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An Empirical Examination of Personal Learning within the Context of Teams
Abstract
Using a sample of 588 employees in 59 work teams, we tested a model that situates personal learning within the context of teams, viewing it as a joint function of teams' leadership climate (i.e., transformational leadership) and task characteristics (i.e., task routineness and task interdependence). Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that the positive relationships between transformational leadership climate and the two dimensions of personal learning (relational job learning and personal skill development) were moderated by the nature of the teams' tasks. Specifically, transformational leadership climate was more strongly associated with personal learning for members of teams working on tasks that were less routine, rather than more routine. However, no significant moderation was found for leadership climate and task interdependence. Our findings underscore the importance of taking into account the contextual conditions within which leadership influence occurs while also demonstrating the potential role that leaders can play in promoting employees' personal learning. Overall, our study bolsters theories that conceptualize adult learning as a transaction between people and their social environments and points to a practical need to match leadership styles with team task characteristics to unleash transformational leadership effects.
... Through continuous interactions, teams develop shared mental models that help employees create a common language, foster mutual understanding, and improve the organizational climate. Thus, it is more likely that employees engage in learning behaviors and create new knowledge Tucker et al. 2007;Jiang et al. 2015). Moreover, Tjosvold et al. (2004) show that employees who work in teams to solve problems take responsibility for errors, share ideas, and are more likely to learn from mistakes. ...
... This is consistent with OM literature that states alignment occurs if strategic priorities are understood at all levels of the organization (Hayes and Wheelwright 1984) and shared through the collaboration across departments (O'Leary-Kelly and Flores 2002; Swink and Nair 2007). Following Edmondson (1999), Choo et al. (2007), and Jiang et al. (2015), our construct of teamwork for solving problems includes five items that highlight the importance of knowledge exchange and communication among team members, as well as the team's problemsolving orientation. Both aspects are important to understanding how employees work together and contribute to create a learning workplace. ...
... Teamwork for problem solving is defined as the extent to which team members work together, collaborate, exchange ideas, and solve problems. Luckett and Eggleton (1991), Forza and Salvador (2001), Tjosvold et al. (2004), Olkkonen and Lipponen (2006), Choo et al. (2007), Zhang et al. (2012), Jiang et al. (2015) team02 ...
To pursue constant incremental improvements, firms must develop the dynamic capability of continuous improvement (CI). Research suggests that an organizational infrastructure is necessary to sustain CI capability. Although there have been some attempts to delineate a comprehensive model for CI infrastructure, empirical investigation is still underdeveloped. The present study explores key dimensions of the organizational infrastructure—strategic alignment, teamwork for problem solving, and goals management systems. We analyze their effects on CI capability by using a database of 266 firms. We identify the variables that underlie the organizational infrastructure through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of measurement items, and then we perform a structural equation model linking the infrastructure to CI capability. Our findings suggest that strategic alignment and teamwork for problem solving affect CI capability. This study contributes to the operationalization of the organizational infrastructure and to the understanding of how it affects CI capability in operations management contexts.
... Sample teams were randomly selected by senior managers in the department of HRM (Human Resource Management) and then these teams were invited to volunteer to participate. This study collected data from two sources with a split-team sampling approach (Jiang et al., 2016). In each team, a team leader and four members were asked to measure different research variables. ...
... For example, it might be less objective or more biased if leaders' styles were measured by the leaders themselves instead of team members. Second, having different participants measure different variables was an effective precautionary method that alleviated the concern of common method variances (CMV) (Jiang et al., 2016). The literature has suggested that the precautionary measure by collecting data from different subjects was much superior to any post-hoc remedy or statistical adjustments for CMV (Lin et al., 2019a(Lin et al., , 2019b. ...
Drawing upon theory of group leadership, this study aims to propose a holistic team-level model to present how different leadership styles influence team performance by simultaneously evaluating their mediating and moderating mechanisms. In the model, team performance is influenced by charismatic leadership, discipline-focused leadership, and dominance-focused leadership via the mediation of adaptation and social interaction. Besides, team learning behavior and learning goal orientation are examined as moderators. Empirical tests are conducted using the data of technology work teams from a major industry zone in Taiwan. The findings of this study reveal that enhancing team learning behavior is a prioritized issue for leveraging social interaction to boost team performance. Besides, if a team can coordinate its competitive capability to handle complicated things with high team learning goal orientation, teamwork and performance are unlikely hindered by adaptation. The findings of this study suggest that team leaders should remain flexible by switching among three proposed leadership styles as the team circumstances dictate so as to maximize team performance.
... Apart from the practical relevance of studying the role of perceived career success in frontline services, extant literature provides an unsolved theoretical puzzle by outlining two conflicting views regarding the effect of perceived career success on personal learning processes. On the one hand, a set of studies emphasizes that managers play a conducive role in FLEs' learning processes (Auh et al., 2014;Jiang et al., 2016;Lam et al., 2010). This is especially true for direct managers (Costanzo & Tzoumpa, 2008), who have close contact with FLEs and therefore can facilitate the reuse of knowledge across service encounters to generate excitement about everyday learning (e.g., Chandler et al., 2020), to encourage actions that make changes persist (e.g., Guchait et al., 2016), and to organize competence development activities at work (e.g., Ellström & Ellström, 2018). ...
... In general, this study bridges the literature on personal learning and FLE boundary-spanning behaviors. Work on personal learning has focused on the role of leaders and mentors in stimulating an individual's personal learning process (Hirschfeld et al., 2006;Jiang et al., 2016;Lankau & Scandura, 2002;Liu & Fu, 2011;Pan et al., 2011), but, to the best of the authors' knowledge, previous studies have not investigated the role of leadership or formalization or how personal learning influences individual contributions to service improvement. Studies on boundary-spanning behaviors of frontliners have focused on uncovering the antecedents of employees' service delivery efforts, brand advocacy, and initiatives to improve service levels (cf. ...
