Daan van Knippenberg

Work group diversity and group performance: An integrative model and research agenda

Research on the relationship between work group diversity and performance has yielded inconsistent results. To address this problem, the authors propose the categorization-elaboration model (CEM), which reconceptualizes and integrates information/decision making and social categorization perspectives on work-group diversity and performance. The CEM incorporates mediator and moderator variables that typically have been ignored in diversity research and incorporates the view that information/decision making and social categorization processes interact such that intergroup biases flowing from social categorization disrupt the elaboration (in-depth processing) of task-relevant information and perspectives. In addition, the authors propose that attempts to link the positive and negative effects of diversity to specific types of diversity should be abandoned in favor of the assumption that all dimensions of diversity may have positive as well as negative effects. The ways in which these propositions may set the agenda for future research in diversity are discussed.

Foci and correlates of organizational identification

Adopting the social identity perspective on organizational identification proposed by Ashforth and Mael (1989), the present study tested two hypotheses concerning the importance of work-group identification (WID) relative to organizational identification (OID). WID was predicted to be stronger than OID as well as more predictive of organizational attitudes and behaviour. Data about employees’ WID, OID, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation from two samples (N = 76 and N = 163) supported these predictions. We conclude that our understanding of organizational attitudes and behaviour has much to gain by an open eye for the multiple foci of identification that are associated with organizational membership, and that managerial practice may benefit from an increased focus on the work group.

A CROSS-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE ON EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: GOAL ORIENTATION, TEAM LEARNING BEHAVIOR, AND INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY

We developed and tested a cross-level model of individual creativity, integrating goal orientation theory and team learning research. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found cross-level interactions between individuals’ goal orientation and team learning behavior in a cross-national sample of 25 R&D teams comprising 198 employees. We hypothesized and found a nonlinear interaction between individual learning orientation and team learning behavior: in teams higher in team learning behavior, the positive relationship between learning orientation and creativity was attenuated at higher levels of learning orientation. An individual approach orientation was positively related to creativity only when team learning behavior was high.

A Critical Assessment of Charismatic—Transformational Leadership Research: Back to the Drawing Board?

There is a widely shared consensus that charismatic–transformational leadership is a particularly effective form of leadership. In a critical assessment of the state-of-the-science in this area of research, we question the validity of that conclusion. We identify four problems with theory and research in charismatic–transformational leadership. First, a clear conceptual definition of charismatic–transformational leadership is lacking. Current theories advance multi-dimensional conceptualizations of charismatic–transformational leadership without specifying how these different dimensions combine to form charismatic–transformational leadership, or how dimensions are selected for inclusion or exclusion. Second, theories fail to sufficiently specify the causal model capturing how each dimension has a distinct influence on mediating processes and outcomes and how this is contingent on moderating influences. Third, conceptualization and operationalization confounds charismatic–transformational leadership with i...

Motivated Information Processing in Group Judgment and Decision Making

This article expands the view of groups as information processors into a motivated information processing in groups (MIP-G) model by emphasizing, first, the mixed-motive structure of many group tasks and, second, the idea that individuals engage in more or less deliberate information search and processing. The MIP-G model postulates that social motivation drives the kind of information group members attend to, encode, and retrieve and that epistemic motivation drives the degree to which new information is sought and attended to, encoded, and retrieved. Social motivation and epistemic motivation are expected to influence, alone and in combination, generating problem solutions, disseminating information, and negotiating joint decisions. The MIP-G model integrates the influence of many individual and situational differences and combines insight on human thinking with group-level interaction process and decision making.

A SOCIAL IDENTITY MODEL OF LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Research into leadership effectiveness has largely overlooked the implications of the fact that leadership processes are enacted in the context of a shared group membership, where leaders, as group members, ask followers, as group members, to exert themselves on behalf of the collective. In contrast, the social identity model of organizational leadership, proposed here, emphasizes the characteristics of the leader as a group member, and the leader’s ability to speak to followers as group members. In salient groups with which group members identify, leadership effectiveness rests on the extent to which the leader is prototypical of the group (i.e. representative of the group’s identity) and engages in group-oriented behavior (i.e. behavior perceived to benefit the group). Explicating the added value of our model and going beyond contemporary approaches to leadership effectiveness, we discuss how our model extends, and may be integrated with, three major contemporary approaches to leadership effectiveness (charismatic leadership theories, Leader-Member Exchange theory, and leadership categorization theories). In addition, we outline how our model provides a viable framework to integrate future developments in research on leadership such as a growing attention to leader fairness and the role of emotions in leadership effectiveness.

Transformational Leadership and Team Innovation : Integrating Team Climate Principles

Fostering team innovation is increasingly an important leadership function. However, the empirical evidence for the role of transformational leadership in engendering team innovation is scarce and mixed. To address this issue, the authors link transformational leadership theory to principles of M. A. Wests (1990) team climate theory and propose an integrated model for the relationship between transformational leadership and team innovation. This model involves support for innovation as a mediating process and climate for excellence as a moderator. Results from a study of 33 research and development teams confirmed that transformational leadership works through support for innovation, which in turn interacts with climate for excellence such that support for innovation enhances team innovation only when climate for excellence is high.

Leader self-sacrifice and leadership effectiveness: The moderating role of leader prototypicality

Self-sacrificing behavior of the leader and the extent to which the leader is representative of the group (i.e., group prototypical) are proposed to interact to influence leadership effectiveness. The authors expected self-sacrificing leaders to be considered more effective and to be able to push subordinates to a higher performance level than non-self-sacrificing leaders, and these effects were expected to be more pronounced for less prototypical leaders than for more prototypical leaders. The results of a laboratory experiment showed that, as expected, productivity levels, effectiveness ratings, and perceived leader group-orientedness and charisma were positively affected by leader self-sacrifice, especially when leader prototypicality was low. The main results were replicated in a scenario experiment and 2 surveys.

Organizational identification after a merger: A social identity perspective

An analysis of the social identity processes involved in organizational mergers suggests that organizational identification after a merger is contingent on a sense of continuity of identity. This sense of continuity, in turn, is argued to be contingent on the extent to which the individuals own pre-merger organization dominates, or is dominated by, the merger partner. In support of this analysis, results of two surveys of merged organizations showed that pre-merger and post-merger identification were more positively related for members of dominant as opposed to dominated organizations, whereas perceived differences between the merger partners were more negatively related to post-merger identification for members of the dominated compared with the dominant organization.

Social Identity and Leadership Processes in Groups

Publisher Summary This chapter provides a critical and historical overview of the leadership research, and an overview of key components of the social identity perspective. It discusses the ways in which a focus on group membership, framed by the social identity perspective, can explain important aspects of leadership. The chapter describes the social identity analysis of leadership, including a description of the ways that prototypical leaders can protect their tenure through manipulation and control of the groups prototype. It discusses key empirical tests of the social identity analysis—these tests necessarily hinge on a demonstration that leadership processes become more prototype based with increasing group salience. Several direct and indirect tests from a number of laboratories and research groups around the world that provide support for the social identity analysis have been dealt in the chapter. It presents the results of about 25 independent samples from 16 different studies, and explores implications and extensions of the analysis in the context of the study of leadership.