effects of perceived skill dissimilarity and task interdependence on helping in work teams
Post on 03-Jun-2018
215 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
1/18
http://jom.sagepub.com/Journal of Management
http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73Theonline version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0149206304271382
2005 31: 73Journal of ManagementGerben S. Van der Vegt and Evert Van de Vliert
Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Southern Management Association
can be found at:Journal of ManagementAdditional services and information for
http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://jom.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlCitations:
What is This?
- Jan 21, 2005Version of Record>>
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepublications.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.full.pdfhttp://southernmanagement.org/http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://jom.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.full.pdfhttp://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtmlhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.full.pdfhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.full.pdfhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlhttp://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73.refs.htmlhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://jom.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://jom.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://southernmanagement.org/http://www.sagepublications.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/content/31/1/73http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
2/18
10.1177/0149206304271382JournalofManagement/February2005VanderVegt,VandeVliert/ SkillDissimilarity
Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and
Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
Gerben S. Van der Vegt*Department of Management and Organization, University of Groningen,
Landleven 5, 9700 AV Groningen, the Netherlands
Evert Van de VliertSocial and Organizational Psychology, University of Groningen,
Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen, the Netherlands
Thisstudyexamined theeffectsof perceived skill dissimilarity andtask interdependenceon individual team
members helping behavior in a panel study of senior business students enrolled in a management game.
Thestudentswere randomlyassigned to 20 teams andfunctioned as a firmstop managementgroupduring
a full-time 3-week period. Questionnaire data were collected after the 1st and 2nd week. Consistent with
self-categorization theory, theanalysesshowed perceived skill dissimilarity to decreasebothself-reported
and peer-rated helping behavior under conditions of low task interdependence and to increasean individ-
uals helping behavior under conditions of high task interdependence.
Keywords: task interdependence; helping; team performance; organizational citizenship behavior;
self-categorization
The effectiveness of many teams including product development teams, multidisciplinary work
teams, and cross-functional teams depends on whether members withdifferent backgrounds helpeach
other to fulfill their tasks and solve problems (Holland, Gaston, & Gomez, 2000). The complex and
dynamic nature of the task and the specialized knowledge and expertise of team members working in
such teams require that individualsprovide assistance to each other when they fulfill their tasks andare
confronted with task-related problems. Unfortunately, cooperative relationships appear to be difficult
to establish in diverse teams (Northcraft, Polzer, Neale, & Kramer, 1995). Although some teams com-
posed of individuals with different knowledge, skills, and abilities are characterized by cooperative
and effective intrateam relationships (Cooper, 1995; Griffin, 1997), others are plagued by interper-
Theauthorswould liketo thankthe threeanonymousreviewers fortheir valuablecommentson an earlier versionof thisarticle.
Preparation of this article was facilitatedby a RoyalNetherlandsAcademy of Arts andSciencesFellowship awarded to Gerben
S. Van der Vegt.
*Corresponding author. Tel.: 31 503 637 904; fax: 31 503 636 304.
E-mail address: G.van.der.Vegt@bdk.rug.nl
Journal of Management, Vol. 31 No. 1, February 2005 73-89
DOI: 10.1177/0149206304271382
2005 Southern Management Association
73
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
3/18
sonal conflicts and cooperation problems. Both the software of team members cognitions and emo-
tions and the hardware of jobs and coordination requirements seem to make the difference between
success and failure (Holland et al., 2000; Song, Montoya-Weiss, & Schmidt, 1997; Susman & Ray,
1999).
In this study, we examined to what extent team membersperceived skill dissimilarity affectedtheirhelping behavior, defined as providingassistance to other team members with an organizationally rel-
evanttask or problem (Organ, 1988).We also investigated thebeneficial impactof team memberstask
interdependence. In addition to the direct effects of perceived skill dissimilarity and task interdepen-
dence on helping behavior, we propose that the cooperative contacts resulting from task interdepen-
dence may result in individuated impressions of dissimilar others and reduce the negative conse-
quences or increase thepositive consequences of perceived skill dissimilarity. A panel study tested the
occurrence of these effects in a sample of business students enrolled in a management simulation.
Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Helping
Much research has already examined theeffects of dissimilarity on prosocial behavior and effec-
tiveness. Most of these studies have employed a demographic approach that emphasizes the effects ofobjectively measurable differences on demographic attributes, such as gender, age, and job type (for
reviews, see Milliken & Martins, 1996; Tsui & Gutek, 1999; Williams & OReilly, 1998). Based on
self-categorization theory (Turner, 1987) and the similarity/attraction framework (Byrne, 1971), it is
assumed that individuals use social category information to make inferences about their similarity to
other individuals. People who are perceived to be less similar are typically thought to be less predict-
able andmore threatening (Hogg, 2000; Hogg & Mullin, 1999), which makes interaction less pleasant
(Byrne, 1971) and leads to less interpersonal attraction and prosocial behavior (Schroeder, Penner,
Dovidio, & Piliavin, 1995). However, as Harrison, Price, Gavin, and Florey (2002:1032) have men-
tioned, results of many studies employing a demographic approach have shown equivocal findings,
small effect sizes, and differential effects for the diversity attributes studied.