The role of the service manager's perceived career success in frontline employees' learning processes and service improvement Abstract Previous literature fails to offer firms consistent guidelines on how successful managers may enhance or reduce the potential to learn from frontline service encounters. In addressing this research gap, this study contributes to the frontline employee (FLE) literature by 1) investigating the contingency role of managers' perceived career success in FLEs' personal learning process, 2) distinguishing between FLEs' service-related and context-related personal learning, and 3) accounting for both exploratory and exploitative learning. This study uses two datasets: an exploratory dataset on 253 FLEs and a multilevel and multisource dataset on 444 FLEs and 55 service managers. Findings reveal that managers who are unsuccessful in their careers still stimulate frontline learning processes, but their subordinates generally use only their service-related personal learning to generate ideas for service improvement. Successful managers are better able to guide their FLEs in how to turn context-related learning into service improvement.
... organizations are the prevalent form of organizing work (Kozlowski & Bell, 2013), especially for complex and important tasks that are particularly prone to the occurrence of setbacks, teams also constitute the fundamental unit in promoting learning generated from shared experiences (Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016), such as projectrelated setbacks (Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999;Senge, 1990;Shepherd et al., 2011). Thus, understanding how teams collectively learn from experienced setbacks is an important issue that needs to be addressed in order to develop actionable theories on learning from setbacks. ...
... This means that mutual reinforcement encourages learning, which makes learning more likely after setbacks. This notion is supported by the view that teams are the fundamental learning unit within organizations (Jiang et al., 2016;Schippers et al., 2013). ...
Although setbacks often happen as a collective experience, teams are an underresearched organizational unit when it comes to learning from setbacks. Despite the popular view that experiencing setbacks may facilitate learning, there are conflicting theoretical assumptions about the influence of setbacks on learning. Whereas one theoretical perspective in this topic area is in line with the proverbial learning from failure, a competing perspective argues that setbacks impede learning processes. This study aims to reconcile these conflicting assumptions by proposing team reflexivity as a moderator between team-experienced setbacks and team learning. Building on social cognitive theory, we develop a model of learning from experienced setbacks at the team level. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 57 start-up teams. Our results show that the effects of team-experienced setbacks differ depending on whether the focus is on affective reactions to or cognitive perceptions of the setback experience. Although the cognitive perception of setbacks generally shows a detrimental effect on team learning, the pattern of results for an affective reaction to setbacks is more complex: The relationship between negative affective reactions to setbacks and team learning is negative for teams with low reflexivity and positive for teams with high reflexivity.
... A better understanding of how the group level factors and processes influence individual level outcomes may not only benefit the team in which the individual is embedded, but also potential individual and team-based work in the future. Although the focus of the extant research is on understanding the influence of group level effects and outcomes, there are a few exceptions that have reported positive transfer effects (Brodbeck & Greitemeyer, 2000;Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016;Olivera & Straus, 2004) of group experience on subsequent individual performance. For example, Littlepage, Robison, and Reddington (1997) suggest that group experience improves individual members' task-related skills, and Jiang et al. (2016) recently reported that teams involved in non-routine and interdependent tasks contribute to personal learning of their members. ...
... Although the focus of the extant research is on understanding the influence of group level effects and outcomes, there are a few exceptions that have reported positive transfer effects (Brodbeck & Greitemeyer, 2000;Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016;Olivera & Straus, 2004) of group experience on subsequent individual performance. For example, Littlepage, Robison, and Reddington (1997) suggest that group experience improves individual members' task-related skills, and Jiang et al. (2016) recently reported that teams involved in non-routine and interdependent tasks contribute to personal learning of their members. The impact of group experience on individual outcomes has mainly been studied in learning environments (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009). ...
This chapter examines the relationship between team learning behavior and employee work related self- efficacy beliefs and further explores the moderating role of individual difference variables, such as masculinity–femininity and uncertainty avoidance values. The study tested three hypotheses using a sample of employees from a large public organization in Pakistan. The results indicated a significant positive relationship between team learning behavior and employee perceptions of their self-efficacy. Regarding the moderating role of individual differences, the data showed that the link between team learning and self-efficacy was stronger for individuals scoring high (versus low) on masculinity orientation. However, the results revealed no empirical evidence to confirm the hypothesis that employees scoring low on uncertainty avoidance will perceive a stronger relationship between team learning and self-efficacy.
... LS involves clear criteria for expected work models, planning and setting targets appropriately, supporting individual activities in the organization, communicating and interacting well with subordinates, valuing subordinates' contributions to tasks, providing constructive feedback and encouraging subordinates to generate new ideas (Amabile et al., 2004). Through their support, leaders can provide subordinates with access to organizational resources and information, inspire their teams' knowledge sharing (Jiang and Chen, 2018) and personal learning (Jiang et al., 2016), thereby boosting creative task performance (Amabile et al., 2004). When NPD team members have a demand for knowledge, their leaders' supportive behavior can lower costs incurred, and thus effort needed, in seeking that knowledge within the team. ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine the antecedents of knowledge-seeking intentions (SIs) and efforts within new product development (NPD) teams.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected from 331 employees affiliated with 29 NPD teams across 18 Chinese firms in five high-tech and knowledge-based industries via an online assessment and a survey. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to test the hypotheses using HLM and Mplus software.
Findings
The results of this study show that intrinsic task motivation (IM) and personal task experience (TE) positively relate to SIs, whereas leadership support (LS) and shared culture (SC) negatively relate to knowledge-seeking efforts (SEs). SIs partially mediate the relationship between IM and SEs, while they fully mediate the relationship between TE and SEs. Additionally, customer orientation (CO) positively moderates the relationship between SIs and SEs.
