Bianca Beersma

Cooperation, Competition, and Team Performance: Toward a Contingency Approach

A passive, reusable visual amusement or warning device includes a handle and a number of light diffracting strips bearing an embossed holographically generated diffraction pattern. The diffraction pattern in the foil is produced in a planar format, and the strips bearing the pattern are displayed and viewed in a curved format. Ambient light striking the strips is diffracted to produce a dynamic, kaleidoscopic readily noticed display of brilliant colors.

Motivated information processing, strategic choice, and the quality of negotiated agreement

The authors tested a motivated information-processing model of negotiation: To reach high joint outcomes, negotiators need a deep understanding of the task, which requires them to exchange information and to process new information systematically. All this depends on social motivation, epistemic motivation (EM), and their interaction. Indeed, when EM (manipulated by holding negotiators process accountability or not) was high rather than low and prosocial rather than proself, negotiators recall more cooperative than competitive tactics (Experiment 1), had more trust, and reached higher joint outcomes (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that under high EM, negotiators who received cooperative, rather than competitive, tactics reached higher joint outcomes because they engaged in more problem solving. Under low EM, negotiators made more concessions and reached low joint outcomes. Implications for negotiation theory and for future work in this area are discussed.

Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context

Whereas coaching is very popular as a management tool, research on coaching effectiveness is lagging behind. Moreover, the studies on coaching that are currently available have focused on a large variety of processes and outcome measures and generally lack a firm theoretical foundation. With the meta-analysis presented in this article, we aim to shed light on the effectiveness of coaching within an organizational context. We address the question whether coaching has an effect on five both theoretically and practically relevant individual-level outcome categories: performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. The results show that coaching has significant positive effects on all outcomes with effect sizes ranging from g = 0.43 (coping) to g = 0.74 (goal-directed self-regulation). These findings indicate that coaching is, overall, an effective intervention in organizations.

Conflict in organizations: Beyond effectiveness and performance

Conflict theory and research has traditionally focused on conflict management strategies, in relation to individual and work-team effectiveness and productivity. Far less attention has been devoted to “soft” outcomes including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and individual health and well-being. This state of affairs is unfortunate because it isolates conflict theory and research from broader issues in organizational psychology and organizational behaviour research. It also impedes applied work in that it remains uncertain how interventions influence not only conflict and effectiveness, but also satisfaction and well-being. This introductory article deals with these problems in detail. The articles in this Special Issue each in their own way deal with one of these issues in more depth, shedding light on how conflict theory and research can be connected to organizational psychology in general.

On Angry Leaders and Agreeable Followers How Leaders’ Emotions and Followers’ Personalities Shape Motivation and Team Performance

Do followers perform better when their leader expresses anger or when their leader expresses happiness? We propose that this depends on the follower’s level of agreeableness. Anger is associated with hostility and conflict—states that are at odds with agreeable individuals’ goals. Happiness facilitates affiliation and positive relations—states that are in line with agreeable individuals’ goals. Accordingly, the two studies we conducted showed that agreeableness moderates the effects of a leader’s emotional displays. In a scenario study, participants with lower levels of agreeableness responded more favorably to an angry leader, whereas participants with higher levels of agreeableness responded more favorably to a neutral leader. In an experiment involving four-person teams, teams composed of participants with lower average levels of agreeableness performed better when their leader expressed anger, whereas teams composed of participants with higher average levels of agreeableness performed better when their leader expressed happiness. Team performance was mediated by experienced workload, which was highest among agreeable followers with an angry leader. Besides having important practical implications, the findings shed new light on the fundamental question of how emotional expressions regulate social behavior.

Majority and minority influence in group negotiation : The moderating effects of social motivation and decision rules

In organizational groups, often a majority has aligned preferences that oppose those of a minority. Although such situations may give rise to majority coalitions that exclude the minority or to minorities blocking unfavorable agreements, structural and motivational factors may stimulate groups to engage in integrative negotiation, leading to collectively beneficial agreements. An experiment with 97 3-person groups was designed to test hypotheses about the interactions among decision rule, the majoritys social motivation, and the minoritys social motivation. Results showed that under unanimity rule, minority members block decisions, thus harming the group, but only when the minority has proself motivation. Under majority rule, majority members coalesce at the minoritys expense, but only when the majority has a proself motivation. Implications for negotiation research and group decision making are discussed.

The effect of a team strategy discussion on military team performance

In modern military operations, people from diverging backgrounds often have to work together in ad hoc teams. These team members are often well trained to perform their own part of the teamwork. However, for optimal performance they should also act as a team. The question is how optimal team performance can be realized swiftly. In this study we investigated the effect of a brief team strategy discussion. We hypothesized that a brief team strategy discussion in an ad hoc team at the start of a mission has a significant positive effect on the development of a shared mental model, on team processes, and with that on team performance. In an experimental setting, 46 four-person military ad hoc teams were presented with the distributed dynamic decision-making task. We gave half of the teams an instruction to develop a team strategy in 10 minutes, whereas the other half received no such instruction. Teams were randomly assigned to the two conditions. The results supported our hypotheses. A further exploration of the data showed that the teams in the team strategy condition showed more initiative and leadership. Finally, we concluded that accuracy gained more from the team strategy discussion than speed of operations. The results have important implications for military training and practice.

It Takes One to Tango: The Effects of Dyads’ Epistemic Motivation Composition in Negotiation

This study examined the effects of epistemic motivation composition in negotiation. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that dyads in which at least one member had high epistemic motivation (measured by personal need for structure) reached higher joint outcomes than dyads in which both members had low epistemic motivation. In Experiment 2, epistemic motivation was manipulated and negotiators were provided with full information or incomplete information about their counterpart’s preferences. Two competing sets of hypotheses were developed and tested. Negotiation behavior was coded, and mediation analysis established that the presence of one negotiator with high epistemic motivation helped negotiators overcome information insufficiency and benefited the dyad as a whole because of increased information search rather than heuristic trial and error. Theoretical implications are discussed.

The differential effects of solution-focused and problem-focused coaching questions on the affect, attentional control and cognitive flexibility of undergraduate students experiencing study-related stress

Previous research has demonstrated that Solution-Focused (SF) coaching can help individuals to attain positive outcomes. However, not much is known about the processes through which these positive outcomes are achieved. In two experiments, we subjected undergraduate students to either SF or Problem-Focused (PF) questions about their study-related problems. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized and found that SF questioning (as compared to PF questioning) leads to higher positive affect (H1a) and lower negative affect (H1b). Contrary to our expectations, SF questions did not lead to higher attentional control (H2). In Experiment 2, we aimed to replicate the hypotheses for positive and negative affect and additionally hypothesized that SF questioning leads to higher cognitive flexibility (H3a). The results supported these hypotheses. However, our hypothesis that the differential effects of SF and PF questioning on cognitive flexibility are mediated by positive affect (H3b) was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Gossiping as a response to conflict with the boss: alternative conflict management behavior?

Purpose – The current paper aims to argue that it is important for conflict management research to start focusing on leader–follower conflict as a “special case” of conflict because the relationship between leaders and followers is, by definition, characterized by divergence of interest and, second, because it is asymmetric in terms of power and vulnerability. Moreover, it is argued that conflict management research should start to examine the various behaviors that people engage in as a response to conflict, in a broader sense, than has been done until now. Research on conflict management increasingly recognizes the significance of interpersonal relations in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach – As a case in point, a survey study among 97 Dutch police officers is presented. Leaders’ conflict management behaviors as assessed by followers is measured. In addition, followers’ experienced interactional justice and the extent to which they indicated that they would engage in negative and/or positive go...