Empowering leadership during the COVID-19 outbreak: Implications for work satisfaction and effectiveness in organizational teams

The COVID-19 pandemic generated unprecedented challenges for social and organizational life. We set out to explore how empowering leadership and leadership support were affected as a result of the team-based organization starting to implement flexible and remote work practices after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data in a cross-lagged design and used the two-condition MEMORE mediation procedure to analyze data on work satisfaction and team effectiveness obtained just before and immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak in 34 organizational teams. Our results show that the COVID-19 outbreak did not significantly impact perceptions of empowering leadership or perceived leadership support. However, teams that experienced changes in empowering leadership also reported proportional changes in work satisfaction and effectiveness. Finally, we show that the association between empowering leadership and leadership support, on the one hand, and work satisfaction in teams, on the other hand, is moderated by team size, such that the strength of the association is higher in small rather than large organizational teams. We conclude by arguing that the team-based organization absorbed well the impact and disruptions associated with the COVID-19 outbreak. We also stress the role of empowering leadership as a driver of work satisfaction and the effectiveness of organizational teams

Jokes and quarrels:a cross-cultural investigation of humor and conflict transformation in groups

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationship between different styles of humorous communication (i.e. controlling and liberating) and conflict transformation in groups, in particular the transformation of task and process conflicts into relationship conflict. This study also examines the extent to which power distance moderates the association between controlling humor and relationship conflict.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data using a survey from 536 participants from two different countries varying in power distance (Romania and The Netherlands) working in groups in organizations from various sectors.FindingsSupporting the hypotheses presented in this study, multi-level data analyses showed that liberating humor has a positive association with task conflict, while controlling humor has a positive association with both process and relationship conflict. Moreover, task and process conflict mediate the relationship between liberating and controlling humor (predictors) and relationship conflict (outcome). The hypothesis regarding the moderating effect of power distance was not fully supported by the data

Individual Versus Group Negotiation in Multiparty Systems: The Effect of Power and Goal Difficulty on Negotiation Outcomes in a Potential Gain Task

The aim of the present study was to test the extent to which groups manage to attain synergy (both strong and weak) in the context of multiparty systems. We also aimed to test the effects of power (budget size), and goal difficulty, alongside their interaction effect. We have used a behavioral multiparty simulation in which Romanian participants first negotiated individually and then, in the second stage, they were organized into groups and asked to engage in intergroup negotiations. Results showed that, in general, best negotiators outperform groups, yet groups obtain higher negotiation payoffs than the average payoff obtained by their members in the first negotiation stage, but only for dyads. Moreover, powerful stakeholders and those that have high goals end up with the highest payoff. Last, our results show that power accentuates the positive relationship between goal difficulty and payoffs. The results have important implications for delegating representatives to multiparty negotiations and for the management of power asymmetry in multiparty systems

The effect of humor and perceived social interdependence on teamwork engagement in student groups

Given the widespread use of collaborative learning as an instructional practice in education, our study focuses on teamwork engagement, a key factor influencing the success of collaborative efforts. We use a longitudinal multi-level approach to test the impact of social context and engagement in student groups and examine the effect of social interdependence and type of humor on teamwork engagement. We collected data at six-time lags in a sample of 435 students organized in 97 groups. Our results show that positive interdependence has a positive influence on teamwork engagement, while negative interdependence as well as social independence have a negative effect on teamwork engagement. Moreover, affect mediates the influence of affiliative and aggressive humor communication on teamwork engagement. Practical implications are discussed