One way to explain this pattern of results is to note that the effects of demographic differences rely
on perceptions and that objective differences do not necessarily result in perceptions of dissimilarity
(Lawrence, 1997). Indeed, scholars have suggested that objective assessments of dissimilaritycan fail
to incorporate all the relevant components of interpersonal differences and that differences may be
more or less salient to an individual (Harrison et al., 2002; Hobman, Bordia, & Gallois, 2003; Randel,
2002). Consequently, individuals may strongly differ in their perception of, and reaction to, objective
dissimilarities. For this reason, this study focused on whether, and how, perceived dissimilarity, rather
than objective dissimilarity, is related to ones helping behavior.
Moreover, giventhe increasing useof teams inwhich members differin knowledge, skills, andabil-
ities, we decided to examine the relationship between perceived dissimilarityin knowledge, skills, and
abilities (henceforth skills dissimilarity) and the helping behavior of work team members. Consistent
withprevious diversity research (e.g.,Randel, 2002)and self-categorizationtheory (Turner, 1987), we
propose that members of work teams usesalient characteristicsof themselves andother team members
to developa mental representation of their ownknowledge, skills, andabilities, and those of thegroup
anditsmembers.Such representationscanbe based on demographic characteristicsbut also on a num-ber of other cues, including behavior patterns, verbal and nonverbal communication, and exchanged
personal information. When people compare their own knowledge, skills, and abilities with those of
the other team members, cognitions about the degree of skill dissimilarity are invoked. Other team
members are perceived as relatively similar to themselves (i.e., their in-group) or as relatively dissimi-
larfrom themselves (i.e., theout-group). These perceptions of skill dissimilarity mayvary across team
members and change over time because, as a result of continuing interaction, individuals may learn
74 Journal of Management / February 2005
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
4/18
about the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the other team members and recognize that they are more
similar or dissimilar than they previously assumed (cf. Harrison, Price, & Bell, 1998).
Suchperceptions of skilldissimilaritymayaffect individualshelping behavior. Severalexperimen-
taland field studies have shown that perceptions of dissimilarity result in in-group favoritism and out-
group derogation (e.g., Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000; Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999). Self-categorization research suggests that to create or maintain a positive self-image, individuals tend to
identify with similar in-group members and to move away from dissimilar out-group members. As a
result, team members will express more favorable actions toward members who are perceived to be
similar than to those who are perceived to be dissimilar (see Barnum, 1997; Hogg, 2000). Conse-
quently, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1:Individual team members perceived skill dissimilarity is negatively related to their helping
behavior.
Task Interdependence and Helping
Individualshelping behavior may not only be influenced by perceived skill dissimilarity but alsoby situational characteristics including job characteristics and coordination requirements (Chatman &
Barsade, 1995).An important situational variablethat mayinfluence theoccurrence of helping behav-
ior is task interdependencethat is, the degree to which the design of an individual team members
tasks and job requires that he or she coordinates activities and exchanges materials and information
with other members of the team for being able to carry out the job (Brass, 1981; Kiggundu, 1983; Van
der Vegt, Emans, & Van de Vliert, 2000, 2001). This task interdependence is not only the result of for-
mally prescribed positions and roles but also of patterned and repeated interactions among individual
team members that become relatively stable over time and take on an institutionalized quality (cf.
Brass & Burkhardt, 1993).
Normally, the task interdependence of individuals within a work group will vary a great deal (for
evidence, see Van der Vegt et al., 2000, 2001). Even individuals holding nominally the same job may
complete different tasks that may lead to differences in task interdependence. Moreover, although in
some jobs thedegreeof task interdependence is fixed andstable (e.g., workers on an assembly line), inmany other jobs the level of task interdependence is variable and changes over time. For example,
research hasshown that the total frequencyof interaction andinformation exchangeacross thevarious
functions involved in a product development project increases as the project moves from early to later
stages (Olson, Walker, Ruekert, & Bonner, 2001). Consequently, the degree of task interdependence
maynot only vary as a resultof thesimilarities anddifferences in thejobs, tasks,androlesof individual
employees but may also change over time.
Several cross-sectional studies have reported a positive relationship between task interdependence
and cooperation or helping behavior (e.g., Anderson & Williams, 1996; Pearce & Gregersen, 1991;
Wageman& Baker, 1997). The reasons for this positive relationshipare that, with increasing levels of
task interdependence, the interactive nature of the work itself enhances the experienced responsibility
for other team membersoutcomes (Kiggundu, 1983; Pearce & Gregersen, 1991) and encourages an
open flow of communication (Thompson, 1967). Higher levels of task interdependence may also
increase recognition of the need for coordination of effort and the need for helping to solve problems
that arise (Anderson & Williams, 1996). Finally, the possibility to punish or reward the behaviors of
interdependentothers motivates task-interdependent teammembers to subjugatepersonal interests for
collective interests (Mudrack, 1989; Murnighan & Conlon, 1991). Taken together, this leads to the
following hypothesis:
Hypothesis2: Individual teammemberstaskinterdependence ispositivelyrelatedto their helpingbehavior.
