Functional leadership in interteam contexts: Understanding ‘what’ in the context of why? where? when? and who?

Research on team leadership has primarily focused on leadership processes targeted within teams, in support of team objectives. Yet, teams are open systems that interact with other teams to achieve proximal as well as distal goals. This review clarifies that defining ‘what’ constitutes functionally effective leadership in interteam contexts requires greater precision with regard to where (within teams, across teams) and why (team goals, system goals) leadership processes are enacted, as well as greater consideration of when and among whom leadership processes arise. We begin by synthesizing findings from empirical studies published over the past 30 years that shed light on questions of what, where, why, when, and who related to interteam leadership and end by providing three overarching recommendations for how research should proceed in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of leadership in interteam contexts.     

A Little Creativity Goes a Long Way: An Examination of Teams’ Engagement in Creative Processes

Using surveys and interview data this research examines teams’ engagement in creative processes. Results of cluster analysis indicated that the more creative teams were those that perceived that their tasks required high levels of creativity, were working on jobs with high task interdependence, were high on shared goals, valued participative problem-solving, and had a climate supportive of creativity. In addition, members of the more creative teams spent more time socializing with each other and had moderate amounts of organizational tenure. Implications for management are discussed.     

Building interpersonal trust within organizations: a relational signalling perspective

This article develops the foundations for a theory of interpersonal trust-building based on relational signalling theory (RST). RST is based on the assumptions that rationality is bounded through framing, that preferences are partially determined by altruism (through a distinction between foreground and background goals), and that an individual’s action is influenced by the normative context in which he or she operates. The focus is on interpersonal trust in work relations within organizations. Interpersonal trust-building is construed as an interactive process in which both individuals learn about each other’s trustworthiness in different situations. Four conditions for the building of interpersonal trust within organizations are (1) the suspension of all opportunistic behaviour, or the removal of distrust; (2) exchange of positive relational signals; (3) avoiding negative relational signals, i.e., dealing with trouble; and (4) the stimulation of frame resonance, or the introduction of trust-enhancing organizational policies. The proposed theory can explain important characteristics of trust in organizational contexts, such as the interactive nature of trust, the learning required to build trust, the role of psychological mechanisms (such as attributions and perceptions) in decisions to trust, the limits to trust, asymmetries between trust and distrust and the context-dependency of trust.

Linking perceived organizational support with employee work outcomes in a Chinese context: Organizational identification as a mediator

Perceived organizational support (POS) is viewed as an important explanatory framework for understanding the relationship between employees and the workplace, and is regarded by some researchers as central in understanding job-related attitudes and behaviors of employees. However, less research has taken into account the role of organizational identification, which reflects how individuals define the self with respect to their organization, as a potential influence on such relationships. Drawing on a cross-organizational sample of 238 subordinate-supervisor dyads from the People’s Republic of China, we examined whether organizational identification mediates the effect of perceived organizational support (POS) on work outcomes including turnover intentions, work performance, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results from the current study showed that organizational identification fully mediates the relation of POS to OCB-directed to individuals, and partially mediates relations between POS and other work outcomes (turnover intention, work performance, OCB-directed to organization). Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.     

绩效管理的取向对团队绩效影响的实证研究

基于个人的绩效考核是一种必要的管理工具,但同时它可能对团队合作和绩效产生负面影响.为解决这个问题,本文提出并实证检验了员工发展取向的绩效考核能够促进员工的合作,进而有利于形成正向的人际互动和提高团队绩效;相反,评估对比取向的绩效考核会增加员工的竞争,从而带来负向的人际互动关系和降低团队绩效.本研究在拓展现有理论的基础上,对企业如何在团队中有效实施基于个人的绩效考核制度提供借鉴.     

