Transactional leadership and success of international development projects (IDP): mediating effects of cooperative style to conflict resolution and team potency

Purpose This study aims to examine the mediating role of cooperative style to conflict resolution and team potency in the relationship between transactional leadership style and the success of international development projects (IDP). The study draws on full range leadership theory and contextualizes transactional leadership style to the IDP environment. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey was administered to a convenience sample of 111 IDP managers in Benin. The data obtained from the survey were subjected to principal component analysis using the SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis using XLSTAT-PLSM. The research hypotheses are tested according to the partial least squares method. Findings The hypothesis test shows that transactional leadership has a direct and indirect positive influence (through team potency) on the success of IDP. Contrary to the cooperative style of conflict resolution, team potency plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between transactional leadership and the success of IDP. Also, considering the effect of the specific dimensions of transactional leadership on the success of IDP, only the “active management by exception” dimension influences directly and indirectly (through team potency) on the latter. Practical implications As a result, this research is of great value to IDP managers who are aware of the positive consequences associated with transactional leadership without knowing the role played by its dimensions. Indeed, it provides them with information necessary to identify the appropriate transactional leadership behaviors to improve the success of projects. Originality/value The relevance of this study is to consider team potency as intermediary mechanisms between transactional leadership and the success of IDP and examine the effect of the dimensions of transactional leadership on the success of IDP by integrating the mediating action of team potency. Besides, this research highlights a mechanism through which transactional leadership influences the success of IDPs and shows that the use of the construct of transactional leadership rather than its specific dimensions does not capture the specificities of the mechanism that links transactional leadership and its consequences.

Airline Cabin Crew Team System’s Positive Evaluation Factors and Their Impact on Personal Health and Team Potency

Recently, many airline companies have trialed introducing team systems to manage crew members and enhance competitiveness systematically through the efficiency of manpower operation. Cabin crew members share in a sense of unity when spending time with team members outside of work hours. Cabin crews must be able to resolve unexpected issues—fires, aircraft defects, medical emergencies, and sudden airflow changes—quickly and accurately. As unexpected issues may result in major accidents, it is crucial that cabin crew members can take responsibility for passenger safety and offer satisfactory services to customers. Furthermore, most cabin duties require cooperation and are highly interdependent; thus, respect and teamwork are essential. This empirical study aims to identify and examine the positive factors of the team system used to evaluate causalities in job satisfaction, team potency, and mental health. The research model is developed based on a theoretical review, focusing on five positive factors—sense of belonging, mutual support, communication, motivation, and work flexibility—and dependent variables: job satisfaction, team potency, and mental health. Sense of belonging, communication, and work flexibility significantly affected team potency along with job satisfaction. This study has practical implications, providing guidance for the sustainable development of team systems for airline crew management.

Humble Leader Behavior and Its Effects on Performance at the Team and Individual Level: A Multi-Perspective Study

Drawing upon social information processing theory, this study builds a multilevel model to explore the effects of humble leader behavior on performance in teams. Time-lagged and multi-source data were gathered from 298 employees across 70 work teams. Results indicated that at the individual level, humble leader behavior was positively related to individual performance via organization-based self-esteem, while at the team level, humble leader behavior was positively related to team performance via team potency. Moreover, team cognitive diversity moderated the indirect effects of humble leader behavior on individual and team performances, such that the positive indirect effects were stronger for teams with high cognitive diversity than for those with low cognitive diversity. Implications and limitations are also discussed.

Relationship between team learning and team effectiveness

Purpose The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to demonstrate that learning occurs as a collective process in addition to traditional individual learning and second, to identify its antecedents and consequences at the team level. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered using questionnaires answered by 356 participants organized in 90 teams. Quantitative analytic strategies were applied to verify if individual answers of team members were similar enough to compound team scores and to measure the predictive power of the proposed model. Findings Results showed that team learning is a collective phenomenon: intra-team differences were small and differences between teams were significant. Additional results demonstrated that team learning is predicted by team potency (34%) and, at the group level, explains 5% of the team’s satisfaction. Practical implications The findings of the present research suggest that organizational managers can improve the results of teams by supporting the development of social processes such as potency and learning. Originality/value Learning in organizations has received close attention in recent years. However, publications are focusing mostly on the individual learning that occurs in teams and organizations. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate what characterizes team learning as a collective process and which relations it maintains with other team processes.

Facilitating design: examining the effects of facilitator’s neutrality on trust and potency in an exploratory experimental study

Facilitation style appears to be an important determinant of design team effectiveness. The neutrality of the group facilitator may be a key factor; however, the characteristics and impact of neutrality are relatively understudied. In a designed classroom setting, we examine the impact of two different approaches to group facilitation: (i) facilitator’s neutrality expressed as low equidistance and high impartiality and (ii) facilitator’s neutrality expressed as high equidistance and low impartiality, on team trust, trust to the facilitator and team potency. To do this, we conducted a repeated-measures experiment with a student sample. Our results indicate that facilitators expressing neutrality through low equidistance and high impartiality had a greater positive impact on team trust. The two approaches did not differ on team potency and facilitator trust. These results contribute to developing theories of design facilitation and team effectiveness by suggesting how facilitation may shape team trust and potency in group design. Based on our findings, we point to the need for future work to further examine the impact of facilitator’s process awareness and neutrality, and show how facilitation methods may benefit teams during creative design teamwork.

The impact of team potency and leadership member exchange on expatriate creative work involvement

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine whether team potency moderates the effect of the leader member exchange (LMX) on the expatriate's creative work involvement such that the effect of leader member exchange on creative work involvement becomes less when team potency is high.Design/methodology/approachData were gathered via a printed survey instrument, using a purposive sampling approach and administered directly to 150 expatriate (non-Emirate nationals) employees located in the Jabal Ali Dubai Free Zone of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).FindingsOur findings indicate that the higher the level of team potency the less the effect of LMX on expatriate creative work involvement.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that, team potency, which is an asset in certain situations, can be a liability suppressing the effect of LMX on the expatriate employees creative work involvement. Expatriate employees experiencing satisfaction and fulfillment through the leadership exchange feel sufficiently empowered in their abilities to engage in creative work behaviors.Originality/valueTesting a theoretical model within the intranational cultural diversity of an expatriate workforce may be a stronger source of diversity than other sources, providing for an original theoretical contribution to the extant literature. Moreover, the UAE, with its prominent network of expatriate employment integrated within the national economy presents a highly relevant contextual environment in which to study expatriate behavior.