Collective Team Identification Research Articles

Self-beliefs, Transactive Memory Systems, and Collective Identification in Teams: Articulating the Socio-Cognitive Underpinnings of COHUMAIN.

Socio-cognitive theory conceptualizes individual contributors as both enactors of cognitive processes and targets of a social context's determinative influences. The present research investigates how contributors' metacognition or self-beliefs, combine with others' views of themselves to inform collective team states related to learning about other agents (i.e., transactive memory systems) and forming social attachments with other agents (i.e., collective team identification), both important teamwork states that have implications for team collective intelligence. We test the predictions in a longitudinal study with 78 teams. Additionally, we provide interview data from industry experts in human-artificial intelligence teams. Our findings contribute to an emerging socio-cognitive architecture for COllective HUman-MAchine INtelligence (i.e., COHUMAIN) by articulating its underpinnings in individual and collective cognition and metacognition. Our resulting model has implications for the critical inputs necessary to design and enable a higher level of integration of human and machine teammates.

Envy Influences Interpersonal Dynamics and Team Performance: Roles of Gender Congruence and Collective Team Identification

Our research extends past envy research by considering how envy and gender congruence shape interpersonal dynamics at the dyadic level and their bottom-up effects for team performance. Integrating social comparison theory and social identity theory, we examine when and how dyadic level envy influences team performance. Using time-lagged data from 428 dyads of 161 employees in 51 teams, our results show that envious employees are likely to engage in interpersonal deviance directed toward envied team members and that envied employees are likely to seek advice from envious team members. Gender congruence further influences these relationships, with different patterns for males and females. Specifically, while envious male employees are more likely to engage in interpersonal deviance toward envied male team members (i.e., male–male dyads), envied female team members are more likely to ask envious female employees for advice (i.e., female–female dyads). Interpersonal dynamics involving envy have performance implications, such that team performance is worse where envious employees are more likely to engage in interpersonal deviance directed toward envied team members, in comparison to teams where this relationship is weaker. Finally, collective team identification mitigates the negative effect of envious employees’ interpersonal deviance on team performance.

Effects of (In)Congruence in Leader-Team Proactive Personality

This research investigates the congruence and incongruence effects of leader-team proactive personality on team cohesiveness and collective team identification, which in turn affect team performance. Drawing on dominance complementarity theory, we propose that the incongruence of leader-team proactive personality exerts positive influence on team performance through team cohesiveness and collective team identification. In addition, we hypothesize that the congruence in leader-team proactive personality has an inverted-U shaped relationship with team cohesiveness and collective team identification, thus affecting subsequent team performance. Using a sample composed of 286 team leaders, 1,893 team members, and 286 manufacturing work teams, our hypothesized relationships received empirical support. Our findings provide a deeper understanding of how (in)congruence in personality traits functions differently at the team level. Our findings highlight both leader-team complementarity and a middle (rather than high/low) leader-team congruence in proactive personality facilitated key team processes and performance outcome.

Formation of TMT strategic consensus: the effects of collective team identification and information elaboration

PurposeHow is strategic consensus formed in top management team (TMT)? Prior literature provides inadequate evidence. A few scholars explore its antecedents from some perspectives (e.g. organizational or team structure) to address this gap but yield confusing results. This study aims to clarify the mechanism to reach TMT strategic consensus and explore both the effect of collective team identification and information elaboration.Design/methodology/approachStepwise regression analysis is applied to explore the formation process of strategic consensus by using data collected from 126 TMTs of Chinese firms.FindingsResults show that collective team identification has a positive effect on TMT strategic consensus, whereas information elaboration has a U-shaped effect. Further, the U-shaped relationship between information elaboration and TMT strategic consensus is strengthened by collective team identification.Originality/valueThis study provides a nuanced explanation of the antecedents of strategic consensus in TMT by exploring the effects of collective team identification and information elaboration. Particularly, this study proposes a U-shaped relationship between information elaboration and strategic consensus, which enriches TMT decision-making literature and consensus research. Moreover, by examining the moderating effect of collective team identification, this study articulates why TMT members fail to achieve strategic consensus even when they have sufficiently discussed the task-relevant information.