Research limitations/implications
Data collection was completed online by relying on an existing version of the Abedi Creativity Test. The samples involve 18 companies in a High-Tech Development Zone in China, which indicates limited generalizability.
Practical implications
Effective NPD depends on successful marketing–R&D integration and knowledge exchange within the NPD team. Besides, organizations need to find ways to stimulate NPD team members’ IM and also through various ways to inspire more efforts from team members under the condition of supportive leadership and culture.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the knowledge management and marketing literature on NPD teamwork by examining knowledge-seeking phenomena from the perspective of the internal knowledge market and contributes to knowledge-seeking research by revealing the antecedents of SIs and SEs at both the individual and organizational level.
... Therefore, the present systematic review and trend analysis can become a guidance platform for researchers, educators, policymakers or even journal publishers for future research in PLEs research. The current systematic review is significant and Self-regulated learning [7], [38[, [41], [43], [48], [54], [56], [57], [63], [64], [67], [68], [78], [86], [88], [91], [102], [104], [111], [113], [115], [119], [121], [122], [132]- [134], [136], [137], [139]- [141], [143], [145], [147], [168]- [173] Self-efficacy [105] Self-directed learning [35], [42], [47], [55], [62], [65], [66], [75], [85], [98], [120], [142], [150], [154]- [157[, [174] Transformational leadership and constructivism [175] Constructivism [33], [39], [45], [49], [79], [84], [91], [93], [99], [101], [123], [127], [131], [138[, [159] Connectivism & self-regulated learning [75] Self-learning [87], [103], [128], [176] Socio-cultural theory [50] Lifelong learning [125], [151], 161] TAM [61] Connectivism [51], [144], [158] Constructivism & Connectivism [76] Self-Reported Learning [149], [177] Self-directed + Connectivism [53] Lifelong theory [59] Technology-enhanced learning [178] Personal construct theory [179] Technology acceptance models [152] Self-disclosure learning [129] Situated Learning [82] Collaborative learning [106] Constructivism+ Searle"s theory [112] Mobile learning theories [72] Epistemological [180] IX. CONCLUSION indispensable in reviewing journal articles that discussed PLEs between 2000 and 2020. ...
The concept of personal learning environments (PLEs) is relatively new and is continuously developing. Over the past decade, there has been a significant upsurge in the number of PLEs-related research. Nevertheless, there is a lack of recent systematic reviews and trend analysis covering many PLEs studies; to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, the current systematic review is significant and indispensable in reviewing journal articles that discussed PLEs between 2000 and 2020. We searched Web of Science, Scopus, Sciences Direct, JSTOR, Springer, Google Scholar, and IEEE Xplore for studies published in English without limit in location or time to retrieve accurate results. Trend graphics for the extracted themes were also analyzed using descriptive statistics in Excel. According to the defined inclusion criteria, one hundred forty-eight articles were selected for the analysis. This study reveals that literature on PLEs has progressed from 2000 to 2020; the majority of PLEs-related articles were published between 2011 and 2020, with the year 2013 having the highest number of published articles (17 articles), followed by 16 papers published in both years 2014 and 2017. We found that the published PLEs research originated from 46 countries; 26 (17.6%) were from Spain. The majority of the authors had education, computer science, information technology and engineering backgrounds. This review also showed that numerous platforms had been used in PLEs research, with Web 2.0 the most commonly used platform. We noted that the most common objectives of the included articles were PLEs custom system development, analysis of the PLEs, description of experiments, investigations, development of factor models, framework development, and examination. The most common theoretical perspectives in the published articles were self-regulated learning, self-directed learning, and constructivism. The current systematic review and trend analysis can become a guidance platform for researchers, educators, policymakers or even journal publishers for future research in PLEs research.
... This study applied a split-team sampling approach (Jiang et al. 2016) by collecting data from two different sources. A team leader and four members in each team were surveyed to measure different research variables. ...
Drawing upon value-based leadership theory, this research proposes a model to elaborate how value-based leadership can be learned by leaders to influence team performance. In the model, team performance is indirectly influenced by benevolent leadership and moral leadership via two mediators that consist of learning goal orientation and interactional justice. At the same time, emotional regulation hypothetically moderates the effects of benevolent leadership and moral leadership on the mediators. Statistical analyses are demonstrated using the team-level data of work teams from large insurance companies in Taiwan. Finally, this study presents training and educational implications based on analytical results.
... For example, studies have found charismatic leadership, which involves the formation of an emotional bond between leaders and followers, can positively impact individual-level OCB(Johnson, 2008) and helping behavior(Chun, Yammarino, Dionne, Sosik, & Moon, 2009). In a similar vein, research has identified links between transformational leadership and individual-level OCB(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990), group-level OCB(Cho & Dansereau, 2010) and the degree to which followers develop an understanding of the interconnectedness of their work with other unit members(Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016). Leadership studies have also examined the impact of servant leadership, which refers to a leadership style that places ...
Drawing on Ployhart and Moliterno's (2011) multilevel theoretical model of human capital resource emergence (HCRE), this paper reviews existing empirical research to better understand the effect of leadership on this emergence process. Specifically, we summarize the current literature pertaining to how leaders may impact the process through which individual‐level human capital – the knowledge, skills, abilities of individuals – emerge into a valuable unit‐level human capital resource. We review 132 empirical articles and examine how leadership research on task‐ and relational‐oriented factors at different levels of analysis affect the important task and social environment enabling factors of HCRE. Our paper makes important progress towards integrating leadership research with extant theorizing on HCRE and identifies areas in both literatures where additional research is needed.
