Team political skill and team performance

The consequences of social category faultlines in high- and low-context cultures: A comparative study of Brazil and Germany

The present study sheds light on how differences between high- and low-context cultures influence the consequences of social category faultlines. To develop our theoretical arguments, we integrate ideas from faultline theory and Hall's theory on cultural contexts. We test our hypotheses using survey data from 54 teams in the banking industry in Germany, a nation with a low-context culture, and in Brazil, a country with a high-context culture. In line with our theorizing, the study results reveal that whether social category faultline strength stimulates task conflict and is thus detrimental to team performance depends on the societal culture in which teams operate. Specifically, we observe that social category faultlines stimulate task conflict and thus have a negative indirect effect on team performance in Germany's low-context culture, while we find no such effects in the high-context culture of Brazil. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study and close with some suggestions for future research.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.

Design/methodology/approach

The “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.

Findings

Scholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.

Originality/value

The authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.

Transformational leadership and four-dimensional commitment

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanism between transformational leadership (TL) and organizational commitment (OC) using job characteristics as a mediator and participative and directive leadership (DL) as moderator.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a questionnaire-based survey to collect data from 563 employees working in the banking industry.

Findings

The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings confirmed the mediating role of job characteristics and moderating role of both participative and DL styles between TL and OC.

Research limitations/implications

The data for this study were collected at one point of time and it has implications for the policymakers and bankers.

Originality/value

The study is novel as it highlights the importance of job characteristics, participative and DL styles in understanding the relationship between TL and OC.