Task Interdependence Research Articles

Naval ship design-process analysis through dynamic social networks

ABSTRACT Modern naval ship design is increasing in complexity as more and more systems are incorporated into the design process, leading to an increase in the number (and interdependence) of tasks that designers need to complete and progress through the design stages. This work develops a dynamic bipartite social network representation, separating the nodes in activities and individuals, with the aim to analyse and draw conclusions regarding the design process. A dynamic time-dependent graph (TDG) is constructed with the use of a presence function for the edges. Network properties (density, clustering, active tasks/designers) are expressed as functions of time, and node-wise metrics (centralities) reveal the key role of individuals in the naval ship design process, which is heavily-crowded with respect to tasks. Furthermore, application of the model to naval ship design data reveals interesting insights regarding the impact of COVID-19 and the design company’s adopted hiring policy.

A Study on the Impact of Team Interdependence on Cooperative Performance in Public–Private Partnership Projects: The Moderating Effect of Government Equity Participation

Sustainable collaboration among teams drives sustainable public–private partnership (PPP) projects, and the interactions, perceptions, and behaviors of project teams with ad hoc decision-making power critically impact collaborative performance in PPP contexts. While the role relationships between subjective interdependence, collective behaviors, team processes, and performance in PPP project teams are yet to be clarified, further validation is needed to embed this logic in project management. This study aims to clarify the role relationships among the four variables of team interdependence, team interaction, team performance, and government participation. Through an empirical investigation of the data of 367 samples of PPP project teams and data analysis by SPSS 26.0 and Amos 23.0, it is found that team interdependence (task interdependence, result interdependence) has a significant positive effect on cooperative performance, and team interaction plays a mediating role in this process. Compared with enterprises with low government share, team interdependence with high government share has a significant positive effect on the team cooperation performance of PPP projects and has a positive moderating effect on the influence mechanism of team cooperation performance. Based on this, this paper proposes strategies for PPP project team management and sustainable development. It suggests corresponding suggestions for improving PPP project team performance and sustainable development.

M3GAT: A Multi-modal, Multi-task Interactive Graph Attention Network for Conversational Sentiment Analysis and Emotion Recognition

Sentiment and emotion, which correspond to long-term and short-lived human feelings, are closely linked to each other, leading to the fact that sentiment analysis and emotion recognition are also two interdependent tasks in natural language processing (NLP). One task often leverages the shared knowledge from another task and performs better when solved in a joint learning paradigm. Conversational context dependency, multi-modal interaction, and multi-task correlation are three key factors that contribute to this joint paradigm. However, none of the recent approaches have considered them in a unified framework. To fill this gap, we propose a multi-modal, multi-task interactive graph attention network, termed M3GAT, to simultaneously solve the three problems. At the heart of the model is a proposed interactive conversation graph layer containing three core sub-modules, which are: (1) local-global context connection for modeling both local and global conversational context, (2) cross-modal connection for learning multi-modal complementary and (3) cross-task connection for capturing the correlation across two tasks. Comprehensive experiments on three benchmarking datasets, MELD, MEISD, and MSED, show the effectiveness of M3GAT over state-of-the-art baselines with the margin of 1.88%, 5.37%, and 0.19% for sentiment analysis, and 1.99%, 3.65%, and 0.13% for emotion recognition, respectively. In addition, we also show the superiority of multi-task learning over the single-task framework.

Relational coordination in value-based health care.

An important element of value-based health care (VBHC) is interprofessional collaboration in integrated practice units (IPUs) for the delivery of the complete cycle of care. High levels of interprofessional collaboration between clinical and nonclinical staff in IPUs are assumed rather than proven. Factors that may stimulate interprofessional collaboration in the context of VBHC are underresearched. The aim of this study was to examine relational coordination (RC) in VBHC and its antecedents. A questionnaire was used to examine the association of both team practices and organizational conditions with interprofessional collaboration in IPUs. Gittell's Relational Coordination Survey was drawn upon to measure interprofessional collaboration by capturing the relational dynamics in coordinated working. The questionnaire also included measures of team practices (team meetings and boundary spanning behavior) and organizational conditions (task interdependence and time constraints). The number of different professional groups participating in team meetings is positively associated with RC in IPUs. Boundary spanning behavior, task interdependence, and time constraints are not associated with RC. In IPUs, the diversity within interprofessional team meetings is important for establishing high-quality communication and relationships. Hospital managers should prioritize facilitating and encouraging shared meetings to enhance RC levels among professional groups in IPUs.

