Shared temporal cognitions as substitute for temporal leadership: An analysis of their effects on temporal conflict and team performance

The Relative Importance of Temporal Leadership and Initiating Structure for Timely Project Completion

We assess the relative usefulness of temporal leadership and initiating structure in predicting timely team project completion. Drawing on the functional approach to team leadership as well as the concept of team performance episodes, we hypothesize that two facets of temporal leadership, temporal planning at project initiation and temporal reminders midway through project execution, will be better predictors of timely project completion than will traditional task-oriented leadership in the form of initiating structure delivered at the same two project stages. Results from 62 application development project teams surveyed across the life of a project showed that the two facets of temporal leadership together accounted for 91.7% of the predicted variance in timely project completion, with temporal planning being more important. Initiating structure accounted for the remaining small and nonsignificant amount of the predicted variance. We conclude that temporal leadership is a new construct that is a highly useful approach to leader behavior in the context of teams working on time-limited projects.

Relationships Between Temporal Leadership, Transactive Memory Systems and Team Innovation Performance

Background

In recent years, temporal leadership has gradually attracted academic attention.

Purpose

This paper discussed the impact of temporal leadership on team innovation performance.

Methodology

Through the sample analysis of 385 team members in 98 teams. The measurements of temporal leadership, team innovation performance, transactive memory system, and team reflection were used to measure the relationships between temporal leadership, transactive memory systems and team innovation performance.

Findings/Results

It is found that temporal leadership has a positive impact on team innovation performance, which is transmitted through the credibility dimension and coordination dimension of transactive memory systems. Positive team reflection regulates the relationship between temporal leadership and transactive memory systems.

Value

This paper reveals the specific impact mechanism of temporal leadership on team innovation performance and provides a new perspective on how to improve team innovation performance in limited time resources.

Trickle-down effects of temporal leadership: The roles of leadership perspective and identification with leader

Based on social learning theory and the trickle-down effects, in which behavioral patterns cascade from one management level to the next (also known as the falling domino effect), we attempt to answer whether upper-level managers’ temporal leadership can be transferred to lower-level managers to form their temporal leadership, and what the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions for this occurrence are. By analyzing the data from 234 middle-level managers and 686 junior managers/employees, we found that top managers’ temporal leadership was positively associated with middle-level managers’ temporal leadership through the mediating role of middle-level managers’ temporal leadership perspective and that the relationship was moderated by middle-level managers’ identification with the top manager. Identification with the top manager, in particular, strengthens both the top manager’s positive effect on middle-level managers’ temporal leadership and the top manager’s temporal leadership’s mediating role in this relationship through their temporal leadership perspective. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are investigated.

Make Time for Employees to Be Sustainable: The Roles of Temporal Leadership, Employee Procrastination, and Organizational Time Norms

Extended work availability (EWA) captures the experience of an employee who needs to be available for job demands during nonworking hours. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon because of the prevalent use of information and communication technology (ICT) such as mobile devices and internet services for work purposes. Although it has been found to impair employee health and well-being, evidence that delineates how to mitigate employee EWA is sparse. Thus, an important research question is: How can managers alleviate employee EWA in the ICT-prevalent work environment? Given EWA has a close connection with the time-based work–nonwork conflict, the present study addresses this question by taking a temporal lens and focusing on the roles of three time-related determinants of employee EWA. Particularly, we first include temporal leadership as a predictor of employee EWA, which concerns a particular type of time management behavior in which a manager aims at helping employees to achieve effective use of time while performing job duties. Then, we incorporate both the individual tendency to delay an intended course of action (i.e., procrastination) and the time management environment in an organization (i.e., organizational time norms) into our research model to further reveal how employee EWA could be shaped. Drawing on spillover theory, the goal of the present study was to examine the effect of temporal leadership in determining employee EWA, as well as the roles employee procrastination and organizational time norms play. Analyses of cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 240 full-time employees showed that temporal leadership has a U-shaped association (β = 0.32, p < 0.001) with employee EWA. Both employee procrastination (r = 0.40, p < 0.001) and organizational time norms (r = 0.30, p < 0.001) are positively related to employee EWA, respectively. Moreover, the U-shaped association between temporal leadership and employee EWA becomes more salient when the organizational time norms is strong, with a standardized regression coefficient of 0.24 (p < 0.05) for the interaction between temporal leadership squared and organizational time norms. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive view of how managers can alleviate employee EWA in today’s ICT-prevalent work environment.

