The influence of cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence on conflict occurrence and performance in global virtual teams

The role of different types of intelligence in the occurrence of conflict in global virtual teams (GVTs) has largely been overlooked in the literature. As suggested by the theory of multiple intelligences, this study explores how cultural intelligence (CQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ) influence the occurrence of interpersonal, task and process conflicts in GVTs. Furthermore, by drawing on the contingency theory of task conflict and performance in groups and organisational teams, we examine the impact of these different types of conflict on the performance of GVTs. Utilising multilevel analysis, we tested the research model using a sample of 810 graduate and undergraduate business students from 38 different countries who worked in 232 GVTs. The results show that the CQ and EQ of the team members reduce the occurrence of the three different intragroup conflicts in GVTs. We also demonstrate that process conflict negatively affects GVT performance. We discuss the implications for research and practice.     

The Role of Brokers and Social Identities in the Development of Capabilities in Global Virtual Teams

While organizations are increasingly relying on global virtual teams (GVTs) to carry out knowledge intensive activities, the understanding of how GVTs develop capabilities is still limited. We explore how GVTs adapt routines and build capabilities, and the role played by brokers and social identities in this process. We interviewed 49 professionals working in fifteen GVTs based in Europe, India, and US, and operating in IT and engineering consulting companies. Our multi-level grounded model highlights that, while brokers help in the creation of mutual knowledge, they reduce the accuracy of perceptions about distant co-workers. Mutual knowledge, combined with limited accuracy of perceptions, diminishes the need to adapt team routines over time. The negative effect of brokers on the creation of team capabilities is reduced when individual professional identities trigger the search for more accurate perceptions of distant colleagues and clients with the objective of adapting team routines and performing more stimulating work. On top of this, organizational identity further enables the process of adaptation of team routines. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical implications on the interplay between operational and social processes in GVTs and team capabilities, as well as practical implications for designing and managing GVTs.     

Managing Cost Salience and Procrastination in Projects: Compensation and Team Composition

The rising trend of projects with high‐skilled and autonomous contributors increasingly exposes managers to the risk of idiosyncratic individual behaviors. In this article, we examine the effects of an important behavioral factor, an individual's cost salience. Cost salience leads individuals to perceive the cost of immediate effort to be larger than the cost of future effort. This leads to procrastination in early stages and back‐loaded effort over the course of the project. We model the problem confronting the manager of a project whose quality is adversely impacted by such distortion of individual effort over time. Complementary to prior works focused on the planning and scheduling tasks of project management in the absence of human behavior, we find that managers should reward contributions made in earlier stages of a project. Our analysis also yields interesting insights on the project team performance: teams with diverse levels of cost salience will perform better than homogeneous teams. We also address another important facet of team composition, namely, the choice between stable and fluid teams, and find that the practice of creating fluid teams might have previously unrecognized benefits when behavioral aspects of projects are considered. We conclude with insights and organizational implications for project managers.     

Economic Liberalization and the Antecedents of Top Management Teams: Evidence From Turkish ‘Big’ Business

There has been an increased interest in the last two decades in top management teams (TMTs) of business firms. Much of the research, however, has been US‐based and concerned primarily with TMT effects on organizational outcomes. The present study aims to expand this literature by examining the antecedents of top team composition in the context of macro‐level economic change in a late‐industrializing country. The post‐1980 trade and market reforms in Turkey provided the empirical setting. Drawing upon the literatures on TMT and chief executive characteristics together with punctuated equilibrium models of change and institutional theory, the article develops the argument that which firm‐level factors affect which attributes of TMT formations varies across the early and late stages of economic liberalization. Results of the empirical investigation of 71 of the largest industrial firms in Turkey broadly supported the hypotheses derived from this premise. In the early stages of economic liberalization the average age and average organizational tenure of TMTs were related to the export orientation of firms, whereas in later stages, firm performance became a major predictor of these team attributes. Educational background characteristics of teams appeared to be under stronger institutional pressures, altering in different ways in the face of macro‐level change.     