... For instance, a study by Koseoglu, Liu, and Shalley (2017) was excluded because only intellectual stimulation was measured. We also excluded studies that examined transformational leadership as a context (e.g., transformational leadership climate) as they did not measure the direct effects of transformational leaders (e.g., Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016;Menges, Walter, Vogel, & Bruch, 2011). ...
Transformational leadership theory represents a cornerstone in leadership research. Despite an impressive empirical record highlighted by both the breadth of its nomological network and magnitudes of effects, scholars raise serious construct and content validity concerns. In this article, we address a remarkable oversight in the transformational leadership literature. Few studies have assessed the theory assumption that the positive individual, group, and organizational effects of transformational leadership are due to the transformation of followers in specific and enduring ways. We offer a systematic review of empirical evidence related to follower transformation as the conceptual foundation of transformational leadership theory. Findings from this review highlight the radical leap in the evolution of transformational leadership theory from nascent phenomena to mature paradigm. Calling for a return to nascent and intermediary phases of theory development, we conclude with a research agenda aimed at creating a stronger theory, better measures, and more actionable leadership models.
... Neste contexto, uma análise sobre a aprendizagem em equipa deve considerar as duas formas de aprendizagem (interna e externa), já que os fatores que promovem a aprendizagem interna, acabam impulsionando a aprendizagem externa (Bresman & Zellmer-Bruhn, 2013). Assim, estas formas de aprendizagem em equipa podem ser incrementadas, com a inserção de tarefas novas e desafiadoras (Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2015). ...
A investigação teórica aponta que o processo de aprendizagem contribui para a evolução de vários campos do saber, incluindo o comportamento organizacional. No entanto, a compreensão das variáveis que estão positivamente relacionadas com o processo de aprendizagem permanece limitada. Assim sendo, o presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar a influência do capital psicológico no processo de aprendizagem individual em equipa e, apresenta um modelo conceptual que reflete a influência positiva do capital psicológico nas formas de aprendizagem em equipa. A abordagem que propomos preenche uma lacuna importante a nível da investigação teórica, na medida em que apresenta evidências que permitem afirmar que o capital psicológico influencia outros resultados, como o processo de aprendizagem em equipa e que a estrutura da equipa modera esta relação. O artigo termina com as sugestões para futuras investigações. Palavras-chave: Capital psicológico positivo; aprendizagem em equipa; estrutura da equipa; contexto organizacional.
... While no research has specifically examined a link between transformational leadership and the development of employee mental complexity, there is research that provides a foundation for making this connection. Some scholars have argued that transformational leadership relates to employee learning (Bucic et al., 2010;Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016) because it encourages airing of problems, creativity, and innovation while treating each employee as having different development needs (Bass, 2000;Vera & Crossan, 2004). Followers of transformational leaders also tend to increase behaviors that will aid in personal development, such as feedback seeking The dominant concern is social approval and collective identity The dominant concern is self-identity and working to meet one's own goals ...
As organizations grapple with greater complexity in the competitive business environment, more work is needed to understand how to create a human capability equal to the challenge. Research on adult learning suggests that increasing mental complexity, an individual’s system for processing information and making sense of their environment, can be a valuable way to help individuals become more adaptive in a complex environment and enhance performance. While there is evidence that this human capability can grow over time, individual growth does not come without considerable effort, and such growth can be facilitated by the right contextual factors. In this article, we examine the role of leaders in employee development. Synthesizing literature from adult learning and transformational leadership, we lay out a theoretical framework for why transformational leadership and its corresponding behaviors can serve as a mechanism to encourage developmental movement within an employee and increase mental complexity. We discuss the implications for human resource development.
... Just as in Gretzky's description of skating to where the puck will be, the chance to change is recognizable only to the agents who are able to make sense of contextual change (Johns, 2006). In fact, people vary in their capability to assess and create contexts to support the rationality of their actions, which is not simply caused by particular personality traits, but by their behavioral habits and patterns (Jiang, Jackson, & Colakoglu, 2016). Organizations may consider providing trainings for managers' mental simulation and counterfactual thinking to help them deconstruct the existing cognitive framework, develop entrepreneurial alternatives, and identify novel market opportunities (Gaglio, 2004). ...
Chance serves as the gate to organizational change. Based on a relational view of chance, we propose that in an organizational context, the chance to change is affected by the perceptions of change agents and the affordance of situational momentum, and that different time points of change are associated with different degrees of chance favorability. We develop a theoretical model to represent how change agents can assess the favorability of current and future momentum and how they can benefit from identifying a perceived chance by employing chance grasping, entraining, creating, or riding strategy to promote organizational change. We generate theoretical propositions to illustrate the four timing strategies of chance management. The overall contribution of this study is a chance management view of organizational change that considers change agents and situational momentum as two interdependent factors in the process of managing the chance to change.
Celem artykułu jest konceptualizacja relacji między poziomem współzależności
zadań a poziomem rutynizacji zadań z perspektywy efektywności zespołu i rutyn. W wyniku
przeprowadzonych badań sformułowano przypuszczenie, że między tymi konstruktami występuje
zależność opisywana przez odwróconą krzywą U. Przeprowadzone badania pozwoliły na
skonstruowanie praktycznych zaleceń odnoszących się do poziomu rutynizacji zadań oraz współzależności
zadań. Zmiana rutyn możliwa staje się: w drodze zwiększenia współzależności zadań
realizowanych przez członków zespołu; poprzez wprowadzanie większej liczby zadań nierutynowych;
w drodze zwiększania stopnia współpracy członków zespołu w procesie realizacji zadań
i kształtowania rutyn organizacyjnych. Kolejnym wnioskiem jest stwierdzenie, że efektywność
zespołu pozostaje pod wpływem współzależności zadań oraz rutynizacji zadań; na efektywność
zespołu wpływa także umiarkowana współzależność zadań oraz umiarkowana rutynizacja zadań.