Promoting teaching innovation of Chinese public-school teachers by team temporal leadership: The mediation of job autonomy and the moderation of work stress

This study examines the impact of team temporal leadership, leaders’ behaviors regarding scheduling, allocating time resources, and coordinating team members, on teachers’ innovative behavior. Questionnaire surveys on 2021 Chinese elementary and secondary public-school teachers show that team temporal leadership exerts a significant positive direct effect on teaching innovation and the effect can be facilitated through the mediation of job autonomy. Moreover, both the direct effect and the second-leg of the mediation effect are moderated by work stress. These suggest that, at least in certain educational settings, teaching innovation can benefit from leaders’ appropriate scheduling and synchronization of time resources. The results also emphasizing the roles of job autonomy and work stress during this time-based team management.

Temporal Team Mental Model and Performance: From the Perspective of Team Process

This paper, based on the survey data of 506 knowledge-based innovation team leaders, employed the regression model and adopted the bootstrap method, to explore the influence of the temporal team mental model on team performance from the perspective of team process. The study results showed that the temporal team mental model has a significant positive predictive effect on team performance; behavioral integration has a mediating effect between temporal team mental model and team performance; task complexity positively moderates the relationship between behavioral integration and team performance and moderates the mediating effects of behavioral integration.

Every coin has two sides: the impact of time pressure on employees’ knowledge hiding

Purpose

Time pressure is the most common kind of work pressure that employees face in the workplace; the existing research results on the effect of time pressure are highly controversial (positive, negative, inverted U-shaped). Especially in the era of knowledge economy, there remains a research gap in the impact of time pressure on individual knowledge hiding. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of different time pressure (challenge and hindrance) on knowledge hiding and to explain why there is controversy about the effect of time pressure in the academics.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected two waves of data and surveyed 341 R&D employees in China. Moreover, they used regression analysis, bootstrapping and Johnson–Neyman statistical technique to verify research hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that challenge time pressure (CTP) has a significant negative effect on knowledge hiding, whereas hindrance time pressure (HTP) has a significant positive effect on knowledge hiding; job security mediates the relationship between time pressure and knowledge hiding; temporal leadership strengthen the positive impact of CTP on job security; temporal leadership can mitigate the negative impact of HTP on job security.

Originality/value

The findings not only respond to the academic debate about the effect of time pressure and point out the reasons for the controversy but also enhance the scholars’ attention and understanding of the internal mechanism between time pressure and knowledge hiding.

Translating time-based research into team interventions: An actionable, evidence-based approach

Temporal challenges are not only contextual in nature but manifest internally in teams when members enter the team with different temporal orientations (e.g., time urgency and pacing style). Researchers have demonstrated that temporal diversity has important implications for key team outcomes (performance, timeliness, and team conflict) across a range of samples and countries. Unfortunately, the practical implications of this research have yet to be unpacked. We respond to this need by developing an approach to translate temporal diversity research studies into actionable, evidence-based team interventions. Because journal articles are often deficient on actionable steps, whereas practitioner-friendly outlets tend to be deficient on scientific rigor, incorporating both criteria necessitates merging these literatures. Specifically, we delineate four main steps: (1) identify significant moderators, (2) match the moderators to scientifically based interventions, (3) design intervention tools with specific, actionable procedures, and (4) evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention tools by designing research studies. We believe the process we outline to marry actionable and evidence-based benchmarks is applicable to other research domains in team science beyond temporal research. It is our hope that this research will be a catalyst for further exploration of interventions that can help team members navigate temporal differences.