Collaboration outcomes in a public sector: impact of governance,leadership, interdependence and relational capital

Collaboration between public agencies is critical to address social issues effectively. The main objective of this research was to identify the factors that lead to successful achievement of desired collaboration outcomes that could eventually lead to societal outcomes. The factors identified were: transformational leadership, governance, interdependence, and relational capital. An integrated framework was developed based on collaboration governance framework (CGF) of Ansell and Gash (J Public Adm Res Theory 18:543–571, 2008). The CGF framework has integrated the following four broad variables that are responsible for achieving the desired collaboration outcomes: starting conditions, institutional design, leadership, and collaborative process. The study was conducted in Malaysia by sending questionnaires to 500 officers in various ministries who were involved in planning, formulating, and implementing public policies. The main findings of this study are: (1) transformational leadership influences governance, interdependence, relational capital, and collaboration outcomes; (2) governance has impact on relational capital, interdependence, and collaboration outcomes; (3) relational capital and interdependence result in positive collaboration outcomes; (4) dimensions of governance are inter-related; and (5) interdependence and relational capital are strongly correlated. This research adds significantly to the literature on collaborative governance. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

8. Information processing in traditional,hybrid, and virtual teams: From nascent knowledge to transactive memory

Virtual teams are increasingly common in organizations, yet explicit theory and research on virtual team processes and outcomes is relatively rare. In this chapter, we first place virtual teams in context and provide a two dimensional framework for understanding the range of virtualness. We then build from foundations of diversity, psychological safety, social identity, conflict, and transactive memory to provide a coherent model of traditional, hybrid, and virtual team outcomes. Fourteen propositions are derived from these foundations - covering knowledge availability, sharing, refinement, and storage. Teams whose members are separated by geographical or temporal distance can have considerable positive outcomes for organizations, if they are effectively managed and supported.     

Incorporating social networks into leadership development: A conceptual model and evaluation of research and practice

Multilevel and relational views of leadership are expanding the focus of leadership development beyond individuals' knowledge, skills, and abilities to include the networked patterns of social relationships linking members of dyads and larger collectives. In this review, we present a conceptual model explaining how three distinct approaches for network-enhancing leadership development can improve the leadership capacity of individuals and collectives. We then present a review of the leadership development literature and the results of a survey of 282 practitioners to assess the extent to which these approaches have been examined in research and implemented in practice. Our review revealed that leadership research and leadership development practice are outpacing leadership development research in terms of incorporating networks. We aim to spur future research by clarifying the targets, objectives, and underlying mechanisms of each network enhancing leadership development approach in our conceptual model. Further, we identify additional literature, not traditionally considered within the realm of leadership development that may help advance empirical examinations of these approaches.     

Influence of Social Identity on Negative Perceptions in Global Virtual Teams

The paper combines insights from social identity theory and organizational network theory to specify the conditions under which social capital can induce negative attitudes in global virtual teams. The structural configuration of social capital has crucial implications for the sociocognitive processes causing individuals to adopt negative attitudes to out-group members. The paper evaluates both the negative implications of structural configurations on out-group perceptions, which are important precursors to successful intergroup interaction in global virtual teams. We collected data from 160 actors across 40 global virtual teams embedded within three separate organizations. 34 social identity groups were detected and ties between and within the groups were investigated. Our analyses provide insights on the roles of social identity groupings and social capital as well as in-group brokerage and interactions on (negative) perceptions of other group members in global virtual teams.     

A 25-year perspective on levels of analysis in leadership research

The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive 25-year review of the incorporation of levels of analysis into conceptual and empirical leadership research published within Leadership Quarterly throughout its history. We assessed the population of Leadership Quarterly's research (790 research articles) on four key levels of analysis-based issues: (1) explicit statement of the focal level(s) of analysis; (2) appropriate measurement given level of constructs; (3) use of a multi-level data analysis technique; and, (4) alignment of theory and data. Prior reviews regarding levels of analysis incorporation into leadership research have been limited to major research domains. Results revealed that while both conceptual and empirical articles only explicitly state the focal level of analysis in approximately one-third of the articles, appropriate levels-based measurement and alignment between theory and data are relatively strong areas of achievement for the articles within Leadership Quarterly. Multi-level data analysis techniques are used in less than one-fifth of all articles. Although there is room for improvement, there is evidence that Leadership Quarterly is a premier outlet for levels-based leadership research. Given the increasing complexity of organizational science with regard to groups, teams and collectives, Leadership Quarterly has an opportunity to model for organizational research on how to build and test complicated multi-level theories and models.     