Many scholars assume that the fundamental questions about work design have been answered. However, a global shift from manufacturing economies to service and knowledge economies has dramatically altered the nature of work in organizations. To keep pace with these important and rapid changes, work design theory and research is undergoing a transformation. We trace the highlights of two emerging viewpoints on work design: relational perspectives and proactive perspectives. Relational perspectives focus on how jobs, roles, and tasks are more socially embedded than ever before, based on increases in interdependence and interactions with coworkers and service recipients. Proactive perspectives capture the growing importance of employees taking initiative to anticipate and create changes in how work is performed, based on increases in uncertainty and dynamism. Together, these two perspectives challenge the widely held belief that new developments in work design theory and research are no longer needed. Our review charts the central contributions and unanswered questions from these relational and proactive perspectives with the goal of inspiring renewed interest in advancing theory, research, and practice on work design.
Team effectiveness can be gauged not only by team-level outcomes but also in terms of influences on individual members. The authors present a two-sample cross-level model of individual informal learning and team commitment, as influenced by team-level processes and empowerment. In the first sample, they examine the impact of team-level constructs on individual outcomes, using 575 individuals from 80 teams in an international Fortune 500 manufacturing firm. Using a sample of 67 teams and 271 individual service engineers from a separate Fortune 500 business solutions organization, the authors further advance their model using a pre-post intervention design. Informal learning and commitment are shown to be positively impacted by team-level empowerment and processes, over and above individual predispositions and perceptions in both samples. In addition, changes in team empowerment and processes attributable to the intervention account for additional criterion variance. Implications are discussed in terms of both research and practice.
Human capital resources are key for organizations to gain a competitive advantage. Learning based on formal training and development programs, informal learning, and knowledge sharing influences the development of human capital resources. This article provides a selective review of research on learning that occurs in many different forms and at the individual, team, and organizational levels. It is organized around five themes-thinking differently about learning, reconsidering the form and design of learning, facilitating learning in the workplace, expanding the scope of learning outcomes, and improving methodology in learning research. These themes provide a framework for understanding how learning can contribute to the development of human capital resources and organizations' competitive advantage. For each theme, relevant research is reviewed, and limitations and future research directions are provided.
Using a sample of 56 science research teams, the authors examined (a) the relationships between qualities of team internal and external networks and team performance and (b) the moderating impact of task routineness on these relationships. The authors argued that the mixed empirical results of past studies investigating the relationship between internal networks and performance may be due partly to variations in task routineness and partly to the presence of curvilinear relationships between network qualities and team performance. Using an objective measure of team performance, the results revealed support for both explanations. The authors found an inverted-U relationship between internal trust relationship strength and team performance and a positive linear relationship between external work relationship strength and team performance. Furthermore, task routineness moderated these relationships, as predicted. Future scholarship and practice may be advanced by attending to the boundary conditions under which strong internal and external team networks are likely to be beneficial to the performance of knowledge-intensive teams.
This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.
This paper classifies alternative mechanisms for coordinating work activities within organizations into impersonal, personal and group modes. It investigates how variations and interactions in the use of these coordination mechanisms and modes are explained by task uncertainty, interdependence and unit size. Nine hypotheses that relate these three determining factors to the use of the three coordination modes are developed in order to test some key propositions of Thompson (1967) and others on coordination at the work unit or departmental level of organization analysis. Research results from 197 work units within a large employment security agency largely support the hypotheses. The findings suggest that there are differences in degree and kind of influence of each determining factor on the mix of alternative coordination mechanisms used within organizational units.
Team-level career mentoring by supervisors is conceptualized as mentoring that provides career support for all team members. A new model of mentoring and individual team-source learning is presented. Data from 192 individuals in 37 intact work groups in the banking industry were used to examine how intra-group processes might influence the team mentoring process. Team-level leader-member exchange, peer mentoring, and proactive member behavior were examined for their influence on team-level career mentoring by supervisors. Our results suggest that aspects of the team context (represented by mean leader-member exchange and mean peer mentoring) influenced team-level career mentoring. Team-level career mentoring (TCM) had a positive effect on individual team-source learning and had mediating effects on the relationships between the team contextual factors and individual team-source learning. The implications of this research for studying supervisory team-level career mentoring are discussed.