Temporal Leadership and Bootlegging Behavior of Employees: The Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy

As an important source of innovation, bootlegging is widespread in organizations. However, a lack of understanding exists in its antecedents. Based on the social cognition theory, this study aims to explore when and how temporal leadership (TL) leads to bootlegging behaviors (BOs) of employees, with self-efficacy (SE) as a mediator and perceived team efficacy (TE) as a moderator. We conducted a two-stage questionnaire survey and collected data from 231 employees from four companies located in Wuhan, P.R. China. SPSS and Mplus are used for testing our model, and the results are shown as following: TL positively affects the BO of employees. Besides, SE plays a mediating role in the relationship between TL and bootlegging, and perceived TE has a moderating effect between TL and SE. Also, perceived TE moderated the indirect effect of TL on bootlegging via SE. This study identifies the internal mechanism between time management and bootlegging, which provides an instructive view for further study on organizational innovation management. Theoretical contrition and practical implication have been discussed in this study.

How to Solve the Time Dilemma? The Influence of Team Temporal Leadership on Team Innovation Performance

Time pressure (TP) is the most common kind of pressure faced by R&D teams. How to improve team innovation performance (TIP) when time resources are insufficient has been a concern of practitioners and scholars. The purpose of this paper is to put forward some suggestions to solve that time dilemma. We conducted a survey based on a sample of 163 teams. In the first-stage survey (time 1), we measured the team temporal leadership (TTL) and TP. In the second-stage survey (time 2), we measured team learning behavior (TLB). TIP was measured in the third-wave survey (time 3). The results are as follows: (i) TTL has a significant positive impact on the TLB and TIP; (ii) TLB plays a mediating role in the relationship between TTL and TIP; and (iii) TP can positively moderate the relationship between TTL and TLB, that is, the promoting effect of TTL on TLB is more pronounced under the higher level of TP. These findings reveal the influence mechanism of TTL on TIP from the perspective of TLB and TP.

Getting the Knack for Team-Improvised Adaptation: The Role of Reflexivity and Team Mental Model Similarity

Organizational teams operate in increasingly volatile environments in which the speed and degree of change accelerates, demanding rapid adaptation processes namely of the improvisational type. It is therefore essential to understand how to prepare teams to operate in such contexts. This work investigates the effects of team mental model similarity, in-action reflexivity, and transitional reflexivity on team-improvised adaptation performance and on team-improvised adaptation learning. Two experiments were conducted with a total of 121 teams. We manipulated the independent variables and used an overtime design to measure team-improvised adaptation learning. Our findings suggest that teams operating in unpredictable environments that require rapid adaptation should be able to reflect collectively, both while acting and between tasks. These teams should also develop a common understanding of the main elements of the context and the task, so that they are effective in the face of unpredictability and rapid change.

Reconciling temporal conflicts in innovation ambidexterity: the role of TMT temporal leadership

Purpose

This study aims to extend the temporal perspective on ambidexterity by investigating how and under what conditions top management team (TMT) temporal leadership improves innovation ambidexterity.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 165 small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. Ordinary least squares regression models were applied to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings show that TMT temporal leadership has a positive effect on innovation ambidexterity and temporal conflict mediates this relationship. Market dynamism and institutional support moderate the indirect effect of TMT temporal leadership on innovation ambidexterity.

Practical implications

Managers wishing to promote exploration and exploitation simultaneously should pay attention to the temporal aspects of their innovation strategy and improve their temporal leadership activities.

Originality/value

This study highlights the temporal conflicts in ambidexterity and clarifies the enabling role of TMT temporal leadership. It contributes new insights to the research on organizational ambidexterity and strategic leadership.