Illuminating opposing performance effects of stressors in innovation teams

AbstractDespite the clear relevance of stressors for the creative work performed by individuals, how they affect teams in their ability to innovate is poorly understood. Thus, the question as to what kind of, and by which mechanisms, team stressors may give rise to better innovation team performance needs further consideration. We address this issue by applying the challenge–hindrance stressor framework to the team level of analysis in the context of innovation teams. By integrating insights from social identity theory and the attentional focus model, we highlight the importance of identity‐ and information‐based mechanisms in transmitting the differential effects of challenge and hindrance team stressors on the performance of innovation teams. We test our arguments for two of the most prominent indicators of innovation team performance (i.e., team creativity and team efficiency) in a multi‐informant sample of team members, team‐internal leaders, and team‐external managers from 114 innovation teams. Our findings support the opposing effects of challenge and hindrance team stressors in predicting innovation team performance through the two differential mechanisms. Specifically, for team efficiency, both team stressors come with the cost of team task conflict (i.e., the information‐based mechanism). However, whereas challenge team stressors enhance collective team identification (i.e., the identity‐based mechanism), hindrance team stressors undermine collective team identification, thereby aggravating their already negative effect on team efficiency. In terms of team creativity, our results suggest that both types of team stressors exert their indirect effects solely via the identity‐based mechanism. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

How Does Ethical Leadership Relate to Team Creativity? The Role of Collective Team Identification and Need for Cognitive Closure

We investigate how and when ethical leadership predicts team creativity. With its strong compliance with organizational norms and procedures, ethical leadership can be seen as antithetical to creativity. Similarly, collective need for cognitive closure can negatively impact creativity as this is a motivational tendency toward making quick decisions and avoiding open-ended processes. However, we argue that they both can have a positive effect on team creativity when collective team identification is considered as an underlying mechanism. Accordingly, we hypothesize that ethical leadership fosters team creativity via strengthening collective team identification, and collective need for cognitive closure positively moderates the indirect relationship between ethical leadership and team creativity via collective team identification. We studied 55 teams in a food-services organization in South Korea in a multi-wave and multi-source design and found support for our hypotheses.

The Curvilinear Relationship Between Collective Team Identification and New Venture Performance: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Uncertainty

Abstract Many new ventures are founded and developed by teams rather than solo entrepreneurs. Therefore, the extent to which entrepreneurs identify with their teams is likely to have an important impact on the process and outcome of new venture creation in new venture teams. However, most of the relevant studies focus on entrepreneurs’ individual identity, and the identity at the team level has been overlooked. This study seeks to fill this gap by exploring the effect of collective team identification on new venture performance. The relationship between collective team identification and new venture performance was examined using a sample of 54 new venture teams in Internet Technology (IT) industry. The results show that the relationship between collective team identification and new venture performance is inverted U-shaped. Moreover, environmental uncertainty may moderate this curvilinear effect, such that this inverted U-shaped relationship is more salient at a low level of environmental uncertainty rather than at a high level of environmental uncertainty.

Creating team ambidexterity: The effects of leader dialectical thinking and collective team identification

In the current, increasingly dynamic environment, more attention is being devoted to ambidexterity (both explorative and exploitative learning), as it is beneficial to organizational functioning. Despite an abundance of research on organizational ambidexterity, there is a paucity of research examining team-level ambidexterity. In a cross-level empirical study, we examine a leader's dialectical thinking as an antecedent of team-level ambidexterity. We also incorporate collective team identification as a moderator in the study. Our findings support that a leader's dialectical thinking can help facilitate team ambidexterity that, in turn, improves employee performance. Those teams whose members have strong team identification and whose leader is high in dialectical thinking will reap the most benefit from team ambidexterity.

Why Employees Help Teammates When Their Leader Looks Powerful: A Multilevel Investigation

We extend prior research on leader power by examining why and when leader referent and expert powers influence team members’ organizational citizenship behaviors directed at other individuals (OCBI) from the multilevel perspective. We propose that leader referent and expert power perceptions operate at both individual and team levels and lead to OCBI through distinct motivational mechanisms. Drawing upon social identity theory, we suggest that team-level leader referent and expert powers facilitate social identification as salient team features and in turn promote team members’ OCBI through collective team identification. On the other hand, at the individual level, leader referent and expert powers are experienced discretionarily and affect members’ OCBI through dyadic exchange relationships with a leader–member exchange (LMX) based on the reciprocity norm. Furthermore, collective team identification is hypothesized to moderate the relationship between LMX and OCBI. Findings from 465 employees in 80 teams show that team-level leader referent power enhances collective team identification and OCBI beyond expert power but not vice versa. At the individual level, both referent and expert powers have positive indirect impact on OCBI via LMX. The moderating effect of collective team identification is supported in that team members convert high-quality LMX into OCBI only when collective team identification is higher. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Unlocking the performance potential of functionally diverse teams: The paradoxical role of leader mood

