EXPRESS: Individual- and Group-Level Consequences of Divergence in Perceived Group Affect

The shared mood or affect of a work group can exert a powerful influence on the group’s social dynamics and effectiveness. However, the mood of others can be difficult to read, leading to divergent perceptions of group affect among members. What happens when individuals perceive the group’s affect differently? We answer this question by investigating how divergence in perceptions of group affect influences individuals’ social integration and the group’s performance. In doing so, we examine the implications of divergence in perceived group affect for individuals and the group as a whole. In a field study of 1,419 individuals in 107 work groups, we found that divergence in perceptions of the group’s positive affect was negatively associated with individuals’ commitment to the team and undermined the positive impact of group affect on group performance. We discuss the implications of our findings for refining theory on group affect, the value of strongly shared affect, and how leaders can foster a stronger sense of shared affect within groups

The dark side of bright traits: How context cues misdirect facets of conscientiousness

© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The authors test the proposition that there are dark sides to conscientiousness that are revealed when examining lower-level facets. The authors propose that potentially dysfunctional behavior is triggered by context cues that are relevant to duty versus achievement striving. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted two laboratory experiments designed to test how context cues that are specific to duty and achievement striving influence the relationship between these facets and quality versus quantity dimensions of task performance. Findings: In Study 1, the authors found that normative quality cues led to a stronger relationship between duty and discretionary quality performance. In Study 2, achievement striving was associated with lower levels of quality performance in the presence of competitive feedback cues. Research limitations/implications: The findings illustrate that the dark side of duty and achievement striving emerges in two ways. First, when there is normative pressure for quality, dutiful individuals are apt to sacrifice efficiency. Second, when there is competitive feedback, achievement striving individuals focus on performance standards at the detriment of quality. Practical implications: The findings point to the importance of precision and specificity when using personality measures for staffing. Equally important is the informational content of cues conveyed by the social, task and organizational context, in leveraging the impact of personality in the workplace. Originality/value: This paper clarifies the dark side and bright side contradiction of conscientiousness, adding to the growing literature on unique and often competing consequences of duty and achievement striving. The authors also draw attention to the importance of the content of contextual cues, in trait activation of personality

The impact of trust on private equity contracts

This paper adresses the impact of trust on private equity contracts. Trust between investor and entrepreneur is essential to help overcome control problems, especially in an environment with severe agency risks and incomplete contracts. In this study, information about the effects of trust is collected using a simulation with 144 entrepreneurs and investors. We find that trust has an impact on the desired contracts of entrepreneurs, but not on that of investors. Our findings suggest that for parties, faced with potentially large agency problems (investors), trust and control seem to play complementary roles. On the other hand, for parties faced with smaller agency problems (entrepreneurs), trust seems to be a substitute for control

A Multi-Level View of the Antecedents and Consequences of Trust in Virtual Leaders

Although trust is widely acknowledged as critical to virtual teams, little is known regarding the causes and consequences of trust in leaders of virtual teams. This paper examines the antecedents and consequences of trust in virtual team leaders. Using survey and archival data from a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), this study’s findings show that trust in the leader is affected by team members’ use of synchronous communication and breadth of communication with leaders as well as team members’ distance from each other. Furthermore, reasoning that team size and culture create a shared context qualifying team members’ experiences, we found that team size and collectivistic values diminished the benefits of synchronous communication and breadth of communication, respectively. The findings also revealed that trust in leaders had a positive relationship to team performance. Detailed discussion of the findings is provided in the conclusion of the paper

Relationship conflict asymmetry between angel investors and entrepreneurs: exploring antecedents and the impact of dyad position

Entrepreneurs' sale attitudes are related to sale intentions, which are associated with firm sale

Relationship conflict asymmetry between angel investors and entrepreneurs: Exploring antecedents and the impact of dyad position

Entrepreneurs' sale attitudes are related to sale intentions, which are associated with firm sale

Financing decisions as a source of conflict in venture boards

Governance scholarship has suggested that venture boards should be structured so as to stimulate internal conflict. However, structure is a weak predictor of board effectiveness. Moreover, conflict can be dysfunctional, especially when it is focused on relationships rather than tasks. We show that venture boards experience more relationship conflict when they make financing decisions that involve devaluation of the venture and that this effect is moderated by whether the CEO is a founder. Our findings should prompt venture governance scholars to reconsider the importance of board structure, the value of board conflict and the behavior of founder- versus non-founder CEOs.Boards of directors Conflict Founders Decision making