Cross‐functional team effectiveness

Student psychological well-being in higher education: The role of internal team environment, institutional, friends and family support and academic engagement

Psychological well-being of students is an area of concern in higher education institutes across the world. Although several studies have explored the factors associated with students' psychological well-being, limited research has focused on the relation between the overall support for students and psychological well-being. Students of higher education may get formal support, in the form of team environment and institutional support; and informal support, in the form of family and friends' support. The purpose of this study is to examine the relation of these four kinds of support with psychological well-being of management students. We also examine the intervening role of academic engagement in this relationship. Analysis using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression on data collected from 309 management students from Indian universities, shows that positive internal team environment, and institutional and family support positively relate to students' psychological well-being. Academic engagement partially mediates the relation between positive internal team environment and psychological well-being, and family support and psychological well-being. Also, academic engagement fully mediates the relation between institutional support and psychological well-being. The study highlights the significance of internal team environment and institutional support for students' academic engagement and psychological well-being, and the role of academic engagement in determining well-being. Based on these findings, we suggest interventions that can be undertaken by educational institutions to enhance psychological well-being of students. Theoretical implications and research avenues are discussed.

The impact of emotional intelligence, cross-functional teams and interorganizational networks on operational effectiveness

Purpose

This article aims to examine the influence of emotional intelligence on cross-functional teams, the formation of interorganizational networks and the impact of all three dimensions on operational effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis was based on 250 valid questionnaires collected from organizations in the Valle del Cauca region in Colombia in the service sector. The variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling to identify their relationships.

Findings

The results suggest that emotional intelligence contributes to establishing cross-functional teams but does not impact the development of interorganizational networks, influencing operational effectiveness only indirectly through the cross-functional teams. Contrary to what the literature suggests, interorganizational networks do not influence the operational effectiveness of organizations. Hence, in the pursuit of competitive advantage, companies in the studied region should encourage the creation of cross-functional teams within their organizations to maximize the returns received through the optimization of operational effectiveness.

Practical implications

Organizations are comprised of individuals whose emotional intelligence competencies and abilities enable them to form effective cross-functional teams. Furthermore, cross-functional teams that effectively establish relationships with other organizations are frequently employed in global, interorganizational collaboration environments like joint ventures and alliances. Cross-functional teams that fulfill their aims have the potential to benefit the organization's performance by boosting operational effectiveness and, therefore, its competitiveness.

Originality/value

The value of this article lies in providing a better understanding of the capabilities and strategies of organizations in the construction of interorganizational networks intended to improve their competitiveness. However, before operational effectiveness and a sustainable competitive advantage can be achieved, the role of the individuals comprising the cross-functional teams should be managed through the appropriate application of the concepts of emotional intelligence.

Can organization team culture benchmark effective teams – performance management concerns, insights and HR implications

Purpose

Teams have become the dominant mode of work in contemporary organizations and critical for successful completion of various tasks, projects and overall organizational effectiveness. Organizational factors such as organizational culture have often been investigated as contributing to team performance since it is difficult to develop and engage teams. But the effect of (organizational) team culture on team effectiveness (TE) has received less support. Therefore, this paper examines how factors such as organization team culture (OTC) affect different dimensions of TE in a power sector organization which has undergone a business transformation resulting in adoption of team-based work structures.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey instrument capturing the variables of organizational team culture and TE was administered to mid-level managers in a power sector organization in India. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the model fit for the proposed model.

Findings

A key finding of the research was that team culture (OTC dimensions) (i.e. participation, communication, trust, training inputs and support and support for teamwork) contribute to TE.

Originality/value

OTC and its impact on creating effective teams, particularly in the power sector, is an original contribution of this research. The OTC and TE framework may be used to diagnose team weaknesses and concerns and to design effective HR interventions.

The Emergence of Shared Leadership in Innovation Labs

Implementing innovation laboratories to leverage intrapreneurship are an increasingly popular organizational practice. A typical feature in these creative environments are semi-autonomous teams in which multiple members collectively exert leadership influence, thereby challenging traditional command-and-control conceptions of leadership. An extensive body of research on the team-centric concept of shared leadership has recognized the potential for pluralized leadership structures in enhancing team effectiveness; however, little empirical work has been conducted in organizational contexts in which creativity is key. This study set out to explore antecedents of shared leadership and its influence on team creativity in an innovation lab. Building on extant shared leadership and innovation research, we propose antecedents customary to creative teamwork, that is, experimental culture, task reflexivity, and voice. Multisource data were collected from 104 team members and 49 evaluations of 29 coaches nested in 21 teams working in a prototypical innovation lab. We identify factors specific to creative teamwork that facilitate the emergence of shared leadership by providing room for experimentation, encouraging team members to speak up in the creative process, and cultivating a reflective application of entrepreneurial thinking. We provide specific exemplary activities for innovation lab teams to increase levels of shared leadership.

