This article presents a comprehensive synthesis and quantitative review of studies examining relationships between team design characteristics and team performance. Across 398 primary studies, the present study meta-analytically investigated the effects of team composition, team task design, and team leadership characteristics on team performance. The study further investigates how the effects of these team design characteristics differ according to the industry context within which the team is embedded (high technology, manufacturing, service, or student). Overall, this review emphasizes the importance of continued inquiries focusing on team design while also discussing the implications of this review for theory, practice, and future research.

Despite the wide use of groups in organizations, research on individuals' experiences of fit in their work groups has lagged due to lack of conceptual clarity of person-group (PG) fit and inconsistent measurement. To rectify these issues, we present an integrative definition of PG fit, which incorporates social-and task-related elements of group work, as well as supplementary and complementary conceptualizations of fit. Using this definition, we develop the Multidimensional Perceived Person-Group Fit (MPPGF) scale and validate it through five phases, across six samples. In Phase 1, we identified dimensions and generated items using a mix of deductive and inductive approaches. In Phase 2, we validated items yielding seven dimensions (value congruence, shared interests, perceived demographic similarity, needs-supplies match, goal similarity, common workstyle, and complementary attributes). In Phase 3, we examined how the dimensions combine to form an aggregate (formative) PG fit construct. The MPPGF scale showed convergent and discriminant validity with relevant constructs in Phase 4.In Phase 5, the MPPGF exhibited criterion-related and incremental validity with attitudes and performance beyond existing PG fit scales. Finally, we report dimension-specific results, demonstrating that MPPGF could be used to study questions regarding overall PG fit perceptions, as well as more narrow dimension-specific questions.

Experiencing work as a calling has been described as the ideal of a truly positive experience of work. But what we know about how called professionals construct identities as people who are called to their work is incomplete. Discussions about callings are often framed as narratives—stories of people’s callings—yet little is known about how professionals incorporate a wide variety of life events into coherent stories that support their identity claims. To understand this process, we analyzed the narratives of 236 individuals from four professions. We found two ways our participants identified their callings: discernment and exploration. Discerners journeyed toward their destiny, which was their one true calling. Explorers actively searched for work they loved, but destiny played no role. Through a series of lived experiences, called professionals’ identities took shape as they were enacted, with their callings strengthening over time. After identifying their calling, each of these professionals engaged in two crucial processes for integrating self and work as they lived their calling. Like other professionals, called professionals sought legitimacy in their fields by demonstrating mastery and receiving affirmation. Yet their sense of calling simultaneously propelled them to craft personal authenticity through tailoring their own unique enactment of the role.

This study develops and tests a model of the transition from paid employment to entrepreneurship using a sample of 226 adults currently in paid employment. Building on a seminal but largely untested insight from Shapero (1975), we used theoretical logic from event system theory to propose that displacing work events moderate the effect of entrepreneurial identity aspirations, a possible-self role identity, on engagement in nascent entrepreneurial activities (discovery and exploitation behaviors). Results show that entrepreneurial identity aspirations were more strongly positively related to entrepreneurial discovery behaviors among employees who experienced a displacing work event in their current workplace; discovery behaviors in turn related to entrepreneurial exploitation behaviors. The moderation effect was significant for four of the six displacing events examined in this study. Our findings have implications for the literatures on entrepreneurial career transitions, entrepreneurial role identity, and event system theory and offer validity evidence for the nascent entrepreneurial behaviors scale.

Summary This research seeks for improved understanding regarding the interaction of meaningful work and the work–family interface. Existing literature suggests that experiencing a sense of calling toward work makes the work domain particularly salient to employees compared to other life domains. In this article, we draw on this idea, rooted in identity theory, to hypothesize that a sense of calling toward work diminishes the effects of work–family conflict and work–family enrichment on employee's job and life satisfaction. We test these ideas in two studies. First, we surveyed an alumni sample of 598 employees from various jobs, industries, and job levels. Then, in a constructive replication, we surveyed 327 employees using a time‐lagged design. Calling was found to significantly buffer the effect of work–family conflict on job satisfaction in Study 2, but not Study 1. Calling did not buffer the effect of conflict on life satisfaction in either study. However, both studies demonstrated that calling attenuated (substituted for) the effect of work–family enrichment on job satisfaction. Study 1 supported the idea that calling attenuates the effect of enrichment on life satisfaction; however, this interactive effect was reversed in Study 2, contrary to expectations. We discuss implications for theory and practice related to callings and career choices, as well as for the role of calling and work identity in the work–family interface.