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Past research has been equivocal about the information sharing and performance effects of knowledge diversity in teams. In an attempt to resolve this equivocality, scholars have suggested that status hierarchy may play a role, proposing that status differences can constrict team-level information sharing in diverse teams by privileging the knowledge of higher-status members and discounting the knowledge of lower-status members. Although there is some evidence to support this notion, there is also evidence to suggest that status differences may amplify information sharing in diverse teams by offering status enhancement incentives to members who share unique knowledge. In this paper, we reconcile these different predictions by suggesting that the effects of status hierarchy on the relationship between knowledge diversity and team information sharing will depend on the stability of the hierarchy. Using a diverse sample of 156 teams across 110 organizations, we found that status differences constricted information sharing in knowledge-diverse teams when hierarchy stability was high and amplified information sharing in knowledge-diverse teams when hierarchy stability was low. These information sharing effects, in turn, affected team performance. Our study highlights how hierarchy stability is critical for understanding whether status differences constrict or amplify information sharing in knowledge-diverse teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a contingency model on the effectiveness of dominance as a route to influence in organizational work teams. In a field study (n = 397 members from 54 work teams), we observed that perceived intra-team competition represents a key context factor that moderates the relationship between dominance displays and influence attainment. Although dominant members attained more influence than non-dominant members, their influence was proportionally greater when team competition was high, rather than low. A follow-up scenario experiment (n = 429 participants) confirmed the proposed causal direction of this interaction effect. Moreover, this study showed that normative evaluations of (non-)dominant behavior drive the findings. Dominance displays were considered more appropriate, normal, and functional (i.e., normative) in teams with high competition, whereas non-dominant behavior was seen as more normative in teams where competition was low. Consequently, non-dominant members also gained influence in this last team situation, reducing the relative influence advantage of dominant members. The results support both the functional view and the contextual value perspective on hierarchy formation in teams, and inform organizations about how they can prevent dominance-based influence processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social relations analyses involving 132 working relationships among 60 individuals from 29 teams revealed that an increase in a team member's task dependence on another team member was associated with higher levels of perceived help from and interpersonal trust in that specific team member, provided the other member was highly task dependent on the focal member. The degree to which an actor perceived a relationship with a partner to be helpful partially mediated the relationship between task dependence and trust. These findings highlight the importance of attending to asymmetries in task dependence and provide valuable insights into mechanisms that can explain the development of trust in organizational work teams. Keywords: asymmetry in task dependence, perceived helping behavior, trust, multilevel analysis

A study examines the relationship between novices' competence in specific work activity clusters and their performance evaluation. The results indicate that taking into account the relative importance of specific work activity clusters can help novices in becoming valued members of the organization.

We present a systematic review of the literature on power and its interpersonal consequences. Our review, comprising 339 studies published in 145 research articles, shows that this line of research has primarily examined how powerholders attend to and act towards powerless individuals, or others in general. We therefore know surprisingly little about how powerholders attend to and act towards other powerholders. To address this issue, we present a conceptual framework that outlines how an actor's power interacts with a target's power to influence prosocial and antisocial beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. We identify two routes in the literature detailing how powerholders respond to one another. First, building on rivalry literature, we present a competitive route suggesting that powerholders rival each other and engage in conflict. Second, building on social identity and social dominance literature, we present a harmonious route suggesting that powerful peers will show compassion and care for each other. Finally, we bring forth suggestions for how future research could test these two perspectives, by presenting moderators that determine when each of these two routes is activated. In doing so, we offer important implications for the power literature and open a new line of inquiry for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longitudinal panel study in 25 work groups of elementary school teachers examined the effect of attitudinal dissimilarity and time on social integration across a 9-month period. In line with the prediction based on both the similarity-attraction approach and social identity theory, cross-lagged regression and LISREL analyses showed that attitudinal dissimilarity decreased social integration rather than the other way around. In addition, results showed that this effect was not stronger for group members who had spent a longer period of time with the other group members. Finally, mediated regression analyses revealed that attitude dissimilarity did not mediate the effect of time on social integration., The past decade has witnessed a growing research interest in the effects of the demographic make-up of organizational work groups on group processes. Stimulated by the increasing diversity of the [...]

Firms can adopt several strategies to increase their robustness to potential supply chain (SC) disruptions. One promising strategy is the use of a cross‐functional team with representatives from functional departments. Such a team may facilitate sharing relevant information, enabling the firm to respond effectively to SC disruption warnings. However, despite their potential, cross‐functional teams also differ in their ability to respond to SC disruption warnings and to ensure firm robustness. Extending insights from information‐processing theory and team research to the field of SC management, we propose that a cross‐functional team's ability to handle high numbers of SC disruption warnings depends on the extent to which the team adopts centralized decision‐making, with one or two members orchestrating the decision‐making process. We also introduce internal integration problems as a mediating mechanism explaining why a cross‐functional team lacking centralized decision‐making may be unable to handle high numbers of SC disruption warnings. In two independent studies, we use multi‐source data on cross‐functional teams' performance in dealing with SC disruption warnings during a realistic SC management simulation; the results support our predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented discussing the business practices of risk management and organizational resilience, focusing on responses to large scale economic and natural disruptions. Topics addressed include discussion of understanding organizations as complex systems with networks and resources; connections between organizational resilience and societal resilience; and government, private, and civil society tri-sector cooperation.