Leslie A. DeChurch

Information sharing and team performance: A meta-analysis.

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The cognitive underpinnings of effective teamwork: A meta-analysis.

Major theories of team effectiveness position emergent collective cognitive processes as central drivers of team performance. We meta-analytically cumulated 231 correlations culled from 65 independent studies of team cognition and its relations to teamwork processes, motivational states, and performance outcomes. We examined both broad relationships among cognition, behavior, motivation, and performance, as well as 3 underpinnings of team cognition as potential moderators of these relationships. Findings reveal there is indeed a cognitive foundation to teamwork; team cognition has strong positive relationships to team behavioral process, motivational states, and team performance. Meta-analytic regressions further indicate that team cognition explains significant incremental variance in team performance after the effects of behavioral and motivational dynamics have been controlled. The nature of emergence, form of cognition, and content of cognition moderate relationships among cognition, process, and performance, as do task interdependence and team type. Taken together, these findings not only cumulate extant research on team cognition but also provide a new interpretation of the impact of underlying dimensions of cognition as a way to frame and extend future research.

Teamwork in multiteam systems.

The authors examined how networks of teams integrate their efforts to succeed collectively. They proposed that integration processes used to align efforts among multiple teams are important predictors of multiteam performance. The authors used a multiteam system (MTS) simulation to assess how both cross-team and within-team processes relate to MTS performance over multiple performance episodes that differed in terms of required interdependence levels. They found that cross-team processes predicted MTS performance beyond that accounted for by within-team processes. Further, cross-team processes were more important for MTS effectiveness when there were high cross-team interdependence demands as compared with situations in which teams could work more independently. Results are discussed in terms of extending theory and applications from teams to multiteam systems.

Leadership in Multiteam Systems

This study examined 2 leader functions likely to be instrumental in synchronizing large systems of teams (i.e., multiteam systems [MTSs]). Leader strategizing and coordinating were manipulated through training, and effects on functional leadership, interteam coordination, and MTS performance were examined. Three hundred eighty-four undergraduate students participated in a laboratory simulation modeling a 3-team MTS performing an F-22 battle simulation task (N = 64 MTSs). Results indicate that both leader training manipulations improved functional leadership and interteam coordination and that functional leader behavior was positively related to MTS-level performance. Functional leadership mediated the effects of both types of training on interteam coordination, and interteam coordination fully mediated the effect of MTS leadership on MTS performance.

Searching for Outcomes of Leadership: A 25-Year Review

A significant question in management research is, “What criteria should be used to evaluate the effects of leadership?” In this review, the authors systematically summarize various ways the field of leadership has (and has not) sought to answer questions about whether, when, and how leadership affects outcomes. A total of 1,161 empirical studies over 25 years, spanning micro- and macro-oriented perspectives, were content coded to answer six basic questions that set the scope of leadership science. The authors first descriptively summarize these criterion issues in the empirical literature and draw comparisons across areas (e.g., To what extent have leader-member exchange, transformational, and strategic leadership research differentially examined various outcomes?). Second, the authors explore the implications of criterion selection issues for the further advancement of leadership theory and offer concrete recommendations for future leadership research.

Building team adaptive capacity: the roles of sensegiving and team composition.

The current study draws on motivated information processing in groups theory to propose that leadership functions and composition characteristics provide teams with the epistemic and social motivation needed for collective information processing and strategy adaptation. Three-person teams performed a city management decision-making simulation (N=74 teams; 222 individuals). Teams first managed a simulated city that was newly formed and required growth strategies and were then abruptly switched to a second simulated city that was established and required revitalization strategies. Consistent with hypotheses, external sensegiving and team composition enabled distinct aspects of collective information processing. Sensegiving prompted the emergence of team strategy mental models (i.e., cognitive information processing); psychological collectivism facilitated information sharing (i.e., behavioral information processing); and cognitive ability provided the capacity for both the cognitive and behavioral aspects of collective information processing. In turn, team mental models and information sharing enabled reactive strategy adaptation.

Moving Beyond Relationship and Task Conflict: Toward a Process-State Perspective

Teams are formed to benefit from an expanded pool of expertise and experience, yet 2 aspects of the conflict stemming from those core differences will ultimately play a large role in determining team viability and productivity: conflict states and conflict processes. The current study theoretically reorganizes the literature on team conflict--distinguishing conflict states from conflict processes--and details the effects of each on team effectiveness. Findings from a meta-analytic cumulation of 45 independent studies (total number of teams = 3,218) suggest states and processes are distinct and important predictors of team performance and affective outcomes. Controlling for conflict states (i.e., task and relationship conflict), conflict processes explain an additional 13% of the variance in both team performance and team affective outcomes. Furthermore, findings reveal particular conflict processes that are beneficial and others detrimental to teams. The truth about team conflict: conflict processes, that is, how teams interact regarding their differences, are at least as important as conflict states, that is, the source and intensity of their perceived incompatibilities.

Moving emotional labor beyond surface and deep acting A discordance–congruence perspective

Emotional labor (EL) is the process by which employees manage their true feelings in order to express organizationally desired emotional displays. We develop and test components of an organizing framework for emotional labor wherein various aspects of emotional labor are understood through the underlying discordance versus congruence in felt versus displayed emotions. Meta-analytic results from 109 independent studies (total N = 36,619) demonstrate that discordant emotional labor states are associated with a range of harmful consequences (health-, attitudinal-, and performance-related), whereas congruent emotional labor states do not incur these harmful consequences. We identify different patterns of worker- and work-related correlates on the basis of emotional discordance–congruence, as well as interesting occupational differences in these relationships. Lastly, we find discordant forms of emotional labor partially mediate the effects of organizational display rules on burnout, whereas congruent states do not mediate this relationship.

Effects of conflict management strategies on perceptions of intragroup conflict.

Although conflict over ideas is thought to be beneficial to task performing groups, research documents a strong interrelation between idea-based task conflict and emotionally laden relationship conflict. The current study posits the manner in which task conflicts are managed influences subsequent relationship conflict. Two hundred seventy participants formed dyads to discuss a task issue. The conflict management strategy of one member was manipulated to examine the resulting level of relationship conflict perceived by the partner. The level of relationship conflict after the meeting was significantly impacted by the management style used during the meeting: competing produced the most, and collaborating the least, relationship conflict. Findings suggest competing to resolve task-based differences may be particularly harmful by generating relationship conflict.

Perspective: Teams Won't Solve This Problem

Objective: We link the problem of complex sociotechnical systems to a new unit-of-analysis and fruitful developing area of applied research, the multiteam system. Background: Teams are the dominant entity and theoretical lens being applied to understanding the performance of complex sociotechnical systems. We submit that such problems cannot be solved through the teams lens because complex sociotechnical systems exhibit features such as mixed-motive goal structures and complex, layered social identities that do not meet the definitional requirements of a team. Method: We present key findings from multiteam systems research and review the studies contained in the special issue on the basis of the focal constructs and unit of analysis. Results: Although progress is being made on understanding key constructs essential to understanding complex sociotechnical systems, the unit of analysis needs to be shifted upward from the team level to the system level. Conclusion: Progress on understanding the inner workings and leverage points for the success of complex sociotechnical systems requires a fundamental shift in the unit of analysis toward understanding the macrodynamics of larger systems of teams. Application: The multiteam system perspective offers a useful theoretical lens for future research on and tool development (e.g., training, information technology) for improving the functioning of complex sociotechnical systems.