Effects of relative team size on teams with innovative tasks: An understaffing theory perspective

A large body of research accumulated on the consequences that absolute team size (i.e., team headcount) entails for the performance of teams working on innovative tasks. However, there is a dearth of research on team size in relation to a team's assignments and objectives (i.e., relative team size). How this relative teamsize might influence innovation teams is therefore poorly understood. To stimulate theorizing on relative team size, we derive propositions from understaffing theory on how varying levels of relative team size affect teams with innovative tasks. We provide a more fine-grained analysis by differentiating between different dimensions of these teams' performance (i.e., team creativity, output quality, and team efficiency) and develop an input-mediator-output model. Implications of our theoretical considerations and avenues for future research are discussed

Improvisation and Performance in Software Development Teams: The Role of Geographic Dispersion

Software development teams are increasingly faced with unanticipated obstacles to effectiveness that require extemporaneous actions. Team improvisation has been identified as an important team situated response to emergent challenges to team effectiveness. However, the efficacy of team improvisation is not well understood in the context of software development teams—which perform complex, knowledge intensive tasks. We examine the efficacy of team improvisation in enhancing team effectiveness and identify team geographic dispersion as an important boundary condition. We test our hypotheses using data from 299 team leaders and members belonging to 71 teams. We find that team improvisation positively affects team performance, and that the degree of team geographic dispersion moderates the relationship between improvisation and team effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are offered

Illuminating opposing performance effects of stressors in innovation teams

Despite the clear relevance of stressors for the creative work performed by individuals, how they affect teams in their ability to innovate is poorly understood. Thus, the question as to what kind of, and by which mechanisms, team stressors may give rise to better innovation team performance needs further consideration. We address this issue by applying the challenge–hindrance stressor framework to the team level of analysis in the context of innovation teams. By integrating insights from social identity theory and the attentional focus model, we highlight the importance of identity- and information-based mechanisms in transmitting the differential effects of challenge and hindrance team stressors on the performance of innovation teams. We test our arguments for two of the most prominent indicators of innovation team performance (i.e., team creativity and team efficiency) in a multi-informant sample of team members, team-internal leaders, and team-external managers from 114 innovation teams. Our findings support the opposing effects of challenge and hindrance team stressors in predicting innovation team performance through the two differential mechanisms. Specifically, for team efficiency, both team stressors come with the cost of team task conflict (i.e., the information-based mechanism). However, whereas challenge team stressors enhance collective team identification (i.e., the identity-based mechanism), hindrance team stressors undermine collective team identification, thereby aggravating their already negative effect on team efficiency. In terms of team creativity, our results suggest that both types of team stressors exert their indirect effects solely via the identity-based mechanism. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Gender diversity and team performance under time pressure: The role of team withdrawal and information elaboration

Findings in the extant literature are mixed concerning when and how gender diversity benefits team performance. We develop and test a model that posits that gender-diverse teams outperform gender-homogeneous teams when perceived time pressure is low, whereas the opposite is the case when perceived time pressure is high. Drawing on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM; van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004), we begin with the assumption that information elaboration is the process whereby gender diversity fosters positive effects on team performance. However, also in line with the CEM, we argue that this process can be disrupted by adverse team dynamics. Specifically, we argue that as time pressure increases, higher gender diversity leads to more team withdrawal, which, in turn, moderates the positive indirect effect of gender diversity on team performance via information elaboration such that this effect becomes weaker as team withdrawal increases. In an experimental study of 142 four-person teams, we found support for this model that explains why perceived time pressure affects the performance of gender-diverse teams more negatively than that of gender-homogeneous teams. Our study sheds new light on when and how gender diversity can become either an asset or a liability for team performance

How does an emotional culture of joy cultivate team resilience? A sociocognitive perspective

