Do You Feel It? The Relationship Between the Perceived Team Climate for Innovations and the Experience of Flow and Worry

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the perceived team climate for innovations and the experience of flow and worry and the moderating effect of team size. The research contains a multi-organization dataset with 323 software product development team members. The results show that the perceived climate for innovation is significantly positively related to the experience of flow and worry. However, the findings did not support the moderation with no differences in working in smaller or larger teams. This study indicates that the perceived climate for innovations positively relates to positive and negative individual effects without the importance of team size.

Exploring barriers that prevent employees from experiencing flow in the software industry

“…Although ways of improving the work environment have been addressed in flow research, the importance of interpersonal and social factors as flow inhibitors has been overlooked (Csikszentmihalyi et al , 2017). Apart from Aichroth et al (2022), who found that the perceived team climate could affect individual flow in development teams either positively or negatively, most studies on interpersonal factors or collective flow have focused on the facilitators of flow (Salanova et al , 2014). The findings of the present study demonstrated that an unsupportive or even toxic climate at work could be a barrier to flow, whether caused by problematic interactions with management, the team or clients.…”

“…the personal-level factors could be more important than the situational factors for facilitating flow). Interpersonal factors could be investigated further by focusing on the role of management, team dynamics and communication skills in being able to experience flow at work, as well as how collective flow (Aichroth et al , 2022; Salanova et al , 2014), could be facilitated by balancing teamwork and meetings so that they allow sufficient time blocks for focused work and reaching flow. Given these points, the findings of this study provide many avenues for future research on flow in software development.…”

“…Only a high-strain job (i.e. a job with high demands but a low level of personal control) has been identified as a situational flow barrier (Fagerlind et al , 2013), and perceived team climate (an interpersonal factor) has been found to affect individual flow experiences in development teams (Aichroth et al , 2022).…”