Integrating workplace meetings and team creative process literature: A multi-level perspective

Expanding existing meeting typologies, this paper introduces a model of the team creative process in meetings to better capture and study the full breath of meeting activity that results in creative outcomes. The primary goal of this work is to describe the processes that occur in the team creative process in meetings at the individual and team levels. A multi-level model that depicts the emergence of team creative cognitive processes from individual-level cognitions is presented. The nature of emergence of team creative processes is detailed. Research on creativity and meetings is integrated to better understand how meeting design characteristics influence creative output. This review of research is distilled to provide practical recommendations to best construct meetings to facilitate individual and team creativity. Additionally, the role of related team states in creative processes meetings is outlined. Finally, paths for future research on creativity in meetings are discussed.

Plain Language Summary

This article explores how individuals and teams think creatively in meetings. A model of meetings that have goals to produce creative outcomes is presented. The association between individual thinking processes and group thinking processes is presented alongside a discussion of relevant surrounding influences. Research on creative thinking and workplace meetings is used to better understand how meetings can be used to improve creativity. Practical recommendations to improve the production of creative outcomes in meetings are also provided.

Does sense of work gain predict team creativity? The mediating effect of leader-member exchange and the moderating effect of work smoothness

In the present study, we examined the link between the sense of work gain and team creativity and explored the mediating and moderating roles of Leader-member exchange (LMX) and work smoothness on it. The results of this study A moderated mediation model was constructed based on 484 valid samples from an on-line survey of a human resource company, revealed that the sense of work gain can positively predict team creativity, and LMX mediates the associations of the sense of work gain and team creativity. Moreover, work smoothness emerged as a significant moderator can moderate the associations between sense of work gain and team creativity, as well as moderating the relationship between LMX and team creativity. The findings provide a theoretical guidance for leaders and HR professionals who want to increase employee initiative and motivation.

Conflict side of creativity: Role of supervisory support and team affective tone in facilitating creative idea validation

Purpose

We seek to understand whether relationship conflicts of co-workers affect the validation of creative ideas or not. Furthermore, what boundary conditions may help prevent potential drawbacks of relationship conflicts with co-workers to validate their creative ideas?

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed model was tested by using multisource data collected across two points in time from final year nursing students and medical dispensers of five nursing colleges of south-Punjab, Pakistan. The model was analyzed with Mplus for random coefficient models for direct effects, mediated moderation, and UCINET for central tendency of creative idea validation.

Findings

It was found that relationship conflicts with co-workers were negatively related to their validation of creative ideas. However, supervisory support and team affective tone independently attenuate the negative effects of relationship conflicts with co-workers and the validation of creative ideas. Positive affective tone emerged as a positive predictor of creative idea validation. Additionally, positive affective tone as affected by supervisory support attenuated the negative relationship between relationship conflicts with co-workers and their validation of creative ideas. Finally, the relationship between relationship conflicts with co-workers and their validation of creative ideas is more positive when both supervisory support and positive affective tone are high, however, low otherwise.

Practical implications

This study will help policymakers understand what might be hindering the transfer of creative ideas to influential others (Leaders, Managers, etc.) and what they need to do to enhance the creative pool of their organizations. Although developing an environment that fosters creativity is important for the organizations, developing strategies to manage relationship conflicts related to supervisory support and positive affective tone will help transfer creative ideas to higher offices even when there are dysfunctional conflicts.

Originality/value

This research shifts the conventional focus of understanding creativity from the generating side by explaining challenges that creative individuals face in promoting creative ideas with more criticism and offense by coworkers than support. Also, the interplay between the relationship conflicts with co-workers and team affective tone affected by supervisory support for validation of creative ideas enhanced our understanding of the boundary conditions of relationship conflict and creative idea validation.

The Formation of Positive Group Affective Tone: A Narrative Practice

This study uses a social construction perspective to examine how group affective tone develops. Longitudinal data were collected over 18 weeks from the weekly diaries of four teams with 24 university students. Narrative analysis revealed experiences of collectively shared patterns of affective states and the interaction contexts (i.e., affective events) that influenced group affective tone convergence. Emergent themes included topic selection, social support, and how effective team norms help members share positive emotions and moods. Social learning, positive emotional sharing, affective events, and behavioral regularities drive the narratives, leading to the emergence of a positive team affective tone.