Perceived overqualification leads to being ostracized: the mediating role of psychological entitlement and moderating role of task interdependence

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to test the mediating effect of psychological entitlement in the relationship between perceived overqualification (POQ) and workplace ostracism. In addition, the authors posited that POQ would interact with task interdependence to influence psychological entitlement and indirectly affect workplace ostracism.Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected in three waves from 450 workers in a state-owned enterprise, the authors tested the proposed moderated mediation model.FindingsPOQ increased workplace ostracism through the mediation of psychological entitlement. Moreover, task interdependence buffered the positive effect of POQ on psychological entitlement.Practical implicationsWhen recruiting, managers should be careful about hiring employees who are too above the job requirements to lessen employees' POQ and lower its negative impact. In addition, they could reduce the feeling of being ostracized for overqualified employees through increasing task interdependence.Originality/valueExisting research on antecedents of workplace ostracism had mainly focused on the ostracizers, while largely ignoring the victims. Moreover, of the few studies on the victims of ostracism, most focused on inherent employee characteristics or external environmental factors, while little research attention has been given to employees' subjective perceptions. The present study is among the first to examine whether employees' POQ and individuals' self-perception that their skills, knowledge and abilities exceed the job requirements would lead to being ostracized and if so, how and when.

The impact of task characteristics on online group participation behavior: a study using information processing theory

PurposeIn the digital age, enterprise social media (ESM) use is becoming more prevalent in the workplace. The “group” function is a very important part in the use of ESM. This paper explores how the characteristics of employees' task requirements affect their group participation behaviors on the ESM.Design/methodology/approachBased on information processing theory, the authors establish a two-stage research model to explore the impact of task characteristics on employees' online group participation behavior in the context of ESM. Data were collected using a survey of 341 Chinese employees.FindingsThe results indicate that (1) task interdependence was positively correlated with participation in small closed groups; (2) task complexity was positively correlated with participation in small groups, large closed groups and open professional groups and (3) task non-routineness was positively correlated with participation in small groups, large closed groups and open professional groups.Originality/valueThis study builds on the literature on task characteristics, information processing theory and employees' online group participation behavior, contributing to the research on ESM in the field of information systems and providing guidance for enterprise practice.

Research on the POPi Digital Model Framework for BIM Implementation in High-Rise Megaprojects

For more than a decade, researchers and practitioners have been working to advance the implementation of virtual design and construction (VDC) and building information modeling (BIM) in the construction industry. Based on the product-organization-process (POP) research model of VDC/BIM, this paper presents the product-organization-process-infrastructure (POPi) digital framework by adding the core element: the software and hardware infrastructure. This paper discusses the element models and corresponding relationship of the POPi framework in terms of practical characteristics: the diversity of BIM applications and software in high-rise megaprojects and cross-organizational task interdependence. In addition, by combining the practices of the Suzhou Zhongnan Center, this study analyzes the four core element models of the POPi framework and discusses the typical applications and benefits to projects in design and the early stage of construction based on the element models. The research results provide a theoretical framework for the BIM application and related software development of similar projects.

The impact of emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and psychological safety on employee’s innovative behavior with the moderating effect of task interdependence in Lahore, Pakistan

The impact of emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and psychological safety on employee’s innovative behavior with the moderating effect of task interdependence in Lahore, Pakistan

Enhanced multi-objective gorilla troops optimizer for real-time multi-user dependent tasks offloading in edge-cloud computing

