Team Conscientiousness Research Articles

Team personality composition and team innovation implementation: The mediating role of team climate for innovation

AbstractThe purpose of this study is first to explore the direct effects of team personality on team innovation implementation using different operationalizations for team‐level conscientiousness and emotional stability. Second, although past research offers guidance for the role of team personality in shaping team climate, only a few empirical studies have demonstrated this link. Thus, we examine how the operationalizations of the two personality characteristics at team level predict team innovation implementation via team climate for innovation. We test our model using a sample of 192 employees nested within 49 teams from different medium to large Greek organizations. Our results indicate that no effects for team mean personality are observed, but a range of effects emerge for team personality diversity. More specifically, team emotional stability diversity has a significant negative relation to team innovation implementation, whereas team conscientiousness diversity has not a direct effect on the performance criterion. However, team conscientiousness diversity is significantly related to team innovation implementation via its negative effect on team climate for innovation. Theoretical and practical implications for building innovative teams are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Managing Team Conscientiousness Diversity: The Role of Leader Emotion-Regulation Knowledge

Team members may vary in the degree to which they are self-motivating, diligent, and organized, but effects of such conscientiousness diversity are poorly understood. We propose that conscientiousness diversity effects depend on the team leader’s knowledge about managing negative affective responses—that is emotion regulation knowledge. Data of two time-lagged team studies show that for teams with leaders with lower emotion-regulation knowledge, conscientiousness diversity was negatively associated with team satisfaction (Study 1 and 2), team cohesion and information elaboration (Study 2), which in turn influenced team performance (Study 2). These negative relationships reversed in teams with leaders with higher emotion-regulation knowledge.

Perfectionists, Laid-Backs, or a Mix of the Two: Which Team Composition Benefits Failure Learning?

The present study elaborates on how conscientiousness composition contributes to explaining whether teams learn from collective failure experiences. Specifically, we combine ideas from the team personality and failure learning literatures to develop hypotheses on how team mean conscientiousness and team conscientiousness diversity contribute to explaining team failure learning. We test our hypotheses based on archival and complementary survey data for a sample of 85 store teams from 20 different bakery companies. In line with our theoretical arguments, the results reveal that teams are more likely to learn from failure experiences when a medium rather than low or high level of team mean conscientiousness is present. Moreover, we find that teams are more likely to learn from failure for subsequent performance when team conscientiousness diversity is low rather than high. We discuss the implications of our study for research on failure learning and team personality and derive practical implications.

Team Conscientiousness, Team Safety Climate, and Individual Safety Performance: a Cross-Level Mediation Model

Responding to calls for studies to examine the cross-level influence of team personality composition, we hypothesized a cross-level mediation model of the effects of different operationalizations of team conscientiousness (i.e., mean, minimum, maximum, and variance) on individual safety performance through team safety climate. We tested our model using a three-wave longitudinal design with a sample of 451 employees and 70 supervisors nested within 70 teams from two branches of one hospital. The results of our multilevel path analyses indicated that the mean, minimum, and variance—but not maximum—operationalizations of team conscientiousness at time 1 were significantly related to team safety climate at time 2. Further, team conscientiousness (i.e., mean, minimum, and variance) at time 1 exerted a top-down influence on both self-ratings and supervisor ratings of individual safety compliance and safety participation at time 3 through team safety climate at time 2, suggesting that team personality composition can influence outcomes at different levels of analyses. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Quality charters or quality members? A control theory perspective on team charters and team performance.

Though prevalent in practice, team charters have only recently received scholarly attention. However, most of this work has been relatively devoid of theory, and consequently, key questions about why and under what conditions team charter quality affects team performance remain unanswered. To address these gaps, we draw on macro organizational control theory to propose that team charter quality serves as a team-level "behavior" control mechanism that builds task cohesion through a structured exercise. We then juxtapose team charter quality with an "input" team control mechanism that influences the emergence of task cohesion more organically: team conscientiousness. Given their redundant effects on task cohesion, we propose that the effects of team charter quality and team conscientiousness on team performance (through task cohesion) are substitutive such that team charter quality primarily impacts team performance for teams that are low (vs. high) on conscientiousness. We test and find support for our hypotheses in a sample of 239 undergraduate self-managing project teams. Our study contributes to the groups and teams literature in the following ways: first, relative to previous studies, we take a more theory-driven approach toward understanding team charters, and in doing so, uncover when and why team charter quality impacts team performance; second, we integrate two normally disparate perspectives on team effectiveness (team development and team selection) to offer a broader perspective on how teams are "built"; and third, we introduce team charter quality as a performance-enhancing mechanism for teams lower on conscientiousness. (PsycINFO Database Record

