Although mistakes may have considerable potential for learning, previous research has emphasized that organizational members are often defensive when their mistakes are pointed out and will even continue with their present course of action despite growing costs. Recent research has shown that team‐level variables, such as psychological safety and shared mental model, can help overcome barriers to learning from mistakes. Structural equation analyses on teams working in a sample of organizations in Shanghai, China, suggested that teams were able to learn from their mistakes to the extent that they took a problem solving orientation. This orientation in turn was based on developing cooperative but not competitive goals within the team. Although competitive and independent goals induce blaming, blaming itself was not significantly related to learning. Blaming, especially when conducted openly, may hold individual team members accountable as well as provoke defensiveness. Findings empirically link the theory of cooperation and competition with the organizational learning literature. Results suggest that cooperative goals and problem solving promote learning from mistakes.
Groups are increasingly responsible for accomplishing critical, complex tasks for organizations, but understanding and developing effective teamwork have proved difficult. Findings from groups in Chinese enterprises supported recent theorizing that confidence in the group's interpersonal relationships promotes team effectiveness. Results also suggested, in contrast to traditional theorizing about Chinese values, that conflict management was an important foundation for this confidence in relationships. Specifically, the structural equation analysis supported the reasoning that cooperative conflict builds confidence in relationships that, in turn, results in team effectiveness. Results were interpreted as providing support for the universalistic aspirations of the theory of cooperation and competition and that managing conflict cooperatively is a foundation for team effectiveness in China as well as in the West.
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Chinese values competitive conflict cooperative conflict relationships teamworkGroups are increasingly considered critical for accomplishing important tasks and solving complex problems for organizations (Barrick et al.
Opportunism in organizational partnerships may be understood in terms of how partners conclude that their self-interests are related to each other. When partners believe that their goals are competitively but not cooperatively related, they are tempted to pursue their self-interests opportunistically. Cognitive understandings and values of a shared vision may help partners believe their goals are cooperatively related. Results from 103 pairs of customer and supplier organizations support the argument that partnerships are not inevitably threatened by opportunism. Using structural equation analysis, the authors suggested that shared vision can help partners develop cooperative goals that lead to low levels of opportunism. These results suggest that a shared vision and cooperative goals are important foundations for effective organizational partnerships.
Teams can provide structures for applying diverse abilities to solve problems. This study suggests that cooperative, in contrast to competitive and independent, goals promote team members' applying their abilities for mutual benefit, which in turn facilitates team performance. Two hundred employees in 100 work teams in China completed measures of their team's cooperative, competitive, and independent goals and their applying abilities; 100 managers indicated the teams' in-role and extra-role (organizational citizenship behavior) performance. Structural equation analysis suggested that cooperative but not competitive or independent goals promote applying abilities, which in turn results in team performance. These results, coupled with previous research, were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative goals and applying abilities are complementary foundations for effective teamwork.
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