Perspectives on knowledge integration in cross-functional teams in information systems development

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into cross-functional team (CFT) members’ points of view on knowledge integration.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was conducted using Q methodology. The 22 respondents were members of CFTs in information systems development within 7 agencies of the Flemish Government administration.

Findings

The study resulted in three distinct perspectives. To the CFT player, the benefits and added value of information and knowledge diversity of CFTs outweigh the challenges of knowledge integration. By contrast, the CFT sceptic is doubtful that knowledge integration in CFTs can ever work at all. Finally, the organization critic highlights the lack of support from the organization for efficient and effective knowledge integration in CFTs.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study suggest that CFT configurations have important implications for the development of shared team mental models and for teams’ cognitive performance.

Practical implications

Making CFT members aware of their peers’ mental models, ways of working and priorities could help strengthen knowledge integration. To improve knowledge integration in teams, managers should reduce knowledge boundaries that are the result of organizational structuring and power play between departments.

Originality/value

By focusing on daily experiences with knowledge integration, this study reveals that members of CFTs in information systems development hold contrasting perspectives on, and diverging attitudes towards, knowledge integration.

Shared leadership in interprofessional teams: beyond team characteristics to team conditions

Shared leadership has been shown to enhance processes, effectiveness, and performances in interprofessional teams. While earlier studies suggest the association of internal team environment (ITE) and transactive memory system (TMS) with shared leadership, the relative influence of these team conditions vis-a-vis team characteristics (such as team size, stability, and interprofessional roles) on shared leadership is not well understood. This study aims to examine the comparative influence of team characteristics versus team conditions of ITE and TMS on shared leadership during interprofessional team meetings (IPTMs). We compared interprofessional teams from two departments, namely larger and more diverse teams of Geriatric Medicine versus the smaller and more homogeneous Palliative Medicine. We administered a questionnaire survey to healthcare professionals who attended IPTMs in both departments (N = 133). Our results revealed significantly higher scores in shared leadership, ITE and TMS in Palliative Medicine (p < .05). Using hierarchical regression analysis adjusting for team conditions, department and number of IPTMs attended were not significant in the final model (both p > .05). Instead, TMS (β= 0.250, p < .01) and ITE (β= 0.584, p < .01) outperformed team characteristics as conditions that are highly associated with shared leadership, explaining an additional 29.8% and 19.0%, respectively, of model variance. Further analysis revealed a stronger correlation between shared leadership subdomains with TMS in Geriatric Medicine and with ITE in Palliative Medicine. Our results demonstrate how a positive working environment with a high level of shared memory engendered a perception of shared leadership, and how these team conditions can be tapped upon to circumvent differences in team characteristics to facilitate shared leadership. Identifying key conditions that are highly associated with shared leadership is critical for the teaching of dynamic leadership roles to junior clinicians which in turn, can enhance patient care.

An Investigation of the Development of Shared Leadership on the Six Sigma Project Life Cycle

The purpose of this study is to map out the relationship between shared leadership (SL) and Six Sigma (6S) project lifecycle. More specifically, the impact of SL and team members' perceived challenges in each of the five phases of the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control) 6S methodology is studied. Furthermore, general organizational issues that affect both SL development and the 6S model are identified. The results demonstrate that several factors, namely, change management, communication, phase deliverables, coaching style, and decision-making methods, affect usage performance of SL throughout the phases. This study helps managers to look at the 6S projects from an SL perspective and shows how to manage the 6S project lifecycle more efficiently.

Analyzing dynamic capability in teamwork

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the intrinsic characteristics of the teams that perform specialized industrial services in multi-units and dynamic capability.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was developed from a survey conducted in 188 multi-unit industrial service providers and data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares.

Findings

The results indicate the two constructs act differently on dynamic capability. While the infrastructural construct influences the capability of knowledge absorption, generation and adaptation, the construct related to the willingness to share and integrate knowledge has a positive impact on the capability of knowledge generation and storage.

Research limitations/implications

This research is limited by the choice of only one industrial sector – in the case of this study, the service industry. Future studies will include other industries and a more diverse sample of firms.

Originality/value

This research analyzes the process of dynamic capability development in the context of multi-unit service provision. The context of multi-unit industrial service provision is peculiar when compared to other organizations. In the context, knowledge is absorbed, generated and adapted by individuals organized into teams that work in customer’s units. Service providers play a key role in the development of dynamic capabilities regarding knowledge storage, acting as knowledge repositories.

