scholarly journals Team Leadership and Team Cultural Diversity: The Moderating Effects of Leader Cultural Background and Leader Team Tenure

2021 ◽  
pp. 154805182110107
Author(s):  
Katja Raithel ◽  
Daan van Knippenberg ◽  
Daan Stam

By bringing team members with different cultural backgrounds together, teams in international business can benefit from cultural diversity and reach higher levels of performance. Cultural diversity also brings challenges, however, and diversity research has identified the need to consider moderating influences in the diversity–performance relationship. Team leadership should be particularly important in this respect and drawing on a theoretical analysis that puts an understanding of cultural diversity center stage, we propose that factors that reflect leaders’ experience with cultural diversity positively moderate the relationship between cultural diversity and team performance. We identify leader cultural background (local vs. foreign to the host culture) and leader team tenure as such factors. We predict that the influence of team nationality diversity (a form of cultural diversity) on team performance is more positive with a leader who is foreign to the host country than with a local leader, and with a leader with longer team tenure. In addition, we predict that the one moderating influence substitutes for the other, such that the effect of leader cultural background is stronger for leaders with shorter tenure with the team. Results from a survey of N = 66 teams ( N = 336 individuals) from a multinational company support these hypotheses and inform our discussion of ways forward in the study of leadership and team diversity.

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Elisabeth Hoch ◽  
Craig L. Pearce ◽  
Linda Welzel

In the present paper we examine the moderating effects of age diversity and team coordination on the relationship between shared leadership and team performance. Using a field sample of 96 individuals in 26 consulting project teams, team members assessed their team’s shared leadership and coordination. Six to eight weeks later, supervisors rated their teams’ performance. Results indicated that shared leadership predicted team performance and both age diversity and coordination moderated the impact of shared leadership on team performance. Thereby shared leadership was positively related to team performance when age diversity and coordination were low, whereas higher levels of age diversity and coordination appeared to compensate for lower levels of shared leadership effectiveness. In particular strong effects of shared leadership on team performance were evident when both age diversity and coordination were low, whereas shared leadership was not related to team performance when both age diversity and coordination were high.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 452-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean A. Newman ◽  
Robert C. Ford ◽  
Greg W. Marshall

Based on a study of leader communication effectiveness conducted in a large human resource outsourcing firm, this article reports how virtual team members’ perceptions of their leaders’ effective use of communication tools and techniques affect team performance outcomes. The study also investigates the role that trust plays in moderating the relationship between virtual team members’ perceptions of their leaders’ effective use of communication and team performance. Analysis of 458 responses from 68 teams found a positive relationship between virtual team members’ perceptions of leaders’ effective use of communications and team members’ perception of their team’s performance. The study also found that trust strengthens the relationship between perceived leader communication effectiveness and team performance results. Last, the study also revealed serious organizational alignment issues between what team members perceived to be effective leader communication, their perception of team performance outcomes, and the organizations performance measured by a balanced scorecard.


Author(s):  
Kristi M. Lewis Tyran ◽  
Craig K. Tyran

As globalization and the prevalence of electronic communication technology has become more widespread, organizations are adapting and changing at a rapid pace. Many organizations are using “virtual teams” of people working across space and time as an organizational structure to enhance organizational flexibility and creativity in this changing environment (Duarte & Snyder, 1999; Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). As virtual teams become a more popular organizational tool, many researchers have begun to explore ways in which the performance of such teams may be enhanced (Cohen & Gibson, 2003). One aspect of teamwork that has traditionally had an important impact on team performance is team leadership. Leaders often facilitate effective task performance within a team. By assigning tasks to individuals with the skills, knowledge and abilities to perform best, as well as structuring the team to best accomplish its tasks, a leader can greatly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of a team (Hooijberg, Hunt, & Dodge, 1997; McGrath, 1984; O’Connell, Doverspike, & Cober, 2002). In addition to task-focused behaviors, leaders also motivate, coach and mentor team members toward higher levels of performance (Bass, 1985; Conger & Kanungo, 1998).