In a multisource, lagged design field study of 66 consulting teams, we investigated the role of leader mood in unlocking the performance potential of functionally diverse teams. In line with our hypotheses, we found that, given high levels of leader positive mood, functional diversity was positively related to collective team identification. In contrast, given high levels of leader negative mood, functional diversity was positively associated with information elaboration in teams. Furthermore, results showed that functional diversity was most strongly related to team performance when both leader positive mood and leader negative mood were high. This study highlights the value of examining seemingly contradictory leadership aspects in the effort to gain a fuller understanding of how to foster performance in diverse teams.Practitioner points To effectively lead diverse teams, leaders need to navigate between the need to promote unique ideas (i.e., information elaboration) and the simultaneous need to pull together diverse members towards a common identity. Leader mood addresses both of these needs. When the team leader exhibited a positive mood, team functional diversity was positively related to members’ identification with the team. By contrast, when the team leader displayed a negative mood, team functional diversity was positively related to information elaboration. Over a 12‐day period, diverse teams performed best when the leader showed both positive and negative mood. Leaders of diverse teams are required to be sensitive to the affective tone of their team and aware of how their emotional displays influence team members’ moods and behaviours as well as team processes.

The Effects of Task and Relationship Conflict Asymmetry on Performance in Teams: The Mediating Role of Collective Team Identification

The Effects of Task and Relationship Conflict Asymmetry on Performance in Teams: The Mediating Role of Collective Team Identification

Managing diverse teams by enhancing team identification: The mediating role of perceived diversity

Although diversity provides a greater pool of knowledge and perspectives, teams often do not realize the potential offered by these additional informational resources. In this study, we develop a new model seeking to explain when and how teams that are diverse in terms of educational background utilize the afforded informational variety by engaging in deeper elaboration of task-relevant information. We found that collective team identification moderated the relationship between educational team diversity and elaboration of task-relevant information, such that under high (low) levels of team identification, educational diversity was positively (negatively) related to information elaboration. As expected, this moderating effect was shown to be mediated simultaneously through two different types of perceived team diversity. We found that the negative path was mediated through a perceived diversity measure reflecting a split into subgroups, whereas the positive path was mediated through a perceived diversity measure reflecting perceived educational heterogeneity. Taken together, this study contributes to the team diversity literature by shedding light on the important role of collective team identification in unlocking the potential of objective educational team diversity, by uncovering the underlying mechanisms accounting for this effect, and by demonstrating the usefulness of distinguishing between different types of perceived diversity.

The Role of Functional Diversity, Collective Team Identification, and Task Cohesion in Influencing Innovation Speed

This article opens up the black box of innovation and examines the relationship between functional diversity in software teams and the often neglected dimension of innovation – speed, over the two phases of innovation: creativity and idea implementation. By combining information processing view and social identity theory, the authors hypothesize that when collective team identification is low, functional diversity positively affects the time spent in the creativity phase; however, when collective team identification is high, this relationship is inverted U-shaped. When task cohesion is high, functional diversity negatively affects the time spent in the idea implementation phase; however, when task cohesion is low, this relationship is U-shaped. Results from 96 IT software-teams confirmed the authors' hypotheses. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Collective Team Identification and External Learning

To further develop extant knowledge about the drivers of and conditions affecting team external learning, we studied the relationship between collective team identification and external learning and the moderating effect of psychological safety on this relationship. The results from a field study involving 61 teams show that collective team identification had a positive influence on external learning and that this relationship was moderated by psychological safety. We found an ∩-shaped relationship between collective team identification and external learning in groups with low levels of psychological safety. Excessive collective team identification actually repressed external learning instead of increasing it. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Team learning and its association with the implementation of competence-based education

Competence-based education (CBE) is the leading paradigm for education reform of Vocational Education and Training in European countries. This study addresses the association of collective team identification, task interdependence, team learning, and team size, with the implementation of CBE (N = 1008 teachers, 93 teams). Information processing in teams was positively associated with the implementation of CBE. Furthermore, trends revealed that information storage and retrieval, task interdependence, and smaller team sizes were associated with less disagreement within the team about the CBE-level of the educational program. These results provide further insight into the importance of team learning for education reform.