This research paper investigates Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) networks, which involve numerous wireless devices transferring their computation tasks to various edge servers and a single cloud server. The study considers various real-time dependent computation tasks composing an application running on each connected device. This study aims to determine whether to process each user task locally on the device or to offload and process it on one of the nearby MEC servers or the central cloud server. Despite the continued efforts to address the issue of task offloading, it remains a difficult area of research, especially in the edge-cloud environment. Improving the Quality of Service (QoS) and achieving optimized performance and resource utilization are still necessary goals. New approaches either focus on a single objective, are computationally demanding, depend only on the cloud or MEC for offloading, not both or disregard the interdependence between tasks. This paper proposes an enhanced multi-objective version of the Gorilla Algorithm (EMGA) for offloading interdependent tasks in edge-cloud environments, with three main objectives: 1-reducing the application's execution latency, 2-lowering energy consumption for connected devices, and 3-minimizing imposed cost for using servers' resources. The proposed approach assumes that each MEC and cloud server can support multiple cost levels to increase system flexibility. A customized mutation operation was introduced in EMGA, which extends the functionality of the Standard Gorilla algorithm to improve search strategies. Comparative analyses were conducted between EMGA and other optimizers in the problem domain, and the results indicate the superiority of EMGA.

Comparisons of the effects of individual and collective performance-related pay on performance: A review

Debate on whether performance-related pay enhances organizational performance has centred on individual-based systems. This paper reviews studies that compare these with collective-based systems such as team bonuses and profit-sharing. Analysis of such comparisons – both field and experimental studies – reveals that collective systems, either alone or in conjunction with individual systems, are associated with higher performance. In no study do individual incentives outperform collective systems. Tests for moderators were rare but suggest that task interdependency may enhance collective systems' effects. Tests of mediators are also rare but point to enhanced levels of cooperation and idea generation under collective systems. This review examines how the included studies contribute to our understanding of key issues in payment-systems research – the roles of sorting effects and free riding under collective systems, and whether financial incentives may undermine intrinsic motivation – and finds it is limited, suggesting future work should concentrate on these areas.

Precise makespan optimization via hybrid genetic algorithm for scientific workflow scheduling problem

AbstractTask scheduling in scientific workflows represents an NP-hard problem due to the number of interdependent tasks, data transfers, and the possible execution infrastructure assignments in cloud computing. For this reason, metaheuristics are one of the most widely applied optimisation techniques. Makespan is one of the main objectives in this problem. However, this metric needs to be complemented with a quality measure with respect to the actual execution time in order to avoid incurring more costs than expected by using an over-optimistic approximation. This research applies a new enhanced disk-network-computing evaluation model, that takes into account the communication among the storage devices involved, which plays an important role in actual schedules. The model is implemented in a genetic algorithm and the well-known heuristic HEFT. We propose different hybridisation metaheuristics in conjunction with a new accuracy metric to measure the difference between the makespan approximations and the real one. The new evaluation model is able to improve accuracy with respect to the standard model, and the proposed hybrid methods significantly improve makespan in the case of heterogeneous infrastructures.

Do Team Boundary-Spanning Activities Affect Innovation Performance?

In order to reveal the impact of boundary-spanning activities of cooperative innovation teams on team innovation performance, this paper takes the panel data of 71 cooperative innovation teams from January to November 2022 as the research sample. It introduces intermediary variables (teamwork crafting and individual work crafting) to analyze the impact mechanism of boundary-spanning activities of teams on innovation performance, 71 teams were divided into 41 experimental groups and 30 control groups, and a quasi-natural experiment was conducted on the innovation performance of team boundary-spanning activities using the Double Difference Model (DID). Research has shown that boundary-spanning activities of collaborative innovation teams can promote team innovation performance. Team job crafting has a mediating effect on team innovation performance in boundary-spanning activities of collaborative innovation teams. Team job crafting and individual job crafting mediate between the boundary-spanning activities of collaborative innovation teams and team innovation performance. Further analysis using the double difference model found that compared to teams without boundary-spanning activities, teams with boundary-spanning activities can directly improve team innovation performance. When team reflection is vital and task interdependence is high, it will promote team innovation performance. This research enriches the research on the effects of boundary-spanning activities of collaborative innovation teams, explores solutions based on quasi-nature, and provides a reference for improving the team innovation performance of collaborative innovation teams.