2020 ◽  
pp. 104649642095944
Author(s):  
Bret Bradley ◽  
Sarah Henry ◽  
Benjamin Blake

Teams are often plagued by internal discord, such as negative relationships, which can impede successful team performance. While most teams eventually encounter negative relationships, we have limited knowledge on how teams manage this negativity. In this article, we expand scholarship on teams by exploring an inherent team characteristic, gender composition, to assess its role in how teams cope with negative relationships. On the one hand, social role theory suggests that teams comprised of more women will perform better in the presence of negative relationships. On the other hand, theories and evidence on personality and individual differences suggest that teams comprised of more men will perform better in the presence of negative relationships. We studied 151 student project teams, and found that teams of mostly women performed better than teams of mostly men, when negative relationships existed among team members. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-176
Author(s):  
Jian Yu ◽  
Weichu Xu ◽  
M Rogers

Teamwork skills have becoming an important asset that employees can bring into an organization. How to make employees work with other team members and make team effective is an important issue in business education. In order to make sense which factors in team management will help improve team performance, we try to design a test among students. In this paper, we focus on using 12-step method to help business students acquire their teamwork skills and improve their team performance in class, and propose and examine several hypotheses on the relationship between 12-step and their impact on team performance with a dataset collecting from university student teams. The results show that initial sharing, continuous sharing and feedbacks are positively associated with team performance, but expectation, equity and celebration are negatively associated with team performance. The findings provide some insights about how to apply different steps in different environments, and show that some measures and steps should be paid more attention in training in a firm or other organizations.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishant Uppal

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effects of the leaders’ dark triad (DT) personality traits, namely, Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy, on the team performance variability. Furthermore, this work explores the role of team agreeableness in the above relationship. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on the longitudinal and archival data obtained from the sales team (team leaders: n = 190; team members: n = 832) of 19 firms dealing with fast-moving consumer goods in India. Findings From the finding of the study, it can be inferred that the presence of DT traits in the leaders causes high fluctuations in team performance. Besides, team agreeableness was found to moderate the relationship between the DT traits of the leaders and the team performance variability. Originality/value The theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrien Fransen ◽  
Ellen Delvaux ◽  
Batja Mesquita ◽  
Stef Van Puyenbroeck

The importance of high-quality leadership for team effectiveness is widely recognized, with recent viewpoints arguing shared leadership to be a more powerful predictor than vertical leadership. To identify changes in leadership structures over time, we longitudinally tracked the leadership structure of 27 newly formed teams ( N = 195), all having an initial structure of vertical leadership. Our findings demonstrated that the average team leadership strengthened over the course of the 24-week project and leadership tended to become more distributed among team members. Regarding the antecedents of these changes, we found evidence that the more team members are perceived as warm or competent, the higher their perceived influence. Finally, examining the consequences of these changes, the leadership structure was found to be related with team performance in that teams with higher average leadership perceptions performed better. These findings underpin the importance of shared leadership, thereby suggesting leaders to empower their team members.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ming-Ling Chuang ◽  
Alexandra Galli-Debicella ◽  
Xiaoqi Han

Leaders have a significant role in teams and groups, as they affect employee performance, motivation, and productivity. Given the significant position that leaders occupy in teams and group projects, this paper argues that it is important to simultaneously examine how trust in a leader, team interactions, and team performance interact with each other. Specifically, we formulated three hypotheses: First, we predicted a positive relationship between the level of trust that team members have in their team leader and the level of team performance; second, we predicted a positive relationship between the level of trust in a leader and the level of team interactions; last, we predicted that increased trust in a leader will increase team interactions and team performance. To test the model, we utilized data from 112 MBA students engaged in a web-based simulation game wherein students develop and execute the strategies for manufacturing and distributing a product. We used structural equation modeling to test these hypotheses. Our results support the importance and value of leader trust in team interactions. The results also indicate that team interaction positively influences team performance. However, they do not support our hypothesis that trust in a leader will positively influence team performance. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misty L. Loughry ◽  
Allen C. Amason

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest why the theoretically positive relationship between task conflict and team performance has received mixed empirical support. Design/methodology/approach – We review the literature on task conflict and offer explanations for findings that contradict the expected positive relationship between task conflict and team performance. Findings – High levels of correlation among task, relationship and process conflict, and measurement and data analysis issues make it difficult to isolate the effects of each type of conflict. Group-level moderators, including values congruence, goal alignment, norms for debate and the group’s performance history and conflict history affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. The complex relationship between conflict and trust may cause task conflict to have mixed effects on performance. Individual differences and conflict management approaches also affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. Temporal issues and stages of group development are other relevant influences. Practical implications – To better achieve the theorized performance benefits of task conflict, a context characterized by trust is needed. Then norms fostering task conflict can be cultivated and employees can be trained in conflict management. Individual differences that affect team members’ ability to confidently accept task conflict can be considered in selection. Originality/value – Suggestions are presented for future research that may explain discrepant findings in the past empirical literature. In particular, it may be difficult for some team members to perceive task conflict in well-functioning teams. Measures of task conflict that avoid the use of words with a negative connotation should be tested.


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