Game-based Sprint retrospectives: multiple action research

In today's fast-paced world of rapid technological change, software development teams need to constantly revise their work practices. Not surprisingly, regular reflection on how to become more effective is perceived as one of the most important principles of Agile Software Development. Nevertheless, running an effective and enjoyable retrospective meeting is still a challenge in real environments. As reported by several studies, the Sprint Retrospective is an agile practice most likely to be implemented improperly or sacrificed when teams perform under pressure to deliver. To facilitate the implementation of the practice, some agile coaches have proposed to set up retrospective meetings in the form of retrospective games. However, there has been little research-based evidence to support the positive effects of retrospective games. Our aim is to investigate whether the adoption of retrospective games can improve retrospective meetings in general and lead to positive societal outcomes. In this paper, we report on an Action Research project in which we implemented six retrospective games in six Scrum teams that had experienced common retrospective problems. The received feedback indicates that the approach helped the teams to mitigate many of the "accidental difficulties" pertaining to the Sprint Retrospective, such as lack of structure, dullness, too many complaints, or unequal participation and made the meetings more productive to some degree. Moreover, depending on their individual preferences, different participants perceived different games as having a positive impact on their communication, motivation-and-involvement, and/or creativity, even though there were others, less numerous, who had an opposite view. The advantages and disadvantages of each game as well as eight lessons learned are presented in the paper.

A Multilevel Study of Group Affective Tone and Team Innovation: A Moderated Mediation Model

Drawing on broaden-and-build theory and threat-rigidity hypothesis, we theorized and tested a multilevel model to examine the moderating effects of transformational leadership (TFL) on the team-level process that links positive/negative group affective tone (PGAT/NGAT) to team innovation via information elaboration. Data were collected from 299 team members and 65 leaders from Taiwanese companies at two time points. The multilevel path analysis demonstrated support for a positive indirect effect of PGAT on team innovation via information elaboration and a negative indirect effect of NGAT on team innovation via information elaboration. The positive indirect effect of PGAT on team innovation via information elaboration was found to be stronger when TFL was high rather than low. However, TFL did not attenuate the negative effects of NGAT. Negative group affective tone was negatively related to information elaboration when TFL was high, whereas NGAT had no significant relationship with information elaboration when TFL was low. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Is Negative Group Affective Tone Always Bad For Team Creativity? Team Trait Learning Goal Orientation as the Boundary Condition

Although previous studies have found that positive group affective tone is generally good for team creativity, the reported effects of negative group affective tone (NGAT) are mixed. Drawing on the team goal orientation composition literature, we propose that team trait learning goal orientation (TTLGO; aggregated level of team members’ trait learning goal orientation) will moderate the relationship between NGAT and team creativity. Specifically, NGAT will be positively related to team creativity when TTLGO is high but becomes negative when TTLGO is low. We further theorize that team information exchange accounts for this moderating effect. Employing a multiple-source and time-lag design, we conducted two studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, we collected data from 270 information technology engineers working in 62 R&D teams in a software development company and examined the moderating effect of TTLGO on the NGAT-team creativity relationship. In Study 2, we replicated the findings of Study 1 and further tested the mediating role of team information exchange (i.e., Hypothesis 2) using data from 237 members of 43 diversified teams (e.g., R&D, advertising and marketing, technical services, and quality improvement). The results of these two studies support our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications for group affect and creativity literature are further discussed.

Servant Leadership, Team Reflexivity, Coworker Support Climate, and Employee Creativity: A Multilevel Perspective

Based on input–process–outcome model and contingency theory, we develop a research model that depicts the influence of coworker support climate on the cross-level process linkages among servant leadership, team reflexivity, and employee creativity. Using data collected from 442 participants in 92 teams, we conducted a multilevel analysis, which demonstrated that servant leadership promotes team reflexivity which, in turn, enhances employee creativity. In addition, our study suggests that the coworker support climate moderated the relationship between servant leadership and team reflexivity. Finally, servant leadership and coworker support climate jointly affect employee creativity via team reflexivity (multilevel-mediated moderation effect).

