The effects of working agile on team performance and engagement

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between the agile way of working and team performance and engagement. Furthermore, psychological safety climate was investigated as a mediator of this relationship. As organizations are increasingly adopting the agile way of working method beyond the information technology (IT) setting, the authors researched its effects in teams across a variety of functional domains. Design/methodology/approach Survey data was collected from 97 agile teams working in various functional domains in a multinational bank. The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Results indicated that the agile way of working is directly and positively related to team engagement and performance. Moreover, psychological safety climate acted as a partial mediator of each of the respective outcomes. Originality/value This study illustrated that the agile way of working is beneficial for teams beyond the IT setting, as it is positively associated with psychological safety climate, engagement and performance across functional domains.

A slack-based DEA analysis for the world cup teams

Purpose This paper aims to assess the efficiency levels of World Cup teams via the slack-based data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, which contributes to filling an important gap for performance measurement in football. Design/methodology/approach This study focuses on a comparative analysis of the past two World Cups. The authors initially estimate the efficiency of the World Cup teams via the slack-based DEA approach, which is a novel approach for sports performance measurement. The authors also present the conventional DEA results to compare results. The authors also include improvement ratios, which provide significant details for inefficient countries to enhance their efficiency. Besides, the authors include effectiveness ratings to present a complete performance overview of the World Cup teams. Findings According to the analysis results of the slack-based DEA approach, titleholder Germany and France are found as efficient teams in the 2014 and 2018 World Cup, respectively. Besides, Belgium and Russia recorded the highest efficiency improvement in the 2018 World Cup. The novel approach for sports performance measurement, the slack-based DEA approach, significantly overlaps with the actual performance of teams. Originality/value This study presents novelty in football performance by adopting the slack-based DEA with an undesirable output model for the performance measurement of the World Cup teams. This empirical analysis would be a pioneer study measuring the performance of football teams via the slack-based DEA approach.

Exploring processes in Spanish, German and UK boards: a measurement framework of board know-how, board diversity and directors’ interactions interrelation

Purpose Several empirical attempts have investigated boardroom processes and their impact on the governing team decision-making. Such attempts, however, have derived in inchoate results opening new methodological debates and leaving the underlying patterns of board processes obscure. This paper aims to shed light on these patterns by empirically examining the interrelation among the three central constructs involved in board decision-making: know-how, demographic diversity and directors’ social interactions. Design/methodology/approach A framework of interrelation among know-how, demographic diversity and social interactions was conceptually built and empirically validated with partial least squares structural equation modelling applied to archival data from a sample of 87 boards of directors of Spanish, German and UK listed companies. Findings Results unmask the intricacies of behavioural processes involved in know-how-demography relation: demographic diversity contribution to know-how is totally and positively mediated by directors’ social interactions. This reveals the power of directors’ socialization frequency in determining processes and predicting know-how. Practical implications The paper offers a new pathway to manage board know-how and to make board diversity effective. It also opens a door to an innovative empirical methodology to make board processes emerge, one that overcomes methodological limitations of previous efforts. Originality/value This is so far the only study that examines and measures holistically the structural interrelation among the three central constructs determining board decisions and performance: know-how, diversity and social interactions.

The influence of emotional intelligence on team cohesion and the mediating effects of self-efficacy and trust: time-lagged approach

Purpose Using the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model, this paper aims to use longitudinal data to test team level self-efficacy and trust as mediators in the relationship between team emotional intelligence (EI) and team cohesion (TC) and examine the relationship between TC and team performance. Design/methodology/approach In an experimental design, 347 senior business students (84 teams) played a simulation game for 12 weeks. The authors collected data at three different time points to avoid reverse causal effects in the mediation relationship. Findings As hypothesized, trust and self-efficacy mediate the relationship between EI and TC. Moreover, TC is a strong and significant predictor of team performance. Research limitations/implications The authors measured most variables using a self-reported survey, which can cause common method bias, and the authors used a business simulation game for the team task with student participants, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other team contexts or populations. Practical implications When forming work teams, managers should consider levels of EI and self-efficacy because they facilitate the development of trust and TC, which, in turn, lead to improved performance. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on EI and TC by revealing the mediating effects of trust and self-efficacy and contributes to the team literature by leveraging the IMOI model to explicate the mediation effects. This study’s longitudinal study design clarifies the causal relationship among EI, trust and self-efficacy and TC, thereby eliminating reverse causation concerns.

