Emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and team decision making

Purpose As teamwork becomes more prevalent in organizational decision-making, the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on team decision-making process demands more research attention. This study aims to investigate the impact of EI on team psychological safety and decision-making performance. Design/methodology/approach Team decision-making performance and decision quality from a team decision task were obtained from 54 decision-making teams composed of 241 undergraduate business students from a Mid-Atlantic university. Regression analyses were used to test individual and team’s EI relationship with team decision performance and the mediation effect of psychological safety. Findings This study provides empirical evidence that individual EI is positively related to individual influence on team decisions. Team-level EI improves team decision-making performance through increases in psychological safety. Research limitations/implications The sample size is relatively small, and the participants were business students; therefore, the research results may lack generalizability. Future research is encouraged to explore this topic further. Practical implications As teamwork becomes more prevalent in organizational decision-making, the influence of EI on team decision-making process demands more research and managerial attention. The findings of this paper provide insights on the importance of individual/team EI and psychological safety in team decision performance. Originality/value This study furthers research showing that emotions are pertinent to social interactions, including group decision-making, and therefore suggests the desirability of investigating other social processes affecting group decision-making

Homogamy or Heterogamy: The Effects Of CEO Marriage on Family Firm Performance

By integrating the complementary needs theory of mate selection and the notion of complementary assets into the research of family business, we propose that three components of spousal capital complement each other. We elaborate on how homogamy and heterogamy in terms of various socioeconomic and psychological factors can affect family business performance through its impact on marital conflict—an individual-level lens. The empirical analysis on the questionnaires conducted to CEOs of small and medium-sized family firms in the U.S. shows that occupational homogamy and religion homogamy have a positive effect on family-business firm performance, while psychological heterogamy has a positive effect on family-business firm performance. Our research extends the extant studies on spousal involvement in new ventures and copreneurs by revealing the strategic significance of marriage

When Does Shared Leadership Matter in Entrepreneurial Teams: The Role of Personality Composition

Although prior research has investigated a number of conditions under which shared leadership in teams may improve team performance, team composition variables have been left unexplored. Using a sample of 144 teams in a technology incubator in China, this study explored the moderating effects of personality diversity on the relationship between shared leadership and entrepreneurial team performance. Results indicate that shared leadership improves entrepreneurial team performance; the strength of the relationship, however, depends on the level of team personality diversity. More specifically, when relationship-oriented personality diversity is high, the shared leadership—team performance relationship is stronger. These findings advance research in entrepreneurship, groups and teams, and shared leadership, and provide practical implications as well

Does organizational learning lead to higher firm performance?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and firm financial performance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper examines the effects of organizational learning on innovation and performance among 287 listed Chinese companies. Findings – The results indicate a positive association between organizational learning dimensions and firm performance (both objective financial performance and perceptual innovation measure). Research limitations/implications – The sample includes only firms for which secondary data are available. Different results might have been obtained if we include smaller, private firms into the sample. This paper only includes a limited number of measures of financial performance to assess the relationship between organization learning dimensions and firm performance. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further with different performance measures. Practical implications – The results showed that it is the combination of several learning characteristics and not a single dimension that influenced the variance of firm performance. The findings reinforce the notion that systemic interventions that address a variety and different combinations of learning organization characteristics will be more likely to be successful than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions. Originality/value – The integration of objective measures of firms’ financial performance with perceptual survey data represents a unique methodology that has not been widely used in the organizational learning literature. The positive correlations between the eight learning dimensions and the measures of firms’ performance lend credence to the efficacy of the organizational learning concepts

How Shared Leadership and Team Personality Composition Interact to Improve Entrepreneurial Team Performance: Evidence from China

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the contingency effects of personality composition on the shard leadership and entrepreneurial team performance relationship and second, to examine different contingency effects that team personality mean score and team personality diversity have on the shared leadership – entrepreneurial team performance relationship, using the person-team fit theory and the Big-5 framework. Design/methodology/approach: The sample consisted of 200 entrepreneurial teams in a technology incubator founded in 2009 in eastern China. Data were collected through an online survey. Findings: Team conscientiousness level and team openness to experience diversity were found to interact with shared leadership to influence team effectiveness in a supplementary way, such that the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness will be stronger when the team’s mean score on conscientiousness level is high and diversity score on openness to experience is low. Another finding from this study is that team diversity scores on emotional stability and agreeableness interact with shared leadership in a complementary way; that is, the higher the diversity score, the better influence shared leadership has on team effectiveness. Practical implications: First, this study provides policy implications for government agencies, foundations, and universities who provide support for start-ups in incubators. These institutions should know the importance of entrepreneurial team composition and team process to start-up performance and should provide entrepreneurial teams support in team development. Second, the study provides entrepreneurs with implications regarding team member selection. Originality/value: This is one of the first papers to study the interaction between personality composition and shared leadership and its impact on new venture performance. These findings advance the literature on moderators of shared leadership by demonstrating that team personality composition on conscientiousness, openness to experience, emotional stability, and agreeableness moderates the relationship between shared leadership and entrepreneurial team performance

Team Composition of New Venture Founding Teams: Does Personality Matter?

Purpose – First, using the task-relationship dichotomy as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to examine the direct effects of team personality level and team personality diversity on new venture growth. Second, the study examines the interaction effects of team personality level and diversity on venture growth. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of 154 teams in a technology incubator in China. Data were collected through an online survey. Findings – Results indicate that high level but low diversity of team task-oriented personality was beneficial for new venture founding teams. Diversity of team task-oriented personality would hurt the new venture growth more when the level of task-oriented personality was low. Relationship-oriented personality diversity, but not the level of relationship-oriented personality, influenced new venture growth. Research limitations/implications – These findings advance research in entrepreneurship, groups, and teams, and provide practical policy implications as well. Practical implications – This study provides practical implications for policy makers regarding what supports should be provided in incubators and for entrepreneurs regarding team member selection. Originality/value – This is one of the first papers to study the personality composition of new venture founding teams

Does Organizational Learning Lead to Higher Firm Performance? An Investigation of Chinese Listing Companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and firm financial performance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper examines the effects of organizational learning on innovation and performance among 287 listed Chinese companies. Findings – The results indicate a positive association between organizational learning dimensions and firm performance (both objective financial performance and perceptual innovation measure). Research limitations/implications – The sample includes only firms for which secondary data are available. Different results might have been obtained if we include smaller, private firms into the sample. This paper only includes a limited number of measures of financial performance to assess the relationship between organization learning dimensions and firm performance. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further with different performance measures. Practical implications – The results showed that it is the combination of several learning characteristics and not a single dimension that influenced the variance of firm performance. The findings reinforce the notion that systemic interventions that address a variety and different combinations of learning organization characteristics will be more likely to be successful than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions. Originality/value – The integration of objective measures of firms’ financial performance with perceptual survey data represents a unique methodology that has not been widely used in the organizational learning literature. The positive correlations between the eight learning dimensions and the measures of firms’ performance lend credence to the efficacy of the organizational learning concepts

Do Local Protestant Values affect Corporate Cash Holdings?

This study examines how local Protestant belief, as one type of social norms, affects corporate cash policies. We find that firms located in areas with more Protestants hold less cash reserves. The influence of local Protestant belief on cash holdings is more profound for firms with weak corporate governance and firms with one geographic segment. In addition, we find that the difference in cash deployment is reflected in the difference in firms’ investment and payout policies. Overall, our study shows that local Protestant belief is an important factor in determining corporate cash policies and helps to mitigate the potential free cash flow problem