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To examine antecedents and consequences of learning in the context of mentoring relationships, we developed a new measure of personal learning, relational job learning and personal skill development. The presence of a mentor and mentoring functions were found to be antecedents of personal learning. Job satisfaction, role ambiguity, intentions to leave a job (turnover intentions), and actual leaving (turnover) were found to be consequences of personal learning. This study also explored personal learning as a mediator between mentoring functions and organizational consequences. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
This study investigated 3 broad classes of individual-differences variables (job-search motives, competencies, and constraints) as predictors of job-search intensity among 292 unemployed job seekers. Also assessed was the relationship between job-search intensity and reemployment success in a longitudinal context. Results show significant relationships between the predictors employment commitment, financial hardship, job-search self-efficacy, and motivation control and the outcome job-search intensity. Support was not found for a relationship between perceived job-search constraints and job-search intensity. Motivation control was highlighted as the only lagged predictor of job-search intensity over time for those who were continuously unemployed. Job-search intensity predicted Time 2 reemployment status for the sample as a whole, but not reemployment quality for those who found jobs over the study's duration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Composition models specify the functional relationships among phenomena or constructs at different levels of analysis (e.g., individual level, team level, organizational level) that reference essentially the same content but that are qualitatively different at different levels (M. T. Hannan, 1971; K. H. Roberts, C. L. Hulin, & D. M. Rousseau, 1978; D. M. Rousseau, 1985). Specifying adequate composition models is a critical component of good multilevel research. A typology of composition models is proposed to provide a framework for organizing, evaluating, and developing constructs and theories in multilevel research. Five basic forms of composition are described and illustrated. Implications of the typology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes the development of and builds validity evidence for the Developmental Challenge Profile (DCP), an instrument for assessing the developmental components of managerial jobs. Factor analysis of responses from 692 managers resulted in the creation of 15 DCP scales. Assessments of internal consistency, confirmation of the factor structure, and test-retest reliability provided further psychometric support for the scales. The existence of expected relationships between the scales and reports of on-the-job learning, job transitions, objective features of the jobs, and psychological states of the job incumbents provided validity evidence and supported use of these scales in management development research and applications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two central constructs of applied psychology, motivation and cognitive ability, were integrated within an information-processing (IPR) framework. This framework simultaneously considers individual differences in cognitive abilities, self-regulatory processes of motivation, and IPR demands. Evidence for the framework is provided in the context of skill acquisition, in which IPR and ability demands change as a function of practice, training paradigm, and timing of goal setting (GS). Three field-based lab experiments were conducted with 1,010 US Air Force trainees. Exp 1 evaluated the basic ability–performance parameters of the air traffic controller task and GS effects early in practice. Exp 2 evaluated GS later in practice. Exp 3 investigated the simultaneous effects of training content, GS and ability–performance interactions. Results support the theoretical framework and have implications for notions of ability–motivation interactions and design of training and motivation programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents methods for assessing agreement among the judgments made by a single group of judges on a single variable in regard to a single target. For example, the group of judges could be editorial consultants, members of an assessment center, or members of a team. The single target could be a manuscript, a lower level manager, or a team. The variable on which the target is judged could be overall publishability in the case of the manuscript, managerial potential for the lower level manager, or a team cooperativeness for the team. The methods presented are based on new procedures for estimating interrater reliability. For such situations, these procedures furnish more accurate and interpretable estimates of agreement than estimates provided by procedures commonly used to estimate agreement, consistency, or interrater reliability. The proposed methods include processes for controlling for the spurious influences of response biases (e.g., positive leniency and social desirability) on estimates of interrater reliability. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
How can organizations support employees to engage in learning from failures? In this paper, we draw on the concept of high-quality relationships to explore the relational underpinnings of learning from failures in organizations. We focus on relational coordination as a specific manifestation of high-quality relationships and examine how the relational dimensions of relational coordination—shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect—foster psychological safety and thus enable organizational members to engage in learning from failures. The results of two separate studies support our mediation model where psychological safety mediates the link between high-quality relationships and learning from failures in organizations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
[Excerpt] Our purpose is to explore conceptually these themes centered on team learning, development, and adaptation. We note at the onset that this chapter is not a comprehensive review of the literature. Indeed, solid conceptual and empirical work on these themes are sparse relative to the vast amount of work on team effectiveness more generally, and therefore a thematic set of topics that are ripe for conceptual development and integration. We draw on an ongoing stream of theory development and research in these areas to integrate and sculpt a distinct perspective on team learning, development, and adaptation.
We examine the controversial practice of using parcels of items as manifest variables in structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures. After detailing arguments pro and con, we conclude that the unconsidered use of parcels is never warranted, while, at the same time, the considered use of parcels cannot be dismissed out of hand. In large part, the decision to parcel or not depends on one's philosophical stance regard- ing scientific inquiry (e.g., empiricist vs. pragmatist) and the substantive goal of a study (e.g., to understand the structure of a set of items or to examine the nature of a set of constructs). Prior to creating parcels, however, we recommend strongly that in- vestigators acquire a thorough understanding of the nature and dimensionality of the items to be parceled. With this knowledge in hand, various techniques for creating parcels can be utilized to minimize potential pitfalls and to optimize the measure- ment structure of constructs in SEM procedures. A number of parceling techniques are described, noting their strengths and weaknesses.
Where there is uncertainty, there is bound to be failure. It is not surprising therefore, that many new ventures fail. What happens to entrepreneurs when their business fails? We hear of highly successful entrepreneurs extolling the virtues of failure as a valuable teacher. Yet, the aftermath of failure is often fraught with psychological, social and financial turmoil. The purpose of this article is to review research on life after business failure for entrepreneurs, from the immediate aftermath through to recovery and re-emergence. First, we examine the financial, social and psychological costs of failure, highlighting factors that may influence the magnitude of these costs (including individual responses to managing these costs). Second, we review research that explains how entrepreneurs make sense of and learn from failure. Finally, we present research on the outcomes of business failure, including recovery as well as cognitive and behavioral outcomes. We develop a schema to organize extant work and use this as a platform for developing an agenda for future research.
Where there is uncertainty, there is bound to be failure. It is not surprising therefore, that many new ventures fail. What happens to entrepreneurs when their business fails? We hear of highly successful entrepreneurs extolling the virtues of failure as a valuable teacher. Yet, the aftermath of failure is often fraught with psychological, social and financial turmoil. The purpose of this article is to review research on life after business failure for entrepreneurs, from the immediate aftermath through to recovery and re-emergence. First, we examine the financial, social and psychological costs of failure, highlighting factors that may influence the magnitude of these costs (including individual responses to managing these costs). Second, we review research that explains how entrepreneurs make sense of and learn from failure. Finally, we present research on the outcomes of business failure, including recovery as well as cognitive and behavioral outcomes. We develop a schema to organize extant work and use this as a platform for developing an agenda for future research.