From Planning to Performance: The Adaptation Process as a Determinant of Outcomes

Currently, teams require adaptation to deal with work demands successfully. However, research concerning team adaptation should necessarily involve a greater empirical effort in defining under which conditions teams prove more adaptable. This article seeks to contribute to the literature by linking plan formulation, plan execution, and team learning behaviors with team outcomes (i.e., team-adaptation perception and objective performance). Participants formed 142 teams, which were involved in structured-problem solving task (i.e. a simulated management competition). Conditional process analysis was used to test a double-mediated relationship. Results show that, although not all parts of the model are directly associated, there is an indirect link from plan formulation to team outcomes through plan execution and team learning behaviors. Our results support the idea of adaptation as a process, providing four ways in which organizations can elicit changes in teams: increasing plan execution, promoting team learning, improving team adaptive behaviors themselves, and building teams composed of members who demonstrate individual adaptability.

Predictors of safety training transfer support as in-role behavior of occupational health and safety professionals

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to identify individual and contextual influences on in-house safety trainers’ role orientation toward the transfer of training (TT).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors tested a model where felt-responsibility for TT mediates the influence of job resources (i.e. autonomy, access to resources, access to information and organizational support) on trainers’ definition of their role and where training safety climate exerts a moderator effect. Data were collected from 201 Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) professionals, all in-house safety trainers, of large public and private companies. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The model highlighted the mediating influence of felt-responsibility in the interplay between job resources and role orientation, the moderating influence of safety climate on the relationship of autonomy and organizational support on role definition, but not access to resources and access to information on role definition in the TT. Results suggest that how much safety trainers consider supporting the TT as a part of their overall role is affected by autonomy and organizational support through a sense of responsibility regarding training results, and these effects are influenced by the perceived importance of safety training to the organization.

Research limitations/implications

The study is cross-sectional and used self-reported data, meaning that causal inferences should be carefully drawn. Further studies should explore other sources of influence over felt-responsibility, for example, supervisors’ support for transfer, the relationship between how in-house safety trainers define their role in the transfer process and trainees’ effective application of their new knowledge and skills.

Practical implications

Companies should overtly signal the importance of safety training to in-house safety trainers because it will elicit, by reciprocity, a greater sense of personal responsibility and increased efforts concerning training success.

Originality/value

No previous research looked at how in-house trainers define their role in the TT, as well as the individual and contextual factors that influence their efforts toward the efficacy of training.

Emergence of team engagement under time pressure: role of team leader and team climate

Purpose

This paper aims to identify the determinants of team engagement emerging as a collective team-level phenomenon under time pressure context. The paper particularly explores how teams working under time pressure conditions use their social resources to develop into highly engaged teams.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper develops a conceptual framework along with related propositions by integrating diverse literature from the field of team processes, leadership and engagement. The arguments are theoretically embedded into the job demands-resources (JD-R) model to explain the emergence of team engagement under time pressure conditions.

Findings

The suggested conceptual model based on the JD-R model reveal that teams working under time pressure conditions view it as a challenging job demand and, hence, use their social resources as a coping mechanism, thereby developing into highly engaged teams. However, the paper finds that for team engagement to emerge under time pressure, teams require two important determinants. These two main determinants are team leader engaging behaviors and team climate. Engaging team leader’s behaviors include four sub-components: emotional agility, use of humor, efficient delegation and quality of feedback. Team climate constitute three sub-components: open communication, fun at work and compassion within the team. Only teams which have a strong team climate and team leaders’ engaging behaviors tend to have high team engagement under time pressure contexts.

Research limitations/implications

The paper offers implications for both HR and line managers in team-based organizations to promote factors that enhance team engagement, for teams to perform under time pressure situations.

Originality/value

The paper identifies determinants of team engagement under time pressure context and further adds to the understanding of team processes by theoretically exploring how time pressure as a job demand can be channeled in a positive manner for promoting team engagement by using teams’ social resources: team leader’s engaging behaviors and team climate.