Shared leadership and team creativity: a team level mixed-methods study

Purpose This paper aims to conduct two studies to investigate shared leadership and team creativity (TC) in leaderless short-term project teams (STPTs). Design/methodology/approach To answer the research question, this paper used a multi-level mixed-methods design. This paper analyzed video recordings, transcripts of STPTs’ collaboration and self-report surveys from an international engineering competition. In Study 1, this paper attempted to connect relation-oriented shared leadership (ROSL) and task-oriented shared leadership (TOSL) with TC by coding video recordings. In Study 2, this paper further investigated the proposed positive relationship between shared leadership and TC by surveying a sample of 166 students in 51 teams. Findings In Study 1, this paper found that shared leadership covaries with TC following a similar behavioral pattern. In Study 2, multi-level structural equation modeling results suggested that both TOSL and ROSL are positively correlated with TC. Originality/value In this mixed-methods multi-level research, this paper found that when the team’s shared leadership increases, their TC activity becomes frequent. This paper confirmed the qualitative finding by quantitatively investigated the relationship between shared leadership and creativity at the team level.

Fantastic teams and where to find them: understanding team processes in space and analog environments through the IMOI framework

Purpose This paper aims to propose a model of teamwork effectiveness in space and analog environments (SAE). Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review was conducted to examine the state-of-the-art of teamwork literature in SAE. A total of 37 research papers were reviewed and the results were organized according to the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) framework. Findings Based on 37 empirical research papers, the findings suggest that the teams working in SAE are challenged with contextual (e.g. time, isolation and confinement), collective (e.g. autonomy, culture) and individual (e.g. personality) attributes. These are inputs to team processes (e.g. interpersonal processes; communication) and emergent states (e.g. climate; emotions), which mediate team (e.g. performance; cohesion) and individual (e.g. psychological well-being) outputs. Research limitations/implications Given the review nature of the manuscript, the final proposed model depicting empirical findings lacks validation evidence when considered in its entirety, although pieces have been validated. Additionally, the focus only on papers that included team-level empirical SAE research (excluding individual-level studies), undoubtedly contributed to a smaller number of papers extracted. Originality/value This paper integrates empirical findings regarding the factors impacting team performance in SAE into a proven framework (IMOI). This integration can provide a common baseline, using a widely accepted methodology and framework, that serves to guide future research, identify gaps and guide practice.

Emotional intelligence, voice and flow: a team-level study of work teams

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how emotional intelligence and voice climate interact with flow in work teams. Design/methodology/approach The authors used multilevel structural equation modeling to analyze the nested data (individuals within teams). A total of 42 work teams (166 full-time employees) from the service industry participated in this research. Findings The results showed that emotional intelligence and voice behavior are positively associated with flow experience at the individual level. It was also demonstrated that emotional intelligence exerts partial influence on flow via individual voice behavior. At the team level, the authors only found a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and flow. Originality/value This research fills the knowledge gap of flow’s antecedents in teams. Members who are emotional intelligent and active in making suggestions to teams are more likely to experience flow in teams. Practitioners should be able to facilitate flow in the workplace through implementing training modules related to emotion appraisal/regulation and effective voice behavior.