Managing Nationality Diversity: The Interactive Effect of Leaders’ Cultural Intelligence and Task Interdependence

In light of the workforce's increasing nationality diversity, our study explores the antecedents for the successful management of nationality diversity as visualized in a favourable diversity climate and enhanced team performance. We propose a double‐contingency model in which we argue that the effects of nationality diversity will be dependent upon task interdependence and leaders’ cultural intelligence. We propose that nationality diversity will be more consequential in more interdependent teams, in which team interactions and processes are more salient. Moreover, team leaders with higher cultural intelligence will possess the skills to foster adequate team processes and thereby enhance diversity climate and performance of nationally diverse, more interdependent teams. We collected multi‐source data from 63 work teams (N = 410) and their supervisors at a German facility management company. Moderated regression analyses supported the hypothesized three‐way interaction between nationality diversity, task interdependence and leaders’ cultural intelligence. Additional simple slope analysis showed that nationality diversity is positively related to diversity climate and performance only when both team leaders’ cultural intelligence and task interdependence are high. Our study not only provides recommendations for successful nationality diversity management but also yields theoretical implications for diversity and cultural intelligence research.     

Communication accommodation within global virtual team: The influence of cultural intelligence and the impact on interpersonal process effectiveness

The study builds on existing literature on global virtual team (GVT) and focuses on how individual members can achieve higher levels of interpersonal process effectiveness. Anchoring on the theory of intelligence, this study establishes and examines cultural intelligence (CQ) and how it can relate and influence a GVT member's interpersonal process effectiveness. Furthermore, this study extends the literature by drawing from communication accommodation theory in examining how communication accommodation plays an important role in the effective functioning of a GVT member. To test these assertions, data were collected from members of GVTs and their colleagues (n = 262 paired data) in a multinational information technology offshoring firm. Data were analyzed and the results revealed that a GVT member's CQ relates positively and significantly to effectiveness on both interpersonal processes of synergy and direction. Furthermore, results showed that communication accommodation of a GVT member is influenced by CQ which consequently impacts both effectiveness on interpersonal processes of synergy and direction. These results contribute to the growing literature on GVT and offer new practical insights on how to improve overall efficiency and work performance within GVT.     

Feeling Included and Valued: How Perceived Respect Affects Positive Team Identity and Willingness to Invest in the Team

Previous research has documented that intra‐group respect fosters individual engagement with work teams or organizations. The authors extend this work by empirically distinguishing between perceived inclusion of the self in the team and perceived value of the self for the team as separate psychological consequences of respect. Based on a social identity analysis, it is predicted that perceived inclusion facilitates the development of a positive team identity (how the individual feels about the team), while perceived value elicits the willingness to invest in the team (what the individual is willing to do for the team). Support for these predictions is obtained with structural equation modelling among two independent samples of professional soldiers working in military teams (n_total = 495). Reports of individual team members about positive team identity and willingness to invest in the team correlated with supervisor ratings of the team's action readiness.     

Foreign language skill,anxiety, cultural intelligence and individual task performance in global virtual teams: A cognitive perspective

Global virtual teams (GVTs) operate in a globally dispersed work environment, principally relying on communication and information technologies to achieve work tasks. In this work context, using language effectively is crucial. We utilize the cognitive perspective to explain how foreign language use in a GVT influences individual task performance. This study employs (a) cognitive neuroscience of foreign language processing perspective to explain the relationship between foreign language skills and individual task performance; (b) the theory of cognitive load to explain foreign language anxiety as a pathway that further explains how low-level foreign language skill negatively influences individual task performance; and (c) the theory of intelligence to examine the conditional role of cultural intelligence in the mediation process. Utilizing 294 data pairs (collected from GVT members and their respective supervisors) in a multinational offshoring firm, we found support for the mediation process and the conditional influence of the dimensions of cultural intelligence in reducing the negative effect of foreign language anxiety on individual task performance in GVT.     

Toward a Systems Theory of Motivated Behavior in Work Teams

Work motivation theories and research have tended to focus either on individual motivation, ignoring contextual influences of team processes on individuals, or on team motivation, ignoring individual differences within the team. Redressing these limited, single-level views of motivation, we delineate a theoretical multilevel model of motivated behavior in teams. First, we conceptualize motivational processes at both the individual and team levels, highlighting the functional similarities in these processes across levels of analysis. We then delineate a set of theoretical propositions regarding the cross-level interplay between individual and team motivation, and antecedents and outcomes of individual and team motivation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our theoretical model for future research and managerial practices.     

The dysfunctions of power in teams: A review and emergent conflict perspective

We review the new and growing body of work on power in teams and use this review to develop an emergent theory of how power impacts team outcomes. Our paper offers three primary contributions. First, our review highlights potentially incorrect assumptions that have arisen around the topic of power in teams and documents the areas and findings that appear most robust in explaining the effects of power on teams. Second, we contrast the findings of this review with what is known about the effects of power on individuals and highlight the directionally oppositional effects of power that emerge across different levels of analysis. Third, we integrate findings across levels of analysis into an emergent theory which explains why and when the benefits of power for individuals may paradoxically explain the potentially negative effects of power on team outcomes. We elaborate on how individual social comparisons within teams where at least one member has power increase intra-team power sensitivity, which we define as a state in which team members are excessively perceptive of, affected by, and responsive to resources. We theorize that when power-sensitized teams experience resource threats (either stemming from external threats or personal threats within the team), these threats will ignite internal power sensitivities and set into play performance-detracting intra-team power struggles. This conflict account of power in teams integrates and organizes past findings in this area to explain why and when power negatively affects team-level outcomes, and opens the door for future research to better understand why and when power may benefit team outcomes when power’s dark side for teams is removed.     