The effect of member-team conscientiousness fit on knowledge sharing

Drawing on research in person-team fit and on similarity-attraction in personality, we examined the effects of (in)congruence between a member’s personality trait of conscientiousness and team composition of conscientiousness on the members’ knowledge sharing behavior. We hypothesized that higher congruence in member and team conscientiousness would lead to more knowledge sharing of the member within the team. We conducted three studies by using data from China, Taiwan and United State. With the methodology of multi-level polynomial regression, we found consistent results showing that when a member and his/her team were congruent in conscientiousness, the member shared more knowledge with other teammates. We also found that voice in team partially mediated the relationship between person-team fit in conscientiousness and knowledge sharing by using the block variable approach. Our study demonstrated that in order to understand the effects of conscientiousness on people’s outcome (in our case, knowledge sha...

"A Moderated-Mediation Model of Team Reflexivity, Conscientiousness and Performance"

We propose a moderated-mediation model of team performance where team reflexivity creates team knowledge integration capability, a dynamic capability moderated by the team conscientiousness. Data w...

The relationship of team personality to team learning behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of 5 factors(extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism) of team personality on team learning behavior, the moderating effect of transformational leadership between five factors of team personality and team learning behavior, the relationship of team learning behavior and team performance. Data was collected by 227 individuals from 58 teams in 8 organizations and analyzed by correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. The findings from correlation analysis were that team extraversion, team agreeableness, and team conscientiousness were positively related to team learning behavior and that team neuroticism was negatively related to team learning behavior. Additionally, team openness was somewhat significantly related to team learning behavior. The results from hierarchical regression analysis indicated that team extraversion and team agreeableness were positively related to team learning behavior but that team openness, team conscientiousness, and team neuroticism were not significantly related to team learning behavior. In addition, transformational leadership moderated the relationship between team agreeableness and team learning behavior. That is, in the low level of transformational leadership, team agreeableness was positively related to team learning behavior whereas team agreeableness was negatively related to team learning behavior in the high level of transformational leadership. Contrary to the expectations, transformational leadership did not moderate the relationship of team extraversion, team openness, team conscientiousness, and team neuroticism to team learning behavior. Finally, team learning behavior was significantly related to team performance.

The Team Personality–Team Performance Relationship Revisited: The Impact of Criterion Choice, Pattern of Workflow, and Method of Aggregation

Using meta-analytic evidence, this study tested trait- and task-based theoretical approaches to team personality management, using both team behaviors and team outcomes as criteria. Trait theories state that maximization of the team trait is harmful for Extroversion (complementary team fit) but beneficial for Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability (supplementary fit). Task-based theories state that tasks with few work exchanges are best reflected by mean trait scores, whereas tasks with frequent work exchanges are best represented by other types of scores (e.g., minimum score). Correlations between different aggregations of team personality and team performance were coded, as well as the study criterion choice and the pattern of workflow (as moderators). Partial support for both trait and task theories were found. Team Conscientiousness and Agreeableness provided supplementary fit primarily with team behaviors, but there was mixed evidence that Extroversion provided complementary fit. Furthermore, minimum and variance measures of the team trait related to team performance in tasks with frequent work exchanges, but not in tasks with few work exchanges. Results suggest several limitations with existing measurement methods, which are discussed.

Team Performance

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between measures of conscientiousness at differing levels of analysis and team performance in the context of task type. It was hypothesized that a team referent measure of conscientiousness would have more predictive power than an aggregate of individual-level measures and that task type would moderate the relationship between team conscientiousness and overall team performance. Participants were 30 cockpit crews, made up of three pilots each. Both an individual-level and team referent measure of conscientiousness were administered to the pilots, and crew performance appraisal data were collected that separated performance into overall, additive, disjunctive, and conjunctive task types. Results indicated that the team referent measure of conscientiousness predicted overall team performance greater than did the individual-level measure. The results also partially supported the moderating effect of task type.

Person-Job Fit Applied to Teamwork

This study examined the moderating role of team task autonomy on the relationship between the mean level of three personality traits in a team—conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience—and two individual outcomes—job satisfaction and learning. Questionnaire data were collected from 133 task groups of undergraduate business students. Multilevel analyses showed that team task autonomy strengthens the relationship between conscientiousness and learning and the relationship between openness to experience and satisfaction. We conclude that team attributes, characteristics of the individual member, and team task autonomy as a moderator variable explain differences in individual outcomes and help in predicting the effectiveness of teamwork.