Karin S. Moser

How does psychological processing relate to compliance behaviour after lung transplantation? A content analytical study

Abstract Non-compliance is one of the crucial problems impairing outcome after transplantation. Fourteen lung transplant recipients were interviewed about their thoughts regarding transplant-related topics. Compliance was assessed by doctors. The psychological processing was investigated by content analysis. Highly compliant patients perceived more advantages by transplantation. In contrast, low-compliant patients reported either an emotional distance to the lung or a closer relationship to the donor. Furthermore, they showed a contradictory relationship to the medical staff. There are some indications that perception of advantages by transplantation is crucial to compliance. This experience takes place in the context of a good staff – patient relationship. Emotional distance to the lung or nearness to the donor are further contributing factors of non-compliance.

Managing experts by managing diversity: Individual motivations for sharing expertise in work teams

One of the great challenges in information-sharing and knowledge management in teams is the sharing of expertise. In this paper, a model of expertise in teams is suggested that conceptualizes expertise not only as professional knowledge but also as expert role from a status perspective. The model predicts that experts will reduce their contributions to the team goals if their expert status is threatened in any way, but will increase their knowledge sharing behaviour if their status in the team is confirmed. The hypotheses were confirmed in two experimental studies (N1=98, N2=144), showing that explicitly declaring status differences increased expert contributions. These contributions could be further enhanced by giving individual performance feedback to experts, and were decreased under team feedback conditions. The findings are consistent with recent research showing that diversity can contribute to team performance if the diversity is recognized within the team.

The Influence of Feedback and Expert Status in Knowledge Sharing Dilemmas

Groups and organisations set cooperative goals for their members, yet in reality some team members contribute more than others to these goals. Experts, in particular, face a social dilemma: from the group s perspective they should share their knowledge, whereas individually they are better off not sharing, because acquiring knowledge is costly and they would give up a competitive advantage. Two experiments (N1596, N25192) tested the hypothesis, derived from indirect reciprocity theory, that experts contribute more if their status is being recognised. Expert status was manipulated under different performance feedback conditions and the impact on people s contributions in two different knowledge sharing tasks was analysed. In both studies, experts contributed more when feedback was individualised and public, ensuring both individual status rewards and public recognition. In contrast, novices contributed more when performance feedback was collective, regardless of whether it was public or private feedback. Novices did not have to fear negative performance evaluations under group feedback and could gain in social status as members of a successful group. Social value orientation moderated expert contributions in Study 2, with proself-oriented experts being particularly susceptible to reputation gains. The studies contribute to the neglected aspect of motivation in knowledge sharing dilemmas where collective and individual interests are not necessarily aligned. © 2017 International Association of Applied Psychology

Antecedents of team innovation in health care teams

We extend previous research on team innovation by looking at team-level motivations and how a prosocial team environment, indicated by the level of helping behaviour and information-sharing, may foster innovation. Hypotheses were tested in two independent samples of health-care teams (N1=72 teams, N2=113 teams), using self-report measures. The examples of team innovation given by the individual team members were then rated for innovativeness by independent health care experts to avoid common method bias for the outcome variable. Subsequently, the data was aggregated and analysed at team level. The study was part of a larger data-gathering effort on health care teams in the UK. Results supported the hypotheses of main effects of both information-sharing and helping behaviour on team innovation and interaction effects with team size and occupational diversity. Differences in findings between types of health-care teams can be attributed to differences in team tasks and functions. The results suggest ways in which helping and information-sharing may act as buffers against constraints in team work, such as large team size or high occupational diversity in cross-functional health care teams, and potentially turn these into resources supporting team innovation rather than acting as barriers.