Transformational leadership,job satisfaction,and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust

In spite of calls for deliberate differentiation between individual and team levels of analysis, leadership research based on well-grounded theory referring to multiple levels is scarce. We seek to fill this gap by analyzing the relations between transformational leadership, trust in supervisor and team, job satisfaction, and team performance via multilevel analysis. Results are based on a sample of 360 employees from 39 academic teams. Transformational leadership was positively related to followers' job satisfaction at individual as well as team levels of analysis and to objective team performance. The relation between individual perceptions of supervisors' transformational leadership and job satisfaction was mediated by trust in the supervisor as well as trust in the team. Yet, trust in the team did not mediate the relationship between team perceptions of supervisors' transformational leadership and team performance. Implications for theory and research of leadership at multiple levels as well as for practice are discussed.     

Collaborative practices in new product development projects involving suppliers

Abstract

Collaboration with suppliers in New Product Development (NPD) is essential for business competitiveness. However, the management of such collaborative project needs to focus on interactions between team members from different companies since they performed inter-organizational activities. While the impact of collaboration with suppliers on NPD project performance has been widely studied, the investigation of practices to support daily collaborative activities between both teams has received limited attention. This paper aims at developing a framework of operational practices for successful inter-organizational collaboration in NPD. The practices enacted by both project teams in six case studies were examined according to the stages of the collaboration and a knowing perspective. The results revealed some peculiarities linked to the inter-organizational context. Practices interact with each other across stages with a specific dynamic. More particularly, early in the project, practices to justify the collaboration with the suppliers are determinant for practices related to the creation of social interactions between project members and project commitment. The results also show that boundary objects are useful formal socialization mechanisms for supporting the undertaking of collaborative work.     

HRD,the science of the artificial

Innovation is the bedrock of organizational and national competitiveness across the globe. Leaders of research and development (R&D) teams have an especially important role to play given their direct influence on leading, organizing, rallying, and managing the operations of innovative tasks. However, when it comes to how leaders influence R&D innovation in different contexts, researchers' opinions diverge. This study explores leadership characteristics and their contextual contingencies, using the approach of a multiple case study. This paper is situated in the stream of research focusing on the interactions of leadership and contextual factors in innovation. We collected qualitative data from four highly innovative teams residing in two national laboratories in the US. The results suggest that while leadership demonstrates similarities across the four teams – a simultaneous focus on the internal and external domains, it also displays different characteristics in teams that differ on three contextual factors: funding model, nature of tasks, and team structure. Theoretical and practical implications are drawn.     

项目团队成员怠工行为修正的理论模型

项目团队并不总能实现预期目标,项目团队中存在的某些问题属于怠工行为的表现,项目团队中怠工行为修正亟待研究。采用定性研究方法,按照行为修正分析模式,以行为修正理论、态度改变理论、态度与行为理论、认知平衡理论等为理论基础,经理论与文献研究提出:项目团队成员怠工行为与项目团队绩效的关系、工作态度在工作情境认知与怠工行为之间中介作用关系、团队文化认知在工作情境认知与工作态度之间调节作用关系,从而构建起项目团队成员怠工行为修正的理论模型。     

