show that increasing commitment goes beyond the organizational value of employees’ loyalty alone, and also highlight the importance of training and development.

In the literature on intra-group conflicts, most studies treat task and relationship conflicts independently of each other in conflict processes. This paper shows that both conflicts can be part of the same process at the same time. In addition, little research had addressed how employee commitment reduces or increases the certain phase of a specific type of conflict process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of connective leadership in the promotion of employee goal commitment, and to determine whether conflict can mediate the relationship between connective leadership and goal commitment during the integration of mergers and acquisitions (M & A).

The study draws on survey data (n=255) from Chinese employees who work for 12 native M & A enterprises. Structural equation modeling and regression analysis are applied to analyze the data.

The results show that connective leadership is positively related to employee goal commitment (p < 0.01). In addition, relationship conflict partially mediates the relationship between connective leadership and employee goal commitment. Task conflict fully mediates the relationship between connective leadership and employee goal commitment.

This study introduces connective leadership into M & A and may contribute to the literature related to connective leadership and M & A integration as well as the literature focussed on goal commitment, especially antecedents of goal commitment.