One Big Happy Family? Unraveling the Relationship between Shared Perceptions of Team Psychological Contracts, Person-Team Fit and Team Performance.

Katherine Gibbard,Yannick Griep,Denis Onen,Genevieve Hoffart,Hamidreza Zareipour,Rein De Cooman

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01966

Katherine Gibbard, Yannick Griep + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01966

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Abstract

With the knowledge that team work is not always associated with high(er) performance, we draw from the Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts, Person-Environment Fit Theory, and Optimal Distinctiveness Theory to study shared perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach in relation to shared perceptions of complementary and supplementary fit to explain why some teams perform better than other teams. We collected three repeated survey measures in a sample of 128 respondents across 46 teams. After having made sure that we met all statistical criteria, we aggregated our focal variables to the team-level and analyzed our data by means of a longitudinal three-wave autoregressive moderated-mediation model in which each relationship was one-time lag apart. We found that shared perceptions of PC breach were directly negatively related to team output and negatively related to perceived team member effectiveness through a decrease in shared perceptions of supplementary fit. However, we also demonstrated a beneficial process in that shared perceptions of PC breach were positively related to shared perceptions of complementary fit, which in turn were positively related to team output. Moreover, best team output appeared in teams that could combine high shared perceptions of complementary fit with modest to high shared perceptions of supplementary fit. Overall, our findings seem to indicate that in terms of team output there may be a bright side to perceptions of PC breach and that perceived person-team fit may play an important role in this process.

Highlights

In today’s economic reality, colored by a range of organizational changes, downsizing, restructuring, lay offs, and rapid changing market needs, organizations need to constantly adapt in order to remain competitive and innovative
The vast majority of Psychological contracts (PC) research has centered on perceptions of PC breach at the individual level, a recent Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts has proposed to study PCs at the team level to understand, among other things, how team PC fulfillment or breach relates to team performance (Laulié and Tekleab, 2016)
Interactions between team members seem to shape the interpretation of team PC breach and potentially have a differential influence (i.e., PC breach does not always reduce team performance; it depends on shared perceptions of person-team fit and on the type of performance outcome) on outcomes compared to the individual level (i.e., PC breach reduces individual performance)

Summary

Introduction

In today’s economic reality, colored by a range of organizational changes, downsizing, restructuring, lay offs, and rapid changing market needs, organizations need to constantly adapt in order to remain competitive and innovative. The vast majority of PC research has centered on perceptions of PC breach at the individual level, a recent Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts has proposed to study PCs at the team level to understand, among other things, how team PC fulfillment or breach relates to team performance (Laulié and Tekleab, 2016) This Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts posits a direct negative relationship between team members collectively noticing that their team has failed to fulfill its obligations (team perceptions of PC breach) and team performance, we introduce person-team fit as an important mediator that will allow us to demonstrate why in certain incidences shared perceptions of PC breach will reduce team performance, while in other incidences it will increase team performance

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