Team effectiveness under stress: a structural contingency approach

Abstract

SummaryTo examine whether working under stressful circumstances restricts or enhances team effectiveness, a structural contingency model for team effectiveness was tested by focusing on job structuring (mechanistic/organic structuring) as a key factor, which interacts with qualitative and quantitative stress on team attitude (team commitment) and outcomes (team effectiveness). Findings from 73 primary care teams indicated that mechanistic structuring for teams working under quantitative stress was positively associated with team commitment, which in turn fostered team effectiveness, whereas organic structuring for working under qualitative stress improved team effectiveness. Furthermore, team commitment mediated the relationships between stress and structuring and team effectiveness. These findings support a structural contingency model for improving team effectiveness under stress.

The Effect of Vision and Role Clarity on Team Performance

“…Findings in the literature on this subject are complicated. Interestingly, no research has been conducted so far on the direct effect of role clarity in literature whereas there is a remarkable body of work on the relationship of role stress(e.g., Drach-Zahavy and Freund, 2007;Pearsall et al, 2009;Savelsbergh et al, 2012) with team conflict (e.g., Hülsheger et al, 2009;De Wit et al, 2012;O'Neil et al, 2013) The results of the aforementioned study are in agreement with those of ours in spite of the fact that there are some findings suggesting that role stress, role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload have some negative impact on team processes and performance outcomes (e.g., Drach-Zahavy and Freund, 2007;Pearsall et al, 2009). There are also some studies finding no significant correlation between role ambiguity and team performance(e.g., Savelsbergh et al, 2012).…”

“…Third, although there exists no correlation between role clarity and team performance based on the results of our study, there is the valuable amount of study indicating detrimental impacts of role ambiguity on team performance outcomes (Drach-Zahavy and Freund, 2007;Pearsall et al, 2009). In this context, project leaders perceiving signs of role ambiguity should encourage team members to with one accord research and reflect on the role assignment in their team, opening the opportunity to experiment with a different role assignment and a redivision of resources, to safeguard the effectiveness of the individual team members as well as of the team as a whole (Charbonnier-Voirin et al, 2010;Savelsbergh et al, 2012).…”

“…One key of measurable indicators of team structure, as identified by previous research, is the clarity of its goals and members roles (Gladstein, 1984;Deeter-Schmelz, 1997). According to Drach-Zahavy and Freund (2007), two types of organizational structure (mechanistic and organic) are distinguished in terms of how to manage control of job accomplishment of teams and how to differentiate and coordinate roles of individuals within these teams. For example, Richardson (2010: 86), identifies shared objectives and specified roles as criteria for assessing real teams.…”

Examining Occupational Stress, Sources of Stress and Stress Management Strategies through the Eyes of Management Consultants: A Multiple Correspondence Analysis for Latent Constructs

“…Moreover, ineffective management, weak leadership, job insecurity and fear of redundancy can be major SoS (Cox et al, 2000;Hsieh, 2004;Vagg et al, 2002), as well as frequent travelling, quantitative work overload, lack of control over work, lack of free time, relationships at work and lack of social support as some of the various psychosocial SoS (Addae & Wang, 2006;Block, 2011;Cox & Griffiths, 1995;Kipping, 2002;Drach-Zahavy & Freund, 2007;Leung et al, 2008;Sturdy et al, 2009).…”

“…Levi (1994) grouped the various psychosocial SoS in work that can be derived from quantitative overload, qualitative underload, lack of control over work and lack of social support. Each aspect of such work situations represents a hazard for stress, namely aspects of work design, organization, management of work and social and environmental contexts (Addae & Wang, 2006;Benyamini, 2009;Cox & Griffiths, 1995;Drach-Zahavy & Freund, 2007;Hsieh, 2004;Rodell & Judge, 2009;Vagg, Spielberg, & Wasala, 2002). There is some preliminary evidence that even changes that may be thought to enhance the work environment can produce the opposite effect (Cox et al, 2000;Ito & Brotheridge, 2009;Rafferty & Griffin, 2006).…”