A Meta-Analysis of Shared Leadership: Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderators

Many organizations are encouraging a shared leadership approach that meets the increased complexity of today’s working environment. It is therefore imperative for researchers to clearly comprehend the mechanism of shared leadership in teams. Contributing to the burgeoning research in the field of shared leadership, this study aims to advance our understanding along the many dimensions of the shared leadership phenomenon: its antecedents, moderators, and consequences. In this article, we provide a critical and comprehensive analysis of the extant literature and generate an integrated framework that presents seven hypotheses and five research questions. We then empirically test this framework via a systematic meta-analysis from 40 studies (team n = 3,019). Significantly, our findings reveal that the internal team environment and team heterogeneity are positively related to the emergence of shared leadership in teams. Moreover, we confirm the positive relationship between shared leadership and team outcomes. Our analysis also highlights how intragroup trust and task interdependence significantly moderate the shared leadership–team outcomes relations, with higher correlations observed in greater levels of intragroup trust, as well as larger levels of task interdependence. We also find the moderating effect of shared leadership measurement methods in such relations. Specifically, there is a stronger relationship when shared leadership is measured with social network analysis, rather than aggregating approaches. Overall, our study brings valuable insights into the shared leadership area and provides clear directions for future research.

Innovation and cross-functional teams

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to characterize how innovation may happen through cross-functional teams (CFT) in an organization of the public sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study helped to characterize several behavior patterns, team structures and respective links with generating innovation in internal processes and public answering contexts.

Findings

The results highlight that formal-temporary teams present a higher capacity to generate incremental innovation in products, whereas permanent-informal teams have a higher capacity to generate innovation in the internal processes and public answering contexts.

Research limitations/implications

The limitations of this research relate to the fact that this is a single case study, and although it is an important case to examine innovation and CFTs, by its very nature, it is not possible to extend and generalize the obtained data to other organizations. The evaluation of its propositions was merely qualitative, and future research is needed to validate its characteristics.

Practical implications

Several settings of CFTs are presented, as well as their ability to generate different types of innovation, such as the computerization of documents, petitions and papers, which decreases the time to answer the taxpayer. Moreover, CFTs can help to create products, such as computer programs that can be used not only locally but also in several public organizations related to tax management.

Originality/value

The field research provides the perceptions of the respondents regarding CFT characteristics that can lead to specific types of innovation, as well as the types of products or services that can be generated by these processes.

How do national cultures impact the operations strategy process?

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which different patterns of cross-functional integration and the operations strategy (OS) process may be explained by national cultures differences.

Design/methodology/approach

Perceptual survey data from 105 manufacturing plants in four countries were used to validate the constructs and to test the hypotheses. The plants are located in two Western and two Eastern countries with different industrialization and development backgrounds (Brazil, China, Germany and South Korea). CFA validated the constructs, and ANOVA and t-tests evaluated the differences between levels of four Hofstede’s elements (i.e. power distance, individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term vs short-term orientation) on the OS process enablers (i.e. leadership for cross-functional integration and functional integration) and elements (i.e. manufacturing strategy linkage to corporate strategy and formulation of manufacturing strategy).

Findings

Results suggest that different OS and OM processes are present in different national cultures. Leadership for cross-functional integration and manufacturing strategy linkage to corporate strategy differ between levels of power distance, individualism vs collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. Functional integration and formulation of manufacturing strategy also present differences according to the degree of individualism vs collectivism and long-term orientation.

Originality/value

Results indicate that national culture is a key aspect for the OS process. Prior studies usually do not consider cultural aspects. Therefore, the OS process varies in different countries and contexts. Managers need to adjust their OS process when they are developing a global OS.

COLLABORATION CAPABILITY IN VIRTUAL TEAMS: EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE ON DIVERSITY AND INNOVATION

Virtual teams are being increasingly utilised in industry given their ability to bring together diverse knowledge and experience from individuals who are not geographically proximal. Having a diversity of knowledge within virtual teams is noted to benefit innovation outcomes; however, leveraging the benefits of diversity (both deep and functional-level) is likely to require a capability to facilitate collaboration among team members. In this study, we empirically validate a measure of collaboration capability (CCAP) and examine its role in enhancing the benefits of diversity on innovation within virtual teams. Using a sample of 375 design and software engineers working in virtual teams from a high-tech firm in Silicon Valley, we find that CCAP significantly moderates the relationship between functional-level diversity and innovation, but no significant influence is found for a similar moderating influence on deep-level diversity and innovation. The implications for the study of virtual teams are discussed and recommendations are offered for organisations using virtual teams.

