Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerben S. Van der Vegt ◽  
Evert Van de Vliert

This study examined the effects of perceived skill dissimilarity and task interdependence on individual team members’ helping behavior in a panel study of senior business students enrolled in a management game. The students were randomly assigned to 20 teams and functioned as a firm’s top management group during a full-time 3-week period. Questionnaire data were collected after the 1st and 2nd week. Consistent with self-categorization theory, the analyses showed perceived skill dissimilarity to decrease both self-reported and peer-rated helping behavior under conditions of low task interdependence and to increase an individual’s helping behavior under conditions of high task interdependence.

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence D'Silva ◽  
Adriana Ortega ◽  
Abdul Hadi Sulaiman

<p>Undeniably working in teams are important as tasks are getting more complicated and advanced as a result of globalization and the speedy growth of information and communication technology. This calls for effectiveness from team members to complete all interdependent sub-tasks to ensure that the given tasks achieve its’ desired objectives. During the process of implementing the tasks, teams are poised to face conflicts that may derail the completion of tasks. The focus of this paper is to examine the influence of personality factors and task interdependence on task conflict and team effectiveness. A meta-analysis on past studies was carried out to gather data on the subject matter. The input obtained will be pertinent for future researchers in further understanding the complexities associated with task interdependence and personality on task conflict and team effectiveness.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherzodbek Murodilla Ugli Dadaboyev ◽  
Yoonjung Baek ◽  
Seong Ik Ahn

Purpose This study aims to examine how an employee’s engagement in innovative behavior (IB) can lead to the experience of aggressive actions from other members of an organization and the joint roles of employee in-role performance and task interdependence in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach A field study conducted among a diverse sample of employees working in various industries provided converging evidence for the theorized predictions. The sample of 204 full-time employees is included in the analyses. Findings The results confirmed that innovative employees can be targets of victimization in an organization and employees’ high in-role performance and high task interdependence jointly moderate the negative relationship between innovative performance and victimization. Research limitations/implications The current study should be evaluated in light of some limitations, such as single-source data and the use of cross-sectional data. Practical implications It is advised that innovative individuals should accomplish their required duties in highly task-interdependent contexts to avoid harmful responses from peers. Managers should be aware of the potential negative side of IB. The data involving various industries provide evidence for the generalizability of the research findings and conclusions. Originality/value This paper advances the understanding of the consequences of creative behavior by examining the unexplored aspect that innovative employees can become victims of peer mistreatments. It also expands the understanding of negative outcomes of engaging in creativity by concurrently examining moderating roles of in-role behavior and task interdependence.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 221-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Stark ◽  
Paul Bierly† ◽  
Steven R. Harper

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the interactive influence of conflict, task interdependence and cooperation on individual perceptions of team virtualness levels. The study attempts to provide additional insight regarding how or why virtual structures might develop in teams with co-located team members. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 355 upper-level business students assigned to the same team in four class integrated business courses. Moderated hierarchical regression was utilized in examining the moderating role of cooperation with conflict and task interdependence in predicting virtualness. Findings – Cooperation positively moderates the relationships between relationship conflict and perceived virtualness and between perceived task interdependence and perceived virtualness. In addition, conditional support exists for a cooperation and process conflict interaction in predicting virtualness. Originality/value – Many teams are mandated to be virtual either by management direction, task and resource requirements or by necessity due to being geographically dispersed. However, additional factors may influence the level of virtualness in teams with co-located members. This study provides preliminary evidence that an individual’s experiences in teams influences the individual’s views regarding the virtual structure of his or her team.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 1115-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon B. de Jong ◽  
P. Matthijs Bal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether research and practice on task design and work teams could benefit from a more nuanced perspective on task (inter)dependencies among team members. Prior research often overlooked that task interdependence captures the average exchange of resources, while asymmetrical task dependence captures the inequalities within an individual's work relationships. To date, no study on work teams has combined the two aspects. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from 262 individuals working in 67 work teams. Multilevel and bootstrapping analyses were used. Findings – Drawing from interdependence theory and power-dependence theory it was argued, and subsequently found, that asymmetrical task dependence interacts with task interdependence, and affects the job satisfaction of individuals and their affective commitment to their team. Practical implications – A key practical implication is that both asymmetrical task dependence and task interdependence should be taken into account when optimizing intra-team task dependencies, for instance when (re-)designing jobs or teams. Originality/value – This study contributes to research on asymmetrical task dependence within work teams, by investigating its interaction with task interdependence, its effects on the affective reactions of workers, and its effects on the individual level of analysis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silu Chen ◽  
Guanglei Zhang ◽  
Wanxing Jiang ◽  
Shengping Shi ◽  
Tao Liu

AbstractThis study deals with the issue whether collectivism-oriented human resource management (HRM) system influences individual creative contribution to research teams in particular in an Asia-Pacific context. It is argued that, given certain environmental factors, such as high person-organization value congruence among team members and task interdependence, the collectivism-oriented HRM system should have a positive effect on individual creative contribution to the research teams. A multi-level theoretical model is proposed accordingly, which is then tested with data from 40 research teams and 168 individuals in Chinese universities. The results demonstrated that collectivism-oriented HRM helps to enhance individual creative contribution through the path of value congruence. Moreover, the relationship between value congruence and individual creative contribution was moderated by task interdependence. These findings offer novel insight into how an organization can develop its HRM system and improve individual creative contribution in research teams.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 2007-2033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amina Talat ◽  
Zahid Riaz

