Abstract
Models of team development have indicated that teams typically engage in task delay during the first stages of the team’s life cycle. An important question is to what extent this equally applies to all teams, or whether there is variation across teams in the amount of task delay. The present study introduces the concept of team procrastination as a lens through which we can examine whether teams collectively engage in unplanned, voluntary, and irrational delay of team tasks. Based on theory and research on self-regulation, team processes, and team motivation we developed a conceptual multilevel model of predictors and outcomes of team procrastination. In a sample of 209 student debating teams, we investigated whether and why teams engage in collective procrastination as a team, and what consequences team procrastination has in terms of team member well-being and team performance. The results supported the existence of team procrastination as a team-level construct that has some stability over time. The teams’ composition in terms of individual-level trait procrastination, as well as the teams’ motivational states (i.e., team learning goal orientation, team performance-approach goal orientation in interaction with team efficacy) predicted team procrastination. Team procrastination related positively to team members’ stress levels, especially for those low on trait procrastination. Furthermore, team procrastination had an indirect negative relationship with team performance, through teams’ collective stress levels. These findings add to the theoretical understanding of self-regulatory processes of teams, and highlight the practical importance of paying attention to team-level states and processes such as team goal orientation and team procrastination.
Highlights
Procrastination is a widespread phenomenon, occurring regularly at school, at work, and in our daily lives
Because we were interested in team-member personality and team motivational state predictors rather than task-related predictors of team procrastination, and because we were interested in team performance, we opted for a setting in which the task was the same for all teams
The present study introduced the concept of procrastination to the team motivation literature
Summary
Procrastination is a widespread phenomenon, occurring regularly at school, at work, and in our daily lives (see Ferrari et al, 1995; Van Eerde, 2000; Steel, 2007). Procrastination refers to a failure in self-regulation, defined as Procrastination of Teams the voluntary delay of an intended course of action despite the negative consequences of the delay (Steel, 2007). Such negative consequences of procrastination relate to missing deadlines (Ferrari, 1993; Van Eerde, 2003), poor performance (Steel, 2007), reduced career success (Nguyen et al, 2013), and decreased mental health (Tice and Baumeister, 1997; Sirois et al, 2003; Sirois, 2014). Given the prominence of working in teams and team-based learning, and given the prevalence and negative consequences of procrastination at the individual level, it is important to investigate the extent to which procrastination occurs in teams, and examine the predictors and outcomes of team-level procrastination
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