There Is Light and There Is Darkness: On the Temporal Dynamics of Cohesion, Coordination, and Performance in Business Teams

Cohesion as a cardinal antecedent in virtual team performance: a meta-analysis

Purpose

Advances in information technology have revolutionised the working environment. The concept of working in virtual teams was in existence in the developed part of the globe since 1960s. In developing economies, it emerged in the recent decades and gained impetus during the ongoing pandemic. This paper aims to propose examining the relationship between team cohesion and virtual team performance with the help of meta-analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

On published research, combined random effect meta-analysis and moderator analysis were done with the aid of Meta-essential 1.5 software. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses was designed for systematic meta-analysis.

Findings

The meta-analysis shows significant effect of cohesion on virtual team performance (r = 0.40, p < 0.000). Study outcomes indicate a positive relationship between team cohesion and virtual team performance. High heterogeneity was found and moderator analysis was performed to examine the heterogeneity.

Research limitations/implications

According to the findings, the performance of teams of different sizes, tenure and occupation should not be viewed as equivalent. Results of the study can be generalised to business (employees), education (students) and online gaming teams.

Practical implications

Managers should be aware of cohesion concerns in work process because they may foreshadow future performance challenges or reflect other organisational issues affecting virtual team performance. The relationship between team cohesion and team performance is predicted by team occupation, size and time.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is a first attempt to undertake meta-analysis to study the relationship between team cohesion and virtual team performance.

Knowledge-Oriented Leadership, Team Cohesion, and Project Success: A Conditional Mechanism

We examined the impact of knowledge-oriented leadership on project success via team cohesion and the moderating role of valuing people and project complexity on this relationship. We collected data from 121 project employees in Pakistan in a two-wave field survey at an interval of 15 days. The results showed a positive association between knowledge-oriented leadership and project success, and team cohesion partially mediated this relationship. Valuing people positively moderated the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and team cohesion. Project complexity had a negative but insignificant moderating effect on project success. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Belonging and Social Integration as Factors of Well-Being in Latin America and Latin Europe Organizations

Background

Studies and meta-analyses found individual, meso and micro-social factors that are associated with individual well-being, as well as a positive socio-emotional climate or collective well-being.

Aim

This article simultaneously studies and examines these factors of well-being.

Method

Well-Being is measured as a dependent variable at the individual and collective level, as well as the predictors, in three cross-sectional and one longitudinal studies. Education and social intervention workers (N = 1300, K = 80) from Chile, Spain and Uruguay participate; a subsample of educators (k = 1, n = 37) from the south central Chile and from Chile, Uruguay and Spain (n = 1149); workers from organizations in Latin America and Southern Europe, military cadets from Argentina (N < 1000); and teams (K = 14) from Spanish companies.

Results

Individual and collective well-being indicators were related, suggesting that the emotional climate as a context improves personal well-being. Individual factors (emotional creativity and openness and universalism values), psychosocial factors (low stress, control over work and social support supervisors and peers) were positively associated with personal well-being in education and social intervention context. Organizational dynamic or transformational culture is directly and indirectly associated with individual well-being through previously described psychosocial factors. Group processes such as internal communication and safe participation, task orientation or climate of excellence as well as leadership style that reinforces participation and belonging, were positively associated with collective well-being in labor and military context and predict team work socio-emotional climate in a longitudinal study- but were unrelated to individual well-being. Transformational leadership plays a mediating role between functional factors and social-emotional climate in work teams. Organizational role autonomy, functional organizational leadership, integration and resources were associated with collective well-being in organizations. Organizational leadership moderates the relationship between task orientation and collective well-being in military context.

Conclusion

Individual and microsocial factors influence personal well-being. Meso level factors favorable to well-being through processes which reinforce social belonging, influence directly collective well-being and indirectly personal well-being. Leadership that reinforces participation and belonging play a central role for emotional climate. Stress and emotional climate playing an important pivotal role for psychological well-being.