Optimal Coordination in Distributed Software Development

The construction of a software system requires not only individual coding effort from team members to realize the various functionalities, but also adequate team coordination to integrate the developed code into a consistent, efficient, and bug‐free system. On the one hand, continuous coding without adequate coordination can cause serious system inconsistencies and faults that may subsequently require significant corrective effort. On the other hand, frequent integrations can be disruptive to the team and delay development progress. This tradeoff motivates the need for a good coordination policy. Both the complexity and the importance of coordination is accentuated in distributed software development (DSD), where a software project is developed by multiple, geographically‐distributed sub‐teams. The need for coordination in DSD exists both within one sub‐team and across different sub‐teams. The latter type of coordination involves communication across spatial boundaries (different locations) and possibly temporal boundaries (different time zones), and is a major challenge that DSD faces. In this study, we model both inter‐ and intra‐sub‐team coordination in DSD based on the characteristics of the systems being developed by the sub‐teams, the deadline for completion, and the nature of division adopted by the sub‐teams with respect to development and integration activities. Our analysis of optimal coordination policies in DSD shows that integration activities by one sub‐team not only benefit that sub‐team (as is the case in co‐located development) but can also help the other sub‐teams by providing greater visibility, thereby resulting in a higher integration frequency relative to co‐located development. Analytical results are presented to demonstrate how the characteristics of the projects and the sub‐teams, and the efficiency of communication across the sub‐teams, affect coordination and productivity. We also investigate the pros and cons of using specialized integration sub‐teams and find that their advantage decreases as the project schedule becomes tighter. Decentralized decisions and asymmetric subsystems are also discussed.     

Emergent Patterns of Switching Behaviors and Intercultural Communication Styles of Global Virtual Teams During Distributed Decision Making

The purpose of this study is to explain the distinctive patterns of intercultural communication styles exhibited during the distributed decision making process in global virtual teams (GVTs). The study applied Hall's (1976) high context vs. low context theoretical lens to a corpus of archival online messages (n = 1600 emails) generated by the United Nation World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Civil Society. By using email as a primary medium for global collaboration, the GVT comprising of Civil Society participants was engaged in decision-making processes among different teams. The goal is to bring multi-stakeholders together in developing policy on the roles and utility of information communication technology for development of the Information Society. Our findings show that culture and the cultural values to which team members subscribe do influence the way decisions are made and communicated in three distinct phases—problem identification, proposal making and solutions. In addition, the results found evidence of an interesting behavioral pattern we call “switching,” in which an individual's communication style changes depending on purpose, roles, situation, and people—another form of context-based mode of online communicative behavior. This evidence of switching behavior is crucial because it shows that intercultural communication styles are fluid rather than fixed.     

Team Receptivity to Newcomers: Five Decades of Evidence and Future Research Themes

Reviews of research on newcomers mostly address socialization processes, focusing on individual adjustment. This article takes a different approach by examining the ways in which teams adapt to newcomers, indicating team receptivity. We review the empirical research published over the last five decades (1960–June 2012) that examines the antecedents of three team receptivity components—team reflection, team knowledge utilization, and newcomer acceptance—across different research disciplines and team settings. Drawing on this literature, we propose that team receptivity to newcomers can have positive consequences for sustained team performance, provided that team reflection and team knowledge utilization coincide with newcomer acceptance. We challenge scholars to tackle these three components simultaneously and provide methodological recommendations for doing so. To facilitate such efforts, we present a conceptual multi-level model specifying team, oldtimer, and newcomer characteristics that contribute to team receptivity and are amenable to managerial intervention.     

Building Bridges in Global Virtual Teams: The Role of Multicultural Brokers in Overcoming the Negative Effects of Identity Threats on Knowledge Sharing Across Subgroups

Global virtual teams experience difficulties in knowledge sharing, often related to identity threats that emerge across subgroups. In this conceptual paper we adopt the integrative model of subgroup relations to explore the role of multicultural brokers, i.e. team members or leaders who transcend different cultural boundaries and help to bridge differences among colleagues in different subgroups, in positively influencing the relationship between identity threats and knowledge sharing. We propose that identity threats across subgroups of global virtual teams have a negative impact on knowledge sharing quality and quantity. We contend that the presence of multicultural brokers help alleviate the negative effects of identity threats over knowledge sharing through a curvilinear moderating effect. We further propose that role (leader versus member), type of appointment (formal versus emergent), situated coworker familiarity with different subgroup members, and level of cultural intelligence of the multicultural broker play unique moderating roles on the relationship between identity threats and knowledge sharing quality and quantity. Our research offers theoretical contribution to the literature on subgroup relationships and knowledge sharing in global virtual teams and practical implications for managers and MNEs, helping guide management efforts.     

Team Dispersion,Information Technology,and Project Performance

The impact of information technology (IT) on the performance of distributed projects is not well understood. Although prior research has documented that dispersion among project teams has an adverse effect on project performance, the role of IT as an enabler of communication to bridge the spatial distance among team members in distributed networks has not been empirically studied. We focus on the role of IT as a moderator of the relationship between team dispersion and project performance using projects as the unit of analysis. We find that IT mitigates the negative effect of team dispersion on project performance, especially in high information volume projects. Our central contribution is the development of an empirically tested model to improve the understanding of the operational impact of IT as a vehicle to bridge spatial dispersion among distributed teams that are engaged in knowledge‐intensive work.