Drawing on a multilevel model of motivation in work groups and a functionalist perspective of citizenship and socially responsible behaviors, we developed and tested a multilevel model of voluntary workplace green behavior that explicates some of the reasons why employees voluntarily engage in green behavior at work. For a sample of 325 office workers organized into 80 work groups in three firms, we found that conscientiousness and moral reflectiveness were associated with the voluntary workplace green behavior of group leaders and individual group members. Furthermore, we found a direct relationship between leader green behavior and the green behavior of individual subordinates as well as an indirect relationship mediated by green advocacy within work groups. Our theory and findings shed new light on the psychological and social conditions and processes that shape voluntary workplace green behavior in organizational settings and suggest implications for organizations striving to improve their social responsibility and environmental sustainability.
This study used a 2 (transformational vs. transactional leadership) × 2 (real vs. nominal group) experiment to examine the effect of different leadership styles and brainstorming conditions on group members' divergent thinking. Participants performed a brainstorming task, and their performance was assessed using fluency and flexibility. Results clearly supported the hypotheses in that the participants in the transformational leadership condition and in the nominal group condition outperformed their counterparts in the transactional leadership condition and in the real group condition. This pattern was consistent across the 2 measures of creativity.
Drawing on an overarching framework of transactional stress theory, this study develops and tests an affect-based model of developmental job experience (DJE) that explicates the affective mechanisms through which DJE is associated with both positive and negative individual outcomes-advancement potential and turnover intention- and the buffering role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the affective processes. In a sample of 214 early-career managers, we found DJE to be related to increased advancement potential by boosting employees' pleasant feelings, but also that it can fail in this regard by increasing their unpleasant feelings. Moreover, whereas it is not surprising that there was a negative relationship between DJE and turnover intention mediated by pleasant feelings, our results also demonstrated a positive relationship via unpleasant feelings, depending on employees' levels of EI. Specifically, they suggested that DJE was positively related to turnover intention for only low-EI employees, but not fr high-EI employees.
We present an integrated theoretical framework that models the development of team situation models and implicit coordination behaviors. We first define these concepts and then examine the role of several team and context variables in facilitating the emergence of implicit coordination patterns, as well as in moderating their effects on team performance. Finally, we discuss the implications of the model for team coordination theory, team cognition research, and effective management of work teams.
We compare two alternative approaches for evaluating the potential of a work group or team: one that focuses on team members' demographic characteristics and one that focuses on the members' social networks. Given that people's network contacts often share their demographic attributes (i.e., the network is homophilous), the two approaches seem equivalent and the first seems preferable because it is easier to implement. In this paper, we demonstrate several important limits to this rationale. First, we argue and show, in an analysis of 1,518 project teams in a contract research and development firm, that even when internal organizational networks are significantly homophilous with respect to demographic variables, the very logic of the causal structure that underlies theories of demographic diversity carries ambiguous performance implications. This ambiguity is due to the fact that demographic diversity has opposing effects on two social network variables—internal density and external range—each of which has a positive effect on a team's performance. We also demonstrate that a focus on demographic criteria is problematic because the demographic makeup of an organization can place inherent limits on a manager's ability to shape the demographic composition of a team. The ambiguous performance implications and the inherent limits placed on a manager's ability to manage a team's demography reduce the likelihood that a manager's interventions will be successful. The performance implications of managing a team's social capital, however, are clear.
After first reviewing the existing theoretical frameworks for human behavior, we present a social learning theory approach that incorporates the interactive nature of all the variables of organizational behavior - the behavior itself, the environment, and the person (internal cognitions). We differentiate social learning theory from operant theory, highlighting the processes of modeling, cognitions, and self-control. We suggest self-management techniques as a way to apply the social learning framework in order to enhance managerial effectiveness.
We propose that low performer characteristics (cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and job experience) influence peer attributions for low performer behavior (locus of causality, controllability, and stability) and that these attributions influence the form of helping intended to benefit the group (compensating, training, motivating, and rejecting the low performer). Our model complements organizational citizenship behavior research by suggesting a new set of helping antecedents and extends applications of attributional theory by focusing on peer attributions of coworkers.
We introduce the notion of “we” or collectivistic leadership. A general collectivistic approach to leadership is developed and contrasted with traditional and contemporary approaches to leadership. An overview of five collectivistic leadership approaches—team, network, shared, complexity, and collective leadership—is then presented. Key notions, constructs, and levels of analysis; the role of a focal leader; operationalizations and empirical results; and implications for leadership development, assessment, and practice of each approach are summarized. Common themes across, and our perspective on, the approaches and future directions for collectivistic leadership science and practice are discussed.
The present study was an empirical analysis designed to measure the social networks of master of business administration (M.B.A.) students and the networks' relationships to attitudinal and performance outcomes. Results from 250 students indicated that centrality in friendship, communication, and adversarial networks affected both student attitudes and grades. Moreover, an analysis of 62 assigned teams showed that relationships within and between teams also had significant effects on student perceptions of team effectiveness and objective team performance. Implications for student networks and suggestions for future research are discussed.
In this article, we summarize and review the research on teams and groups in organization settings published from January 1990 to April 1996. The article focuses on studies in which the dependent variables are concerned with various dimensions of effectiveness. A heuristic framework illustrating recent trends in the literature depicts team effectiveness as a function of task, group, and organization design factors, environmental factors, internal processes, external processes, and group psychosocial traits. The review discusses four types of teams: work, parallel, project, and management. We review research findings for each type of team organized by the categories in our heuristic framework. The article concludes by comparing the variables studied for the different types of teams, highlighting the progress that has been made, suggesting what still needs to be done, summarizing key learnings from the last six years, and suggesting areas for further research.