Top management team (TMT) age diversity and firm performance: the moderating role of the effectiveness of TMT meetings

Purpose This study aims to investigate the direct effect of directors’ age diversity, and its interaction effect with the effectiveness of TMT meetings on bank performance. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data were extracted from the bank’s annual reports for the six years 2011–2016. Age diversity was calculated using the coefficient of variation, and the bank’s performance was measured as return on assets and return on equity. The frequency of directors’ meetings was used as a proxy for the effectiveness of TMT meetings. Findings Based on the hierarchical regression analysis, the results do not support the hypothesis that there is a negative influence between age diversity on performance. However, the results support the hypothesis that age diversity has a positive effect on performance because of the high effectiveness of TMT meetings. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the study include the use of only samples of the banks registered with Bank Indonesia. The subsequent research could use cross-country bank samples. In addition, the research uses age-related diversity variables only. Therefore, further research could consider other types of diversity such as education, functional or tenure. Furthermore, this study is limited to the effectiveness of the director (TMT) meetings as the only moderating variable. Further research could improve on this by including other moderating variables. Practical implications The findings of this study indicate that the existence of age diversity in TMT will aid bank governance if it is accompanied by effective meetings among groups of directors of varying ages. This age composition of directors will make meetings more effective as rich information for strategic decisions will be generated from different points of view because of the wide spectrum of age categories, and hence, there will be a positive impact on bank performance. Social implications This study indicates that effective meetings of TMT groups of different ages will minimize the rise of “self-esteem”. Therefore, they will benefit the creation of a better quality relationship among TMT individuals. Accordingly, TMT within a company will have more opportunities to discuss in providing bright ideas for the company on how to innovate and create a new strategy to improve its performance. Originality/value This study, being the first to explore the effectiveness of TMT meetings to bank performance in the contexts of directors’ age diversity, contributes to the literature in this area, and especially to the body of knowledge about companies implementing a two-tier governance system.

The relationship between nursing groups’ organizational socialization and nurses’ perception of organizational learning subprocesses: a cross-sectional study in hospital wards

Purpose This study aims to investigate the relationship between a nursing group’s organizational socialization (OS) and the organizational learning (OL) subprocesses of information acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, information integration and organizational memory. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional study, with an anonymous self-report questionnaire, was conducted at two university hospitals in Japan. OL was measured using the scale for OL subprocesses, while OS was measured using the scale for learning about the external environment. The questionnaire was administered from August to October 2018. Among the 1,077 nurses recruited from 34 wards, data from 466 nurses from 24 wards were analyzed. To verify the influence of the group’s OS on each OL subprocess, two-level hierarchical linear modeling with fixed effects was performed. Individual nurses’ OS was analyzed using centering within clusters and the group’s OS was analyzed using each ward’s average OS score by performing grand mean centering. Findings Nursing groups’ OS was positively and significantly associated with information interpretation and information integration, but not with information acquisition, information distribution and organizational memory. Originality/value This study expands OS and OL research by focusing on the relationship between the degree of OS of an entire group and the OL subprocess. When the degree of homophily of value, rule, knowledge and behavior of the entire group increases, the information understanding and the formation of new explicit knowledge may also increase in the group.

Conversations across the table: shared cognition in top management teams

Purpose This paper aims to examine the shared mental models (SMMs) of a top management team (TMT) using an emergent perspective in conditions of uncertainty. The paper examines how a TMT conversation represents an emergent cognitive process to reach an action for future planning. Design/methodology/approach The design uses an emergent SMM approach based on a TMT discussion in an uncertain context. Cognitive mapping techniques illustrate how concepts emerge and are structured. This approach addresses the need for an alternative to aggregate mapping methods and supports the notion of team cognition as an emergent and dynamic process. Findings Findings showed that the emergence of a SMM could be elicited and represented using cognitive mapping techniques. Domain knowledge and social relationships supported the emergence of shared knowledge relevant for action on team tasks. A SMM based on team contribution and concept connectivity was identified. Research limitations/implications The study is based on data collected from a recorded discussion in a quarterly company meeting, ten days before the UK’s original planned exit date, March 2019. Originality/value This research study contributes to the SMM and team cognition literature streams by examining the TMT’s shared understanding as an emergent process. Empirical studies using cognitive mapping techniques in this context are rare.