The complex nature of work tasks leads many organizations to organize work around teams, which must develop the capacity to cope with and adapt to a variety of adverse situations. However, our knowledge and understanding of what enables and inhibits the development of resilient teams, that is, change in teams' resilience capacity, have yet to be fully developed. Drawing on the build hypothesis of broaden-and-build theory, we explore the dynamic emotional, social, and cognitive elements that underlie change in team resilience capacity. We posit that a change in a team's emotional culture of joy predicts change in team resilience capacity through both social and cognitive mechanisms (i.e., change in mutuality and change in reflexivity). The results from a two-wave study involving 91 teams (comprising 1291 individual responses) indicate that the positive relationship between change in the emotional culture of joy and change in team resilience capacity is mediated by change in mutuality and change in reflexivity. This research advances the emerging literature on team resilience by theoretically delineating the underlying affective, social, and cognitive collective mechanisms that lead to within-team variability in team resilience capacity

Transparency of reporting practices in quantitative field studies: The transparency sweet spot for article citations

Intuitively, there would appear to be a direct positive link between the transparency with which research procedures get reported and their appreciation (and citation) within the academic community. It is therefore not surprising that several guidelines exist, which demand the reporting of specific features for ensuring transparency of quantitative field studies. Unfortunately, it is currently far from clear which of these features do get reported, and how this affects the articles’ citations. To rectify this, we review 200 quantitative field studies published in five major journals from the field of management research over a period of 20 years (1997–2016). Our results reveal that there are significant gaps in the transparent reporting of even the most basic features. On the other hand, our results show that copious reporting of transparency is productive only up to a certain degree, after which more transparent articles get cited less, pointing to a ‘transparency sweet spot’ that can be achieved by reporting mindfully

Cuff overinflation and endotracheal tube obstruction: case report and experimental study

Background: Initiated by a clinical case of critical endotracheal tube (ETT) obstruction, we aimed to determine factors that potentially contribute to the development of endotracheal tube obstruction by its inflated cuff. Prehospital climate and storage conditions were simulated. Methods: Five different disposable ETTs (6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 mm inner diameter) were exposed to ambient outside temperature for 13 months. In addition, every second of these tubes was mechanically stressed by clamping its cuffed end between the covers of a metal emergency case for 10 min. Then, all tubes were heated up to normal body temperature, placed within the cock of a syringe, followed by stepwise inflation of their cuffs to pressures of 3 kPa and >=12 kPa, respectively. The inner lumen of the ETT was checked with the naked eye for any obstruction caused by the external cuff pressure. Results: Neither in tubes that were exposed to ambient temperature (range: -12°C to +44°C) nor in those that were also clamped, visible obstruction by inflated cuffs was detected at any of the two cuff pressure levels. Conclusions: We could not demonstrate a critical obstruction of an ETT by its inflated cuff, neither when the cuff was over-inflated to a pressure of 12 kPa or higher, nor in ETTs that had been exposed to unfavorable storage conditions and significant mechanical stress

Innovator resilience potential: A process perspective of individual resilience as influenced by innovation project termination

Innovation projects fail at an astonishing rate. Yet, the negative effects of innovation project failures on the team members of these projects have been largely neglected in research streams that deal with innovation project failures. After such setbacks, it is vital to maintain or even strengthen project members’ innovative capabilities for subsequent innovation projects. For this, the concept of resilience, i.e. project members’ potential to positively adjust (or even grow) after a setback such as an innovation project failure, is fundamental. We develop the second-order construct of innovator resilience potential, which consists of six components – self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, optimism, hope, self-esteem, and risk propensity – that are important for project members’ potential of innovative functioning in innovation projects subsequent to a failure. We illustrate our theoretical findings by means of a qualitative study of a terminated large-scale innovation project, and derive implications for research and management

Entrepreneurial Orientation Rhetoric in Franchise Organizations: The Impact of National Culture

This study examines the role of national culture on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) rhetoric contained within franchisee recruitment promotional materials, where EO rhetoric is defined as the strategic use of words in organizational narratives to convey the risk taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness of the firm. The sample comprised 378 franchise organizations, in five different countries (Australia, France, India, South Africa, and the UK). The results indicate that franchise systems operating in high uncertainty avoidance and feminine cultures use less entrepreneurially oriented rhetoric, suggesting that EO rhetoric in franchise organizations varies according to different national cultural contexts