Collaboration time influences information-sharing at work

Purpose Different length of collaboration with colleagues at work is a central feature of modern working life, and even more so in a work environment that is increasingly project focused and knowledge-intensive. Despite its practical importance there is little research on how the perceived costs and benefits in an information-sharing dilemma might change depending on collaboration length. Based on a social dilemma framework it is hypothesised that anticipated length of collaboration time will significantly influence the motivation to collaborate. Design An experimental scenario study (N=87) compared the willingness to work collaboratively, share information and help the partner in a long-term (two academic terms) vs. a short-term (one week) condition. Findings At first somewhat counterintuitively, participants were more helpful in the short-term, and insisted more on equality and disengaged more from a defecting partner - but not the project - in the long-term condition. People appear to focus more on the immediate task in short-term collaborations ― even at cost ― because the outcome is more important than the relationship, and more on setting norms for equality and reciprocity in long-term collaborations to avoid future exploitation. Practical implications The findings help understanding the motivation and the partner and task perception under different time conditions and support managing teams in an increasingly project-oriented work environment with changing partners and varying time frames. Originality To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper investigating the influence of anticipated collaboration time in information-sharing dilemmas.

Knowledge management and team innovation: understanding the team processes underlying high innovativeness

Being innovative means being willing ‘to go the extra mile’ beyond routine tasks in teams. It also means that team members are willing to consider different perspectives in heterogeneous teams and to share information. Important antecedents of team innovation are successful information sharing and helping behaviour among team members. Although the importance of information sharing for innovation is seemingly self-evident, we still know very little about the group processes that support team innovation (West, 2002). Information sharing is a group process that is an indispensable part of team integration. Team roles and team tasks need to be discussed to successfully achieve team goals. In heterogeneous teams with members from different occupational backgrounds integrating processes such as information sharing are even more important. To date, research on information sharing has focused mainly on the type of information that is shared or unshared (Brodbeck, Kerschreiter, Mojzisch, Frey, & Schulz-Hardt, 2002; Stasser, Stewart, & Wittenbaum, 1995) and on antecedents of information sharing, such as trust (Butler, 1999), task and reward interdependence (Moser & Wodzicki, 2007), or how person perception might affect information exchange (de Bruin & Van Lange, 2000). The link between output measures of group performance, such as innovativeness, and information sharing has always been implied and has been explored theoretically to some extent (Diehl & Ziegler, 2000), but empirical studies that go beyond organisational case studies (Basadur & Gelade, 2006) are still scarce. If we define innovation as the introduction of new ideas and new ways of doing things at work as suggested by West (2002), then sharing information about these new ideas and developing ideas further in the team through information sharing is a prerequisite for team innovation. However, the role of information is likely to be very different for routine team tasks and for team innovation. Especially in heterogeneous teams with members from different occupational backgrounds, task interdependence is likely to be lower for new and innovative processes than for established procedures and routine tasks. This means that information sharing is ‘nice to have’ and would be expected to affect team innovation, but is at the same time not indispensable for completing routine team tasks. This distinction is important, because under low task interdependence different social processes come into play in groups (Moser & Wodzicki, 2007). Information sharing under low task interdependence can be defined as a form of prosocial behaviour at work. It means that team members are willing to put in an extra effort and ‘go the extra mile’ to discuss their perspectives on the team task with colleagues from a different disciplinary background. In the studies presented here we argue that the importance of information sharing and helping behaviour for team innovation should therefore increase if occupational diversity is high and team size is large. The hypothesis was tested in two independent samples of health care teams (N1=72 breast cancer care teams, N2=113 community mental health teams), using team innovation rated by independent experts as outcome variable. Multiple regression analysis showed that helping behaviour had a significant independent effect on innovation for both team types, while information sharing only had a significant association with innovation for breast cancer teams. The interaction effects of team size and occupational diversity were tested with moderated regression analysis for both helping behaviour and information sharing. Both team processes showed strong main effects, which were even stronger if occupational diversity was high. There was also a main effect of team size on innovation, which is increased especially if helping behaviour in the team is strong. The interaction effect with team size could thus be confirmed for both teams, while the interaction with team size was only found for the mental health care teams. The partially different results for the two different team types could be explained by the differences in task and team structures. While mental health teams have stable membership and meet less regularly than breast cancer teams, breast cancer teams are cross-functional teams with multiple team memberships. In conclusion, it can be said that especially helping behaviour seems to be crucial for team innovation. If teams are large, and helping behaviour among team members is strong, the capacity for innovation seems to be greatly increased. Implications for understanding the psychological processes underlying team innovation and for managing knowledge sharing in teams are discussed.