Abstract
As teams become increasingly common for organizations to accomplish key objectives, improving team performance is a critical challenge for both practitioners and researchers. As researchers have converged on the notion that team performance is strongly influenced by subgroups, scholars have begun to explore how perception of subgroups influence team performance. Thus, in this study, we examined how perceived subgroups influenced the team transactive memory system (TMS), and hence team performance. We also proposed the moderating role of guanxi perception on the relationship between perceived subgroups and TMS. Utilizing two-wave multi-source data from 87 working teams in a Chinese central government-owned corporation, and based on multiple (moderator) hierarchical regression analyses, our results demonstrated that perceived subgroups were a negative predictor of TMS and team performance, and TMS mediated the negative relationship between perceived subgroups and team performance. That is, perceived subgroups inhibited team performance by blocking the development of a robust TMS. In addition, guanxi perception acted as a positive moderator, mitigating the negative relationship between perceived subgroups and TMS. Furthermore, the moderated mediation analysis of the integrative model revealed that the indirect effect of perceived subgroups on team performance via TMS was contingent on guanxi perception. Overall, our findings identified the pivotal role of perceived subgroups, TMS, and guanxi perception in working teams in the Chinese context.
Highlights
Teams increasingly constitute the dominant mode of knowledge production in organizations (Wuchty et al, 2007)
Perceived subgroups and guanxi perception were loaded in one factor, respectively, whereas transactive memory system (TMS) was loaded on three factors
Moderated Mediation Analysis of the Integrative Model We investigated whether the indirect effects of perceived subgroups on team performance via TMS were contingent on guanxi perception
Summary
Teams increasingly constitute the dominant mode of knowledge production in organizations (Wuchty et al, 2007). This study enriches the team literature by investigating how perceived subgroups, guanxi perception, and TMS holistically affect team performance in the Chinese context. TMS requires effective communication and coordination among team members as a premise (Lewis, 2004), and guanxi perception drives team members to establish connections across subgroups. That is, when guanxi perception is low, team members will have low motivation to interact across subgroups in order to better exchange resources across subgroups, which in turn inhibits the team from developing TMS. Guanxi perception mitigates the negative relationship between perceived subgroups and TMS
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