Managing Diverse Teams by Enhancing Team Identification: The Mediating Role of Perceived Diversity

In a study of 66 cross-functional teams (N = 368) with data drawn from multiple sources at two measurement times we tested a new mediated-moderation model aiming to shed light on when and how objective educational diversity leads to a greater elaboration of task-relevant information. We found, as expected, that collective team identification moderated the relationship between objective team diversity and the elaboration of task-relevant information. In particular, given high (low) levels of team identification, educational diversity was positively (negatively) related to team leaders’ ratings of elaboration. Most important, this moderating effect was shown to be mediated simultaneously through two different types of perceived team diversity. As predicted, we found that the negative path was mediated through a perceived diversity measure reflecting a split into subgroups whereas the positive path was mediated through a perceived diversity measure reflecting the facet of perceived educational diversity in t...

The Impact of Athlete Leaders on Team Members’ Team Outcome Confidence: A Test of Mediation by Team Identification and Collective Efficacy

Research on the effect of athlete leadership on precursors of team performance such as team confidence is sparse. To explore the underlying mechanisms of how athlete leaders impact their team’s confidence, an online survey was completed by 2,867 players and coaches from nine different team sports in Flanders (Belgium). We distinguished between two types of team confidence: collective efficacy, assessed by the CEQS subscales of effort, persistence, preparation, and unity; and team outcome confidence, measured by the ability subscale. The results demonstrated that the perceived quality of athlete leaders was positively related to participants’ team outcome confidence. The present findings are the first in sport settings to highlight the potential value of collective efficacy and team identification as underlying processes. Because high-quality leaders strengthen team members’ identification with the team, the current study also provides initial evidence for the applicability of the identity based leadership approach in sport settings.

Swim or Sink Together

This article investigates collective team identification and team member alignment (i.e., the existence of short- and long-term team goals and team-based reward structures) as moderators of the association between task and relationship conflicts. Being indicators of cooperative goal interdependence in teams, both moderators are hypothesized to mitigate the positive association between the two conflict types. Findings from 88 development teams confirm the moderating effect for collective team identification, but not for team member alignment. Moreover, the moderating role of collective team identification is found to be dependent on the level of task conflict: It is more effective in decoupling task and relationship conflicts at medium as compared with high or low levels of task conflict.

Team Diversity, Team Processes, and Team Performance: The Moderating Role of Leader Mood

Drawing on the Categorization-Elaboration (van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004) and the Emotions-as-Social-Information model (Van Kleef, 2009), respectively, we hypothesized that leader mood will impact the respective relationships between team diversity and collective team identification and elaboration of task-relevant information. We further hypothesized that the association between elaboration and objective team performance will be moderated by team identification. Testing these hypotheses with data collected from 59 financial services teams at three different time points, we found that, given high levels of leader positive mood, team diversity was positively related to team identification and negatively associated with elaboration of task-relevant information. In contrast, given high levels of leader negative mood, diversity was negatively related to team identification and positively associated with elaboration of task-relevant information. Such incongruence between identification and elaboration poses an intriguing challenge with respect to predictions based on the CEM and previous research on team diversity. Also in contrast to previous theory and research, we found that elaboration of task-relevant information was conducive to objective team performance only when collective team identification was high. This study contributes to the literature by illustrating the central role of the leader in unlocking the potential of diversity, by shedding light on the link between team diversity and affect, and by providing new insights into the role of information elaboration in diverse teams.

Results from the Virginia Multidisciplinary Team Knowledge and Functioning Survey: The importance of differentiating by groups affiliated with a child advocacy center

Child Advocacy Centers (CACs) are a child-centered, multidisciplinary response to child abuse. Two important components of a CAC model include the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and case review. The purpose of this study was to assess MDT members' perceptions of the MDT and case review and to test whether there were differences by profession, status, or CAC designation. MDT members (N = 217) affiliated with a CAC in Virginia completed an online survey containing 35 items. CAC staff was more likely to identify problems associated with case review than other professional groups. Investigators perceived case review meetings as lasting too long, whereas service providers did not. Supervisors and frontline workers disagreed on the core function of a CAC, as did CAC staff and investigators/service providers. Accredited and associate CACs identified problems associated with case review, while developing CACs identified staffing issues as problematic. Research identifying the elements of “effective” MDTs and case review is needed to provide guidance to CAC directors who are most frequently in the role of managing, nurturing, and arranging training for the MDT and coordinating case review meetings. In addition, greater training for MDT members in the importance of case review and collective team identification is warranted. ► CAC staff disagreed with other professionals regarding the core function of a CAC. ► CAC staff identified case review problems compared to other professional groups. ► Investigators perceived case review as lasting too long, but not service providers. ► Accredited and associate CACs identified case review problems. ► Developing CACs identified staffing problems.