PurposeThe contemporary organizational environment calls for work team members to be more resilient in the face of likely setbacks, which are routinely experienced at the workplace. In two separate studies of work teams, we examine the impact of team sensemaking on team bricolage and subsequently, on team resilience. These studies further investigate whether task interdependence moderates the mediation of team bricolage for the relationship between team sensemaking and team resilience. In brief, these two studies conceptualize and test the relevance of team sensemaking, team bricolage and task interdependence for team resilience.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 213 team members participated in the self-administered survey for Study 1. For Study 2, a second sample collected from 81 teams, elicited team-level data by consensus among team members.FindingsFindings show that team sensemaking as an antecedent has a significant and positive impact on team resilience. The results also show how and when the relationship between team sensemaking and team resilience is facilitated through an underlying mechanism of team bricolage in the presence of task interdependence among team members. This research improves the understanding about the relationship between team sensemaking and team resilience by examining the underlying mechanism and boundary condition under which the relationship is the strongest.Practical implicationsThese findings have important implications for human resource managers. In face of adverse events, team sensemaking plays a pivotal role as it can enable team members to have better situational awareness, communication and reflection. Team sensemaking can be further facilitated for improved team resilience by embedding bricolage and task interdependence components in the employee orientation, job description and training of potential and current employees.Originality/valueThese findings demonstrate that in the wake of adverse events, team sensemaking can play a pivotal role as it enables team members to have better situational awareness, communication and reflection. For team resilience, the findings imply that team sensemaking can be further facilitated by team bricolage in the presence of task interdependence in work teams. Thus, managers of modern work teams and organizations can sensitize team members about these aspects through employee orientation, job description and on and off job training activities.


2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramón Rico ◽  
Carlos-María Alcover ◽  
Miriam Sánchez-Manzanares ◽  
Francisco Gil

The study presented in this article examined how specific communication behaviors among team members interacted with task interdependence in relation to the building and changing of trust within 53 virtual project teams. At the mid-point of the teams' projects, our results showed that task-oriented communications among team members related significantly to trust, and that communications conveying enthusiasm related to trust only under conditions of low task interdependence. At the end of a team's project, trust among team members related positively to predictability of communications and substantive responses under higher levels of task interdependence. These findings develop extant trust theory in virtual teams, suggesting some useful guidelines to better understand and manage trust processes.


Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluyemi Folorunso Ayanbode ◽  
Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu

This article concerns the study examining the use of collaborative technologies (CTs) for the acquisition, creation, sharing, transfer, and retention of knowledge by therapy team members (TTMs) in psychiatric hospitals, and the determinants of the use of CTs as well as how they relate to knowledge management (KM) practices. The skills of the TTMs in the use of CTs were also investigated. Carried out within the positivist and constructivist paradigms, a sample survey was conducted among TTMs from two purposively selected psychiatric hospitals in Southwest Nigeria. Quantitative data was collected from self-administered questionnaires completed by 283 TTMs and was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 22. Qualitative data was collected from interviews conducted with four heads of departments. The study showed that the TTMs in the relevant hospitals used 26 different CTs for knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing, transfer, and retention. The largest proportion (84.5%) of the respondents confirmed that skill in the use of CTs determined the use of CTs for KM practices. More than half (54.3%) of the TTMs were highly skilled in the use of CTs for KM practices. The findings suggested that the respondents were positively inclined towards the use of CTs and that they were involved in the use of various CTs to facilitate KM practices and processes. It was found that task interdependence was characteristic of the TTMs’ work in the selected psychiatric hospitals, and that, to benefit from the potential advantages of task interdependence and to effectively employ CTs in operations and processes, TTMs’ skills in the use of CTs should be developed. In addition, professional ties among experts in different fields of specialisation should be encouraged.


Author(s):  
Yuanfang Zhan ◽  
Jinfan Zhou ◽  
Huan Cheng ◽  
Renyan Mu

Drawing from social exchange theory, we developed a dual-path model of employees’ reactions to episodic help received from colleagues. Through a diary study, using data collected from 127 full-time employees working in a large Chinese bank, we tested this model, revealing that receiving episodic help from colleagues is positively related to the help receivers’ gratitude and ego depletion. Through these two ambivalent psychological states, help receivers were found to simultaneously engage in more organizational citizenship behaviors and deviance behaviors on a daily basis. These empirical findings contribute to research that adopts a target-centric perspective in examining the consequences of helping behavior in the workplace.


2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerben Van Der Vegt ◽  
Ben Emans ◽  
Evert Van De Vliert

In this questionnaire study, the relations between the affective reactions of 114 technical consultants and both intragroup interdependence and job complexity were examined. Individual-level task interdependence and job complexity were found to be positively related to individual job satisfaction, team satisfaction, job commitment, and team commitment. Cross-level interactions showed the positive relations between task interdependence and the affective outcomes to be stronger in high outcome interdependent teams than in low outcome interdependent teams. Specifically, a proper match between high task interdependence and high group-level outcome interdependence was found to produce more positive affective responses than “low-high” and “high-low” mismatches. The unfavorable effects of mismatched task and outcome interdependence on job satisfaction and job commitment were found to be mitigated by high levels of job complexity.


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