Social evaluation—the way that people learn about themselves by comparing themselves with others—is a prosaic, age-old process. Periodic efforts have been made to integrate theories and empirical studies of reference groups, social comparison, equity and justice, and relative deprivation (e.g. Pettigrew 1967). Despite these efforts, research has remained fragmented and continues to be dominated by psychologists. Network imagery, models, and findings run through this literature as far back as the last century and play a central role in contemporary applications of social evaluation to research on social support, class consciousness, and the diffusion of innovations. I argue that the network approach will help to resolve fundamental, unanswered questions about social evaluation first raised in 1950 by Merton and Rossi—specifically, the origins of comparative frameworks and the relation between individual and categorical or group reference points. Such an approach provides an integrative focus for sociologic...
In this paper we present an integrative model of the relationships among diversity, conflict, and performance, and we test that model with a sample of 45 teams. Findings show that diversity shapes conflict and that conflict, in turn, shapes performance, but these linkages have subtleties. Functional background diversity drives task conflict, but multiple types of diversity drive emotional conflict. Race and tenure diversity are positively associated with emotional conflict, while age diversity is negatively associated with such conflict. Task routineness and group longevity moderate these relationships. Results further show that task conflict has more favorable effects on cognitive task performance than does emotional conflict. Overall, these patterns suggest a complex link between work group diversity and work group functioning.
reviews the effects of organizational groups on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of their members / these effects have three different bases: (a) the ambient stimuli that pervade the group setting and impinge on all members of a given group, (b) discretionary stimuli that members provide to one another selectively, depending on what specific individuals say and do, and (c) the structure of group norms and the ways groups enforce adherence to them / special attention is given to the conditions under which influence flows in the opposite direction—that is, when individuals succeed in changing the structure and dynamics of the groups of which they are members / concludes with a discussion of the implications of the material for the health and performance of groups and their members over the long term (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Using a sample of 290 employees and their supervisors from 46 Korean companies, we found that (1) transformational leadership was positively related to follower creativity, (2) followers' "conservation", a value, moderated that relationship, and (3) intrinsic motivation mediated the contribution of the interaction of transformational leadership and conservation and partially mediated the contribution of transformational leadership to creativity. We discuss implications of these results for research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Differentiates among indices of agreement, reliability, and non-independence in organizational multilevel research and provides an overview of what each measure reveals about the group-level properties of one's data. Particular attention is devoted to the concept of non-independence and to the relationship between one form of the intraclass correlation coefficient and eta-squared. The 2nd purpose of this chapter is to extend the discussion of agreement, reliability, and non-independence from an exclusive focus on validating one's measurement model to a broader focus that includes testing substantive models and detecting emergent phenomena. In the discussion of bottom-up processes, particular attention is paid to a category that the author defines as "fuzzy" composition processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
discusses the role that learning concepts, theories, and findings play in developing full explanations of work behavior / it is argued that most theories of organizational behavior have been ahistorical, focusing instead on contemporaneous causal variables and generally avoiding discussion of the historical factors influencing current levels of these variables / however, full explanations of work behavior require the inclusion of historical and contemporaneous causes
the chapter is organized in four major sections / first, learning is defined, and differentiated from related topics / second, classic findings and current positions in the experimental study of learning are reviewed / third, a brief discussion of areas in industrial and organizational psychology where learning has been studied is presented / [concludes] with a relatively speculative discussion of the way learning concepts might be incorporated into research topics not typically associated with learning (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Social information processing and social learning theories were utilized to hypothesize that an employee's organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is influenced by the collective OCB in one's workgroup. An aggregate measure of OCB was constructed based upon Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and Fetter's (1993) measures of Organ's (1988) typology of OCB, and the study was replicated using both supervisor and employee-provided ratings of OCB. The sample for this study included 566 employees (488 for the supervisor-rated analysis) from 56 workgroups in a manufacturing organization. The mean level of OCB for other members of one's workgroup explained significant variance in individual levels of OCB. We also found that this effect is moderated by the consistency of the display of the OCB within the workgroup. The consistency of OCB across coworkers was associated with more OCB by individuals and this effect was replicated across both supervisor and employee ratings. Explanations and uses for our findings are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Five common themes were derived from the literature on effective work groups, and then characteristics representing the themes were related to effectivness criteria. Themes included job design, interdependence, composition, context, and process. They contained 19 group characteristics which were assessed by employees and managers. Effectiveness criteria included productivity, employee satisfaction, and manager judgments. Data were collected from 391 employees, 70 managers, and archival records for 80 work groups in a financial organization. Results showed that all three effectiveness criteria were predicted by the characteristics, and nearly all characteristics predicted some of the effectiveness criteria. The job design and process themes were slightly more predictive than the interdependence, composition, and context themes. Implications for designing effective work groups were discussed, and a 54-item measure of the 19 characteristics was presented for future research.
Although learning is generally perceived as a way to improve employees' current job performance, so far, no research has been conducted to explore the possible relationships between formal and informal learning, on the one hand, and employability, on the other. Though contemporary views stress the importance of the job as a powerful learning site, considerable research evidence underpinning these views is lacking. This paper goes into the impact of formal and informal learning upon employability. The influence of employee characteristics and organizational factors is also taken into account. An e-questionnaire was used to collect data among 215 Dutch non-academic university staff members. Our findings emphasize the necessity of Human Resource Development strategies that encompass a mix of formal and informal learning opportunities. In particular, participation in networks appears to be an important predictor for employability. With the outcomes of this study, we aim to contribute to the further development of theoretical insights regarding employability enhancement through learning possibilities embedded in the workplace. It seems that strategies that focus exclusively on enhancing informal on-the-job learning should not be encouraged. Our study is limited to one context and further research is required to investigate the generalizability of the findings to other occupations and/or countries.