Search results

Although previous studies have found that positive group affective tone is generally good for team creativity, the reported effects of negative group affective tone (NGAT) are mixed. Drawing on the team goal orientation composition literature, we propose that team trait learning goal orientation (TTLGO; aggregated level of team members' trait learning goal orientation) will moderate the relationship between NGAT and team creativity. Specifically, NGAT will be positively related to team creativity when TTLGO is high but becomes negative when TTLGO is low. We further theorize that team information exchange accounts for this moderating effect. Employing a multiple-source and time-lag design, we conducted two studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, we collected data from 270 information technology engineers working in 62 R&D teams in a software development company and examined the moderating effect of TTLGO on the NGAT-team creativity relationship. In Study 2, we replicated the findings of Study 1 and further tested the mediating role of team information exchange (i.e., Hypothesis 2) using data from 237 members of 43 diversified teams (e.g., R&D, advertising and marketing, technical services, and quality improvement). The results of these two studies support our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications for group affect and creativity literature are further discussed.

Drawing on the social categorization perspective, we theorized that team demographic faultlines increase negative group affective tone (NGAT) through reduced group identification, while team member positive impression management behaviors enhance positive group affective tone (PGAT) via enhanced group identification. Data were collected from 523 members of 101 newly formed student teams. Consistent with our hypotheses, team demographic faultlines were positively predicted NGAT via reduced group identification, while team self-promotion and ingratiation behaviors were positively associated with PGAT through group identification. Importantly, team self-promotion and ingratiation behaviors also mitigated the social categorization processes triggered by team demographic faultlines.

Emotional expression plays an important role in our social lives. This is especially true for leaders, who hold greater power as compared with their followers. Based on the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) model, we explore the effectiveness of leaders' negative emotional expression on follower performance by examining the moderating effects of follower conscientiousness, agreeableness, power distance orientation and perceived leader power. We collected data from 40 firms across various industry types using a multisource, multiphase research design. The data are comprised of 191 leader−follower dyads, consisting of 86 leaders and 191 followers. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis show that followers' conscientiousness and agreeableness positively moderate the relationship between leader negative emotional expression and follower performance. However, when followers are low in power distance orientation and perceived leader power, the relationship between leader negative emotional expression and follower performance becomes negative. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are also discussed.

Extending previous research on transformational leadership (TFL), the present study explores the mechanisms that explain the relationship between TFL and team performance. Drawing on the three-stage model of TFL (Conger & Kanungo, 1998), we theorize that TFL predicts high levels of team performance through shaping team goal orientation and group affective tone. To test the hypotheses, we use data collected from managers and members of 61 research and development teams and use the partial least squares analysis to test hypotheses. The results show that TFL positively predicts positive group affective tone through team learning goal orientation but negatively predicts negative group affective tone via team avoiding goal orientation. Finally, we find that positive group affective tone is positively associated with team performance, whereas negative group affective tone is negatively associated with team performance.

Service organizations encourage employees to express positive emotions in service encounters, in the hope that customers "catch" these emotions and react positively. Yet customer and employee emotions could be mutually influential. To understand emotional exchanges in service encounters and their influences on customer outcomes, the current study models the interplay of emotional contagion and emotional labor, as well as their influence on customer satisfaction. Employees might catch customers' emotions and transmit those emotions back to customers through emotional contagion, and employee emotional labor likely influences this cycle by modifying the extent to which emotional contagion occurs. Data from 268 customer-employee dyads, gathered from a large chain of foot massage parlors, confirm the existence of an emotion cycle. Deep acting, as one type of emotional labor used by employees, hinders the transmission of negative emotions to customers, whereas surface acting facilitates it. Both customer emotions and employee emotional labor thus have critical influences on service encounters. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the potential influence of customer preservice emotions and the presence of an emotion cycle during service delivery.

Although team diversity facilitates team innovation, research on the relationship between organizational tenure diversity and team innovation has produced mixed findings. To reconcile these inconsistent past findings, the present study is designed to investigate the possible curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure diversity and team innovation, and the moderating effect of team-oriented HR practices. We collect data from 67 R&D teams, including 321 engineers, for our sample, and hierarchical regression analyses are conducted to test hypotheses. The results show that the curvilinear relationship does exist between organizational tenure diversity and team innovation, and this nonlinear relationship is moderated by team-oriented HR practices.

AbstractCompulsory citizenship behaviour (CCB) refers to extra‐role behaviours that are not necessarily voluntary or driven by goodwill, and are often conducted under duress or performed in response to supervisor or coworker pressure. The literature is currently unclear about whether these behaviours have negative, positive, or a nuanced combination of outcomes. We address this confusion by drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory to explain employees' daily depletion and organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) mechanisms that capture respective costs and benefits of daily CCB. We also explain how employees' extraversion and leader–member exchange (LMX) are critical boundary conditions of these effects. Using an experience sampling method, we collected data twice per day from 186 full‐time employees across 10 working days, yielding 1551 valid daily responses. The results of multilevel path analyses showed that: (a) daily CCB had a positive indirect effect on next‐day interpersonal deviance via increased ego depletion, with extraversion buffering this positive indirect effect; and (b) daily CCB had a positive indirect effect on next‐day proactive helping via increased OBSE, with LMX strengthening this positive indirect effect. These results suggest that employees' daily CCB has both costs (i.e., resource depletion) and benefits (i.e., positive self‐focused beliefs).

How do leaders lead in a complex environment? Leaders often rely on help from others. However, not all help is necessarily beneficial to leaders, especially when it is offered without being asked (i.e., proactive helping). Unfortunately, theory to date has failed to understand the consequences associated with leaders' receipt of proactive helping at work. To address this shortcoming, we integrate theories of approach–avoidance and challenge–hindrance to unravel how leaders respond to receipt of proactive helping at work, which enabled us to capture both favorable and unfavorable responses to receipt of proactive helping. Our results demonstrated that leaders with higher levels of approach-oriented characteristics were likely to perceive the receipt of proactive helping as more challenging and less hindering. We further found that leaders' challenge and hindrance appraisals prompt them to engage in transformational and laissez-faire leadership behaviors, respectively. Our work provides an answer to the question of why and under what conditions leaders' receipt of proactive helping results in constructive leadership.