‘Belonging’ to a Virtual Research Centre: Exploring the Influence of Social Capital Formation Processes on Member Identification in a Virtual Organization

Identification, a person's sense of belonging, is thought to have positive outcomes because those who identify strongly will be more motivated to achieve organizational goals. This study applies a social capital lens in order to highlight how different social capital formation processes contribute to member identification, with a focus on virtual organizations where dispersed membership may preclude face‐to‐face interactions. The study provides a rare opportunity to explore variation in identification in a single organizational context. The results highlight how some dimensions of social capital augment each other and affect identification through the four conditions that influence social capital development: time, interdependence, interaction and closure. The study suggests that, while creating interdependence and an array of means for interaction support the development of both social capital and identification, not all members of the organization need to feel equally connected. Partial closure appears beneficial for information flows and ‘renewal’ of the virtual organization.     

People perception: Social vision of groups and consequences for organizing and interacting

An enormous amount of research on person perception exists. This literature documents how people form impressions of one another and how these impressions influence behavior. However, this literature surprisingly has not been extended to people perception—how people visually perceive and judge groups (e.g., teams, classrooms, boards, crowds) rather than individuals. We propose a model of people perception processes, including three stages of Selection, Extraction, and Application (the SEA model). We integrate this model with literature from organizational, social, cognitive, and visual sciences to describe the important role of people perception in organizational and social behavior. We focus our discussion on organizational and social phenomena such as group tone, group hierarchy, and group evaluation.     

Network influence and organizational performance: The effects of tie strength and structural equivalence

We combine theory and empirical evidence to develop and test three related claims about how ties strength and structural equivalence affect interorganizational performance similarity. First, network partners attain similar levels of performance because direct network ties facilitate information and resource sharing, and the diffusion of organizational practices. Organizations occupying similar network positions attain similar levels of performance because they face similar competitive constraints. Second, because mechanisms underlying performance similarity implied by direct network ties and similarity in network positions are different, strength of network ties and network position affect different dimensions of organizational performance. Third, we expect that tie strength will affect aspects of performance that are more likely to be influenced by processes activated by the direct contact between network partners. We expect structural equivalence to affect more strongly those aspects of organizational performance that are more directly influenced by competition. An analysis of interorganizational networks and organizational performance within a regional community of hospitals provides evidence in support of these claims. Models estimated on a sample of 8190 interorganizational dyads suggest that the effects of tie strength and structural equivalence on organizational performance are highly differentiated and contingent on specific aspects of performance. We show that these conclusions are robust with respect to a wide variety of other factors that may be responsible for performance similarity including competitive interdependence, structural homophily, and resource complementarity.     

Transactive Memory Systems 1985–2010: An Integrative Framework of Key Dimensions,Antecedents, and Consequences

Over two decades have passed since Wegner and his co-authors published the groundbreaking paper on transactive memory systems (TMS) in 1985. The concept attracted the interest of management, psychology, and communication scholars who have employed a variety of methods to examine the phenomenon. In this paper, we review 76 papers that examined transactive memory systems and summarize the findings in an integrative framework to show the antecedents and consequences of TMS. Our review also reveals important issues in the literature related to the measurement of TMS, its multidimensional nature, extending TMS from the team level to the organizational level, and the potential role of TMS in explaining the benefits of experience in existing organizations and new entrepreneurial ventures. We conclude by calling for future research to examine the dynamic evolution of TMS, TMS in virtual teams, TMS in entrepreneurial ventures, and TMS at the organizational level facilitated with information technologies.     

The diversity gap in leadership: What are we missing in current theorizing?

Relational models of organizational inequalities offer numerous insights around the role of micro, meso and macro processes that drive differential progress of diverse individuals into senior leadership roles. We propose that the Bourdieusian relational framework of capital, habitus and field, and Bourdieu's conception of symbolic violence, provide a powerful explanatory lens for understanding the continuing lack of diversity among our corporate leaders. In applying this framework, we highlight critical shortcomings in current conceptions of leadership development and significant implications for leadership theory. We highlight the ways in which gendered and racialized structures are created and reinforced preventing access to opportunities for corporate leadership to diverse individuals. Future leadership theorizing needs to place greater attention upon the context in which development occurs, how valuable capital comes to be prescribed, as well as the forces at work in generating structures that perpetuate differential access to the capital necessary to progress as leaders.     