The effect of internal knowledge transfer on the relationship between personality traits and employee service performance: a multilevel model

PurposeInternal knowledge transfer is crucial for firms to improve their employees’ abilities and improve their work performance. However, there is still a gap in the knowledge management field regarding whether internal knowledge transfer can leverage employee personality traits and service performance in service-oriented organizations. To address this gap, this study aims to validate a multilevel model of the mediating (i.e. internal knowledge transfer as a mediator) and moderating (i.e. task interdependence as a moderator) mechanisms underlying personality traits and employee service performance.Design/methodology/approachMultilevel structural equation modeling was applied for model validation using an original data set from 45 team leaders and 333 employees working in Chinese hotels.FindingsInternal knowledge transfer mediated the link between extraversion and employee service performance and the link between openness to experience and employee service performance. Task interdependence played a moderating role that strengthened both the impacts of extraversion and openness to experience on internal knowledge transfer.Originality/valueThrough the use of an original data set, this study advances the knowledge management discipline by investigating the mediating impact of internal knowledge transfer between personality traits and employee service performance and revealing the moderating impact of task interdependence that underlies the links between personality traits and internal knowledge transfer.

Enabling workplace thriving: A multilevel model of positive affect, team cohesion, and task interdependence

AbstractThis research advances the workplace thriving literature by offering a multilevel view regarding the impact of positive affective resources on employee and team thriving. We conducted our study with 285 employees from 62 teams to examine a multilevel model involving the relationship between high‐activated positive affect (HAPA) and thriving at individual and team levels. Results demonstrated that team HAPA triggered team cohesion, which in turn enhanced team thriving, and that individual HAPA promoted individual thriving. While task interdependence did not moderate the effects of team HAPA on team cohesion or, in turn, on team thriving, cross‐level moderation showed that task interdependence strengthened the relationship between individual HAPA and individual thriving. These findings extend the knowledge regarding the relationship between positive affect and thriving by confirming the role of affect activation, identifying a team‐level mechanism, and clarifying a boundary condition.

The honey-trap of workplace friendship: Developing and testing a three-way interaction model to understand when and why workplace friendship triggers employee withdrawal behaviour.

Although previous research has found that workplace friendship has beneficial effects on employees' and organisations' consequences, knowledge regarding the complexity and dark sides of workplace friendship is limited. Our purpose is to develop and test a three-way interaction model that explains when and how negative outcomes of workplace friendship are likely to unfold considering both individual personality and contextual conditions. Based on the stressor-emotion model, we argue that workplace friendship may also be a stressor due to its conflicting and contradictory dual roles, which in turn triggers negative employees' emotions, thus, leading to withdrawal behaviour. Furthermore, we propose that emotional reactivity and task interdependence are individual and contextual factors that induce and catalyse the negative effect of workplace friendship. By analysing the data from 429 respondents, the result supported our hypotheses. Overall, our research provides a theoretical and empirical foundation for future research on the dark sides of workplace friendship.

Relational coordination in Veterans Affairs home-based primary care

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) home-based primary care (HBPC) is an intensive primary care program in which interdisciplinary teams care for patients with complex, chronic medical and social needs in their homes. HBPC teams consist of multiple disciplines, perform complex, interdependent tasks, coordinate care with other providers to meet patient needs. Relational coordination (RC) is a mutually reinforcing process of communicating and relating that provides the information-processing capacity to coordinate complex, interdependent tasks. In this mixed-methods study, we examined RC within home-based primary care teams (HBPC), and between clinic-based primary care providers and HBPC team members. RC was assessed by a cross-sectional survey of 33 HBPC team members and semi-structured interviews with 14 HBPC and 10 clinic-based PCPs were conducted to explicate findings. Survey results showed strong RC within HBPC teams but gaps in timely communication and shared knowledge among HBPC teams and clinic-based PCPs. These gaps may underlie confusion and frustration over the role of HBPC and what types of patients should get HBPC care. Interview data suggest that functional specialization and lack of face-to-face interactions may have hindered the development of strong RC. Interventions that promote boundary spanning may improve RC between HBPC teams and clinic based primary care.