Struggling to Fix Teams in Real Work Settings: A Challenge Assessment and an Intervention Toolbox

After more than 80 years in predicting organizational performance, empirical evidence reveals a science of teams that seems unable to consistently implement solutions for teams performing in real work settings -outside and away from the isolated teams breeding in research laboratories in the academic context. To bridge this growing practitioners-researchers divide, we first identify five main challenges involved in working with teams today (purposeful team staffing; proper task design and allocation; task and interaction process functionality; appropriate affective tone; and suitable team assessment). And second, we offer a toolbox of interventions (empowering and restorative) to help practitioners to transform the potential threats inherent in these challenges into opportunities for team effectiveness. Our five-challenge diagnosis and proposed intervention toolbox contribute to better address research questions and theoretical falsifiability using teams performing in real work settings, and to assess and intervene in teams by adjusting their internal functioning to contextual conditions and constraints.

From member creativity to team creativity? Team information elaboration as moderator of the additive and disjunctive models

One of the most fundamental questions in team creativity research is the relationship between individual member creativity and team creativity. The two answers that team creativity research has advanced–teams are more creative when their average member creativity is higher (the additive model) and teams are more creative when their most creative member is more creative (the disjunctive model) are straightforward. Surprising, however, is that neither the additive model nor the disjunctive model is consistently supported, begging the question of what moderates the predictive power of these models. We address this question by integrating individual-to-team creativity models with team process research. We propose that team information elaboration is a key moderating variable, such that average member creativity is more positively related to team creativity with higher information elaboration, and the highest member creativity is more positively related to team creativity with lower information elaboration. A multi-source study of 60 sales teams (483 employees) in a Chinese bakery chain supported these hypotheses. In addition, the study did not support the prediction that the most creative member’s outgoing advice ties (as a conduit for the dissemination of ideas) would further moderate the joint effect of the highest individual creativity and team information elaboration on team creativity.

Group Positive Affect and Beyond: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda

Group positive affect is defined as homogeneous positive affect among group members that emerges when working together. Considering that previous research has shown a significant relationship between group positive affect and a wide variety of group outcomes (e.g., behaviors, wellbeing, and performance), it is crucial to boost our knowledge about this construct in the work context. The main purpose is to review empirical research, to synthesize the findings and to provide research agenda about group positive affect, in order to better understand this construct. Through the PsycNET and Proquest Central databases, an integrative review was conducted to identify articles about group positive affect published between January 1990 and March 2019. A total of 44 articles were included and analyzed. Finding suggests that scholars have been more interested in understanding the outcomes of group positive affect and how to improve the productivity of groups than in knowing what the antecedents are. A summary conclusion is that group positive affect is related to leadership, job demands, job resources, diversity/similarity, group processes, and contextual factors, all of which influence the development of several outcomes and different types of wellbeing at the individual and group levels. However, with specific combinations of other conditions (e.g., group trust, negative affect, and interaction), high levels of group positive affect could cause harmful results. Conclusions shed light on group positive affect research and practice and might help Human Resources professionals to initiate empirically-based strategies related to recruitment, group design and leadership training.

Corporate Hypocrisy and Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Identification and Perceived Importance of CSR

When companies say one thing and do another in a corporate social responsibility context, they run the risk of corporate hypocrisy. Apart from the negative attitudes within customers, the purpose of our study was to explore what consequence corporate hypocrisy would cause on employees. This study investigated the possible link between corporate hypocrisy and employees’ counterproductive work behaviors with a moderated mediation model. Based on social identity theory, our research found that the influence of corporate hypocrisy on organization-directed counterproductive work behaviors was partially mediated by organizational identification, while the first stage of mediation is moderated by the levels of employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility. Data from 259 employees in China, collected across three time periods, suggest that corporate hypocrisy will lead to a decrease of organizational identification, triggering CWB against the company. The indirect effect of corporate hypocrisy on CWB-O via organizational identification is enhanced when employees’ perceived importance of corporate social responsibility is high. Our findings provide contributions to both corporate running and theoretical research.