Ethical leadership and follower voice and performance: The role of follower identifications and entity morality beliefs

Previous studies have established the relationship between ethical leadership and a variety of positive follower outcomes. Follower organizational identification has been found to mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and follower job performance. In this research, we incorporate a second distinct and theoretically important type of social identification process, relational identification with the leader, along with organizational identification, and examine their mediating effects on follower performance and voice outcomes. Further, we bring the implicit theory of morality to the behavioral ethics literature and examine follower morality beliefs as a moderator. Using a Romanian sample of 302 followers under the supervision of 27 leaders, we found that ethical leadership has an indirect effect on follower job performance and voice (through the mediating mechanisms of both organizational and relational identifications) and that these relationships are stronger for followers who held the implicit theory that a person's moral character is fixed.     

Politics under abusive supervision: The role of Machiavellianism and guanxi

The study examines the relationships between abusive supervision, subordinates’ perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), and political behavior. The moderating roles of Machiavellianism (Mach) and guanxi in these relationships are also examined. Data were collected from 280 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a Chinese taxation bureau. Results indicate that, under abusive supervision, subordinates experienced heightened POPs and were more likely to engage in political behavior. Furthermore, the relationship between abusive supervision and POPs was stronger among low-Mach subordinates. Moreover, the relationship between POPs and political behavior is strongest among high-Mach individuals who have strong guanxi with their supervisor. The findings indicate that abusive supervision has important implications for political dynamics in an organization, and the political perspective serves as a meaningful theoretical lens to examine its impact.     

Path to “Stardom” in Globally Distributed Hybrid Teams: An Examination of a Knowledge‐Centered Perspective using Social Network Analysis

Although distributed teams have been researched extensively in information systems and decision science disciplines, a review of the literature suggests that the dominant focus has been on understanding the factors affecting performance at the team level. There has however been an increasing recognition that specific individuals within such teams are often critical to the team's performance. Consequently, existing knowledge about such teams may be enhanced by examining the factors that affect the performance of individual team members. This study attempts to address this need by identifying individuals who emerge as “stars” in globally distributed teams involved in knowledge work such as information systems development (ISD). Specifically, the study takes a knowledge‐centered view in explaining which factors lead to “stardom” in such teams. Further, it adopts a social network approach consistent with the core principles of structural/relational analysis in developing and empirically validating the research model. Data from U.S.–Scandinavia self‐managed “hybrid” teams engaged in systems development were used to deductively test the proposed model. The overall study has several implications for group decision making: (i) the study focuses on stars within distributed teams, who play an important role in shaping group decision making, and emerge as a result of a negotiated/consensual decision making within egalitarian teams; (ii) an examination of emergent stars from the team members’ point of view reflects the collective acceptance and support dimension decision‐making contexts identified in prior literature; (iii) finally, the study suggests that the social network analysis technique using relational data can be a tool for a democratic decision‐making technique within groups.     

Team Microdynamics: Toward an Organizing Approach to Teamwork

ABSTRACT

Team researchers in the field of organizational behavior (OB) seem to be increasingly aware of the need to embrace the organizing nature of teams. In this article, we outline the limitations of the prevailing static collectivist explanations in team research and suggest how an increased emphasis on a microdynamics-oriented approach that takes into account the essentially relational and organizing nature of teams can provide new insights to our understanding of teamwork. We argue that a multilevel, multi-theoretical, and multi-period framework may help enhance our understanding of teams. To show the advancements of the field in this sense, we review the OB literature on teams and highlight exemplars of research that have started to emphasize the microdynamic nature of teams consistent with this general framework, and their contributions to our understanding of team phenomena. We conclude by outlining the opportunities and needs for a microdynamic insight into team and teamwork, providing guidance for scholars who are interested in adding a microdynamic perspective into their models of teamwork.