Supporting Patients With Incurable Cancer: Backup Behavior in Multidisciplinary Cross-Functional Teams

Caring for patients with incurable cancer presents unique challenges. Managing symptoms that evolve with changing clinical status and, at the same time, ensuring alignment with patient goals demands specific attention from clinicians. With care needs that often transcend traditional service provision boundaries, patients who seek palliation commonly interface with a team of providers that represents multiple disciplines across multiple settings. In this case study, we explore some of the dynamics of a cross-disciplinary approach to symptom management in an integrated outpatient radiotherapy service model. Providers who care for patients with incurable cancer must rely on one another to secure delivery of the right services at the right time by the right person. In a model of shared responsibilities, flexibility in who does what and when can enhance overall team performance. Adapting requires within-team and between-team monitoring of task and function execution for any given patient. This can be facilitated by a common understanding of the purpose of the clinical team and an awareness of the particular circumstances surrounding care provision. Backup behavior, in which one team member steps in to help another meet an expectation that would otherwise not be fulfilled, is a supportive team practice that may follow naturally in high-functioning teams. Such team processes as these have a place in the care of patients with incurable cancer and help to ensure that individual provider efforts more effectively translate into improved palliation for patients with unmet needs.

The impact of commitment and climate strength on the relationship between trust and performance in cross-functional project teams

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to shed more light on the complex relationship between trust and performance in the context of cross-functional project teams. This study presents a moderated mediation model that investigates the impact of team trust on team performance mediated by project commitment and moderated by climate strength (the consensus among team members on the level of trust).

Design/methodology/approach

To test the proposed model, data were collected from 179 project team members in 31 Norwegian construction project teams.

Findings

Results indicated that project commitment fully mediates the relationship between propensity and trustworthiness and team performance, while it partially mediates the relationship between cooperation and team performance. For monitoring, there results showed no mediation. The results yielded no support for the moderation effects of climate strength, suggesting that the mean-level approach to studying trust at the team level still is important.

Research limitations/implications

Cross-sectional survey data suffer from being unable to test causality and samples are relatively small. Future research should test the models on other samples and in combination with data other than self-report. Longitudinal and multilevel studies are also warranted.

Practical implications

The results suggest that trust has an impact on project commitment and both directly and indirectly on team performance. Interventions to develop a high trust climate in project teams can thus contribute to improved project performance.

Originality/value

This study offers new insight into the complex relationship between trust and performance and improves our understanding of trust in cross-functional project teams.

Team-Centric Leadership: An Integrative Review

This integrative review focuses on leadership in the context of work groups and teams: team-centric leadership. Although the process of leadership is largely viewed as one of social influence, most theories of leadership are agnostic about the social units and context within which it occurs. The review examines recent research on mainstream leadership theories—transformational leadership and leader-member exchange—that have contextualized leadership in work teams and also on team-centric leadership theories—shared and functional leadership—that are explicitly team centric. For each theory, we examine its conceptualization and evolution, how well it maps to the input-process-output heuristic of team effectiveness (including moderators indicative of the context, process dynamics, and feedback loops), and the quality of research methods that are employed. The discussion concludes with 14 recommendations designed to advance each type of team-centric leadership and to promote more integration and synergy across the approaches in future research.

Examining teamwork and leadership in the fields of public administration, leadership, and management

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of papers in ten top scholarly journals to determine their overall examination of leadership in teams and to identify which models of teamwork and leadership have been most explored by researchers.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper reaches its findings through content analysis of 80 journal papers published in top academic journals from 1999 through 2012. Coding based on categories of teams, leadership and leadership styles conformed to forced choice and latent coding; two independent reviewers managed the subjectivity of the coding.

Findings

– Sixty per cent of the papers studied explored a group of workers whose teamwork was expected to be permanent, which receives a strong direction from a designated leader; almost that many (58.75 per cent) explored a group working with formal leadership by the worker’s supervisor; almost 50 per cent of papers explored leadership that combined two or more leadership styles simultaneously. This heavy concentration of the literature in a few areas suggests that research on other types of teamwork and leadership is minimal.

Research limitations/implications

– This particular research utilized the latent coding method of content analysis and forced choice in the selections. Even though content analysis has many strengths, the latent coding method of content analysis and forced choice selections require the researcher to examine the overall content to determine whether certain variables were present or absent. After the examination of the overall content, a subjective interpretation of the data is needed from the researcher. Other researchers that look at the same data may interpret the data differently.

Practical implications

– This research provides researchers, academics and practitioners with a comprehensive analysis on teamwork and leadership. The extensive investigation presents a pivotal starting point for further developments in this emerging area. The content analysis found a proliferation of diverse organizations utilizing teamwork, and this subject should be researched more vigorously. As organizations continue to embrace, pursue and promote teamwork, understanding the current state of the field will assist in having better understanding on how to develop effective teams.

Originality/value

– This paper contributes to the field by creating taxonomy to categorize the types of leaders and teams and presenting an explanation on the distinction between traditional and horizontal style of leadership. In identifying major trends in the existent literature, this examination provides valuable information for researchers.