Contingencies in the effects of job‐based pay dispersion on employee attitudes

AbstractWhen does pay dispersion elicit positive or negative employee attitudes? A review of the pay dispersion literature indicates a controversy around this vital question and suggests that numerous contingency factors moderate the effects of pay dispersion. In an empirical study of four Finnish companies consisting of 141 work units, we examine contingencies in attitudinal reactions to job‐based pay dispersion among blue‐collar workers. Based on archival pay data matched with employee survey responses (n = 536), we find that perceptions of pay basis legitimacy, task interdependence, and an individual's pay standing within the work unit explain the strength and direction of the relation between job‐based pay dispersion and employee attitudes (i.e., work engagement and organizational commitment). Our findings have implications for the design of pay systems and contribute to a better appreciation of the complexities underlying employee attitudinal responses to pay dispersion.

The direction of work flow matters: influence mechanism of task interdependence on employee proactive work behavior.

Given the increasing uncertainty in today's environment, how enterprises implement changes to stimulate employee proactive work behavior has become an important practical topic in the human resources field. This study considers work flow direction and refers to the work characteristic and job demand-resource models to explore the influence of task interdependence (initiated and received) on employee proactive work behavior. We interviewed human resource staff and surveyed employees of an internet company headquartered in Jiangsu, China. The empirical results show that initiated task interdependence has a positive impact on employee proactive work behavior, and task significance plays a mediating role between them. Self-esteem does not affect the positive relationship between initiated task interdependence and task significance, nor does it influence the aforementioned mediating effect of task significance. Moreover, received task interdependence has no significant effect on proactive work behavior, and task significance has no significant mediating effect between them. Self-esteem moderates the relationship between received task interdependence and task significance. Specifically, when self-esteem is low, received task interdependence positively predicts task significance, and when self-esteem is high, the received task interdependence-task significance relationship is not significant. Furthermore, self-esteem moderates the mediating effect of task significance between received task interdependence and proactive work behavior. Specifically, when self-esteem is low, task significance plays a mediating role but not when self-esteem is high. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

Virtual team-cooperation from home-office: a quantitative diary study of the impact of daily transformational- and passive-avoidant leadership - and the moderating role of task interdependence.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the workforce moved from office setting to home-office and virtual teamwork. Whereas the relationship between leadership and team cooperation in physical settings is well documented - less is known about how daily virtual team cooperation is influenced by daily constructive as well as destructive leadership, and how intervening mechanisms influence this relationship. In the present study, we test the direct effect of daily transformational- and passive avoidant leadership, respectively, on the daily quality of virtual team cooperation - and the moderating effect of task interdependence. Using virtual team cooperation as outcome, we hypothesized that (a) transformational leadership relates positively to virtual team cooperation, (b) passive-avoidant leadership relates negatively, and (c) moderated by task interdependence. Our hypotheses were tested in a 5-day quantitative diary study with 58 convenience sampled employees working from home in virtual teams. The results show that virtual team cooperation is a partially malleable process - with 28% variation in daily virtual team cooperation resulting from within team variation from day to day. Surprisingly, the results of multilevel modeling lend support only to the first hypothesis (a). Taken together, our findings suggest that in virtual settings, inspirational and development-oriented transformational leadership plays a key role in daily team cooperation, while passive-avoidance has little impact - independently of task interdependence. Hence, in virtual team settings, the study shows that "good is stronger than bad" - when comparing the negative effects of destructive leadership to the positive effect of constructive and inspirational leadership. We discuss the implications of these findings for further research and practice.

When do teams generate valuable inventions? The moderating role of invention integrality on the effects of expertise similarity, network cohesion, and gender diversity

Research has demonstrated that certain team composition factors—high expertise similarity, high network cohesion, and mixed‐gender teams—have predominantly negative effects on the teams’ invention outcomes. Yet these factors have also been shown to improve team coordination, which should (in theory) lead to better invention outcomes. We address this tension by highlighting the need to consider the invention's integrality, which increases task interdependencies among team members and thereby strengthens the positive relationship between team coordination and invention value. We hypothesize that (i) the main effects of these team composition factors reduce a team's invention value but, more importantly, that (ii) invention integrality positively moderates those effects. We support these claims with evidence from utility patent data filed in the United States during the period 1983–2015.