Happy-Productive Teams and Work Units: A Systematic Review of the 'Happy-Productive Worker Thesis'

The happy-productive worker thesis (HPWT) assumes that happy employees perform better. Given the relevance of teams and work-units in organizations, our aim is to analyze the state of the art on happy-productive work-units (HPWU) through a systematic review and integrate existing research on different collective well-being constructs and collective performance. Research on HPWU (30 studies, 2001-2018) has developed through different constructs of well-being (hedonic: team satisfaction, group affect; and eudaimonic: team engagement) and diverse operationalizations of performance (self-rated team performance, leader-rated team performance, customers' satisfaction, and objective indicators), thus creating a disintegrated body of knowledge about HPWU. The theoretical frameworks to explain the HPWU relationship are attitude-behavior models, broaden-and-build theory, and the job-demands-resources model. Research models include a variety of antecedents, mediators, and moderating third variables. Most studies are cross-sectional, all propose a causal happy-productive relationship (not the reverse), and generally find positive significant relationships. Scarce but interesting time-lagged evidence supports a causal chain in which collective well-being leads to team performance (organizational citizenship behavior or team creativity), which then leads to objective work-unit performance. To conclude, we identify common issues and challenges across the studies on HPWU, and set out an agenda for future research.

Group flow: A scoping review of definitions, theoretical approaches, measures and findings

The purpose of this article is to provide a scoping review of the current literature on group flow. Based on the PRISMA-guidelines for systematic reviews, 26 publications were identified that met the inclusion criteria. Publication analyses comprised an individual consideration of each publication and a systematic, integrative synthesis of all publications. Analyses identified heterogeneous group flow definitions across publications, supporting the need for an integrative definition. Further heterogeneity existed in the theoretical approaches and measures used, highlighting the need for a comprehensive theory and a measurement standard. Components (e.g., synchronization), antecedents (e.g., trust), and outcomes (e.g., well-being) of group flow were identified in publications that presented empirical studies, some of which that showed similarities between characteristics of group flow and individual flow and others that showed aspects unique to group flow. Overall, this scoping review reveals the need for a systematic research program on group flow.

The Role of Team Regulatory Focus and Team Learning in Team Radical and Incremental Creativity

This study explores team-level mechanisms linking team regulatory focus and team creativity. Drawing on the team self-regulation perspective and regulatory fit theory, the mediating roles of team exploratory and exploitative learning and the moderating effect of team bureaucracy were examined. Team-level analyses conducted on data captured from the leaders and members of 135 teams. The results showed that team exploratory learning mediates the relationship between team promotion focus and team radical creativity, whereas team exploitative learning mediates the relationship between team prevention focus and incremental creativity. Furthermore, the team bureaucratic context, including centralization and formalization, moderated the indirect relationship between team regulatory focus and team creativity. The findings improve understanding of why team regulatory focus differentially contributes to team radical and incremental creativity. The findings also provide meaningful insight into the role of team bureaucracy in the team regulatory focus–team creativity relationship.

Good Catch! Using Interdisciplinary Teams and Team Reflexivity to Improve Patient Safety

Interdisciplinary teams play an important role implementing innovations that facilitate the quality and safety of patient care. This article examined the role of reflexivity in team innovation implementation and its association with an objective patient safety outcome, inpatient fall rates (a fall is an unintended downward displacement of a patient’s body to the ground or other object). In this study, we implemented, supported, and evaluated interdisciplinary teams intended to decrease fall risk in 16 small rural hospitals. These hospitals were part of a collaborative that sought to increase knowledge and facilitate reflexivity about fall event reporting and fall risk reduction structures and processes. We assessed team reflexivity at the start and at the end of the 2-year intervention and innovation implementation at the end of the intervention. The 16 hospitals reported objective fall event data and patient days throughout the project, which we used to calculate comparative rates for assisted, unassisted, and injurious falls. The results suggest that teams benefited from the intervention, increasing reflexivity from the start of the project to the end, which was related to innovation implementation and decreases in fall rates. Theoretical and practical applications of the results are discussed.

Team performance in the Italian NHS: the role of reflexivity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the goodness of the input-process-output (IPO) model in order to evaluate work team performance within the Italian National Health Care System (NHS); and second, to test the mediating role of reflexivity as an overarching process factor between input and output. Design/methodology/approach The Italian version of the Aston Team Performance Inventory was administered to 351 employees working in teams in the Italian NHS. Mediation analyses with latent variables were performed via structural equation modeling (SEM); the significance of total, direct, and indirect effect was tested via bootstrapping. Findings Underpinned by the IPO framework, the results of SEM supported mediational hypotheses. First, the application of the IPO model in the Italian NHS showed adequate fit indices, showing that the process mediates the relationship between input and output factors. Second, reflexivity mediated the relationship between input and output, influencing some aspects of team performance. Practical implications The results provide useful information for HRM policies improving process dimensions of the IPO model via the mediating role of reflexivity as a key role in team performance. Originality/value This study is one of a limited number of studies that applied the IPO model in the Italian NHS. Moreover, no study has yet examined the role of reflexivity as a mediator between input and output factors in the IPO model.

Facilitating Team Reflexivity About Communication

This article explores how team facilitation can promote team reflexivity about communication. We present a case study that was conducted within a participatory action research framework with a Top Management Team for an international manufacturing company. We identify and analyze five key interventions that promoted team reflexivity. These interventions included activities such as (a) framing the facilitation, (b) inquiring into the key issues, (c) role modeling feedback, (d) positive storytelling, and (e) reflecting on concrete communication actions. The findings suggest that reflexivity can be enhanced through positive storytelling and emotion, framing and contextual sensitivity, and addressing interactional challenges within the team. The study complements previous reflexivity research by articulating how self-awareness about a team’s communication shapes the meaning making patterns and action potential of teams as well as how reflexivity is performed in action.

The Impact of Team Learning Behaviors on Team Innovative Work Behavior

The aim of this review was to get insight into the impact of learning behaviors on innovative behavior in work teams. We addressed this issue by carrying out a systematic literature review. Thirty-one articles that reported studies on learning and innovation development in work teams were included in the review. By integrating the correlational findings of the original studies, we found that, at large, all investigated team learning behaviors had an effect on aspects of team innovative work behavior. Concerning specific team learning behaviors, sharing, team reflection, and team activity had the strongest impact on teams’ engagement in innovation development. A central conclusion is that learning and innovation development are mutually dependent aspects of teamwork and that fostering one aspect will also be beneficial for the other. Based on our findings, we draw practical implications for fostering team development through enhancing learning behaviors and innovative work behavior in teams.

How Individual Self-Regulation Affects Group Regulation and Performance

This study explored the relationship between individual self-regulated learning (SRL), socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL), and group performance plus the effect of an intervention promoting SSRL. We hypothesized that SRL would influence SSRL and group performance as groups with high SRL students will be better regulated and that the intervention would promote SSRL over time. The results revealed a significant relationship between SRL and SSRL, but no significant effects of the intervention on group performance. The limitations of the intervention are discussed and form the basis for future design of environments to promote SSRL. The main conclusion is that SRL is an important predictor of SSRL and should be considered when designing small group activities and their environments.

Does Team Culture Matter? Roles of Team Culture and Collective Regulatory Focus in Team Task and Creative Performance

Despite the vast amount of research on the antecedents of team performance, the role of subcultures in team contexts has only received scant attention. This study investigates the relationships between different types of team culture and team performance. Team-level analyses conducted on the leaders and members of 104 teams revealed a significant association between internal process team culture and team task performance, as well as a marginally significant relationship between human relations team culture and team task performance. Furthermore, team prevention focus mediated the relationships between internal process and human relations team cultures and team task performance. Team promotion focus mediated the relationship between open system team culture and team creative performance. These findings offer new insights regarding team culture, collective regulatory focus, and team performance.

Team Reflexivity as an Antidote to Team Information-Processing Failures

This article proposes that team reflexivity—a deliberate process of discussing team goals, processes, or outcomes—can function as an antidote to team-level biases and errors in decision making. We build on prior work conceptualizing teams as information-processing systems and highlight reflexivity as a critical information-processing activity. Prior research has identified consequential information-processing failures that occur in small groups, such as the failure to discuss privately held relevant information, biased processing of information, and failure to update conclusions when situations change. We propose that team reflexivity reduces the occurrence of information-processing failures by ensuring that teams discuss and assess the implications of team information for team goals, processes, and outcomes. In this article, we present a model of team information-processing failures and remedies involving team reflexivity, and we discuss the conditions under which team reflexivity is and is not likely to facilitate performance.