Van der Vegt, Van de Vliert / Skill Dissimilarity 75
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
5/18
Joint Effect of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity
and Task Interdependence
Fora number of reasons, task interdependencemayalso moderate the impactof perceivedskill dis-
similarity on helping behavior in work teams. Many scholars have discussed the potentially powerful
effect of task interdependence in diminishing stereotyping and categorization bias. In the organiza-
tional sciences, for example, Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) have argued that organizations could bal-
ance the pressures of specialized expertise with the negative by-products of such specialization by
increasing the coordination and integration among team members through enhancing the level of task
interdependence among individual team members. In addition, reviewers of demographic diversity
effects have more or less explicitly proposed that task interdependence may diminish detrimental
diversity effects (e.g., Brickson, 2000; Milliken & Martins, 1996; Williams & OReilly, 1998).
Despite these predominantly theoretical foreshadows, to date, the moderating effect of task interde-
pendence on the effect of perceived skill dissimilarity has not been empirically tested.
On thebasis of theabove evidence, we investigated to what extent theeffects of perceivedskill dis-
similarity on helping maydepend on an individual team members degree of task interdependence. We
suspect that the hypothesized negative relationship between perceived skill dissimilarity and helpingbehavior will be especially negative for team members working under conditions of low task interde-
pendence. In such circumstances, individuals perceive dissimilar others less as in-group and more as
out-groupmembers, with theeffect that the tendency to help them will be weak. With increasing levels
of task interdependence, however, a team member who perceives to be dissimilar from the other team
members will have more interpersonal contact with the other team members, which may reduce cate-
gorization biases (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2000; Pettigrew, 1998). The reason is that
increasedcontact increasesknowledgeabout thedissimilar others and produces personalizing interac-
tions with theexchange of more intimate information, which reduces anxiety (Brewer & Miller, 1984;
Stephan & Stephan, 1984).This is not to saythat highly task-interdependent workers ignoreperceived
interpersonaldissimilarities. Instead, they formindividuated rather thanstereotypic impressions of the
dissimilar others and learn to appreciate the others characteristics and differences. In such circum-
stances, negative categorization effects may be dampened, and perceived skill dissimilarity may even
stimulate interpersonal helping and cooperation because individuals may learn that dissimilar teammembersknowledge, skills, andabilitiescomplement their own(cf. Hornsey & Hogg, 2000).Consis-
tent with this contention, laboratory research has shown that groups of dissimilar experts use each
others unique information more when group members are familiar with one another (e.g., Gruenfeld,
Mannix, Williams, & Neale, 1996). Similar positive effects of dissimilarity were reported by Pelz
(1956), who found that frequent positive contact amongdissimilar scientists was positively correlated
with theextent to which they helpedoneanother. Moreover, research conducted in the intergroup liter-
ature (e.g., Dovidio et al., 2000; Gaertner, Mann, Dovidio, Murrell, & Pomare, 1990) has shown that
when interpersonal relationships are satisfying, individuals may react positively to interpersonal
dissimilarities.As a result, underconditionsof hightaskinterdependence, perceived skill dissimilarity
may be positively related to individual helping behavior. Hence, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis3: Forlow-task-interdependent teammembers, perceivedskill dissimilarity is negativelyrelatedto
their helping behavior. For high-task-interdependent team members, perceived skill dissimilarity is posi-tively related to their helping behavior.
76 Journal of Management / February 2005
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
6/18
Method
Task Setting
The panel study presented below was designed to test the hypotheses among students enrolled in a
management game. The game is organized yearlyby theManagement Department and is used to train
students during a full-time 3-week period to function as members of a firms top management group
(for details about thegames nature, seeMCC, 1993).Teams competed ingroupsof five teams,a group
being the game equivalent of an industry. All the teams were six-person teams with an assortment of
different roles across teams, including general management, production, marketing, accounting, and
personnel.
Thegame wasplayed in four rounds, with each round containing several decision periods. Because
thegame and theassociated procedures arecomplex, thefirst round wasa practicing round containing
two decision periods. This minimized the chances for misunderstanding by participants. In each deci-
sion period, the teams had to make decisions on a total of about 30 strategy issues that covered all
important business areas such as investment in production capacity and quality, marketing, pricing,
advertising and sales promotion, finance, capital budgeting, quality issues, hiring personnel, layoffs,intelligence, and R&D. Their decisions had to be recorded on a special decision form that was sent to
the instructors (i.e., three faculty members of the Management Department). After processing the
decisions of the five competing companies, the instructors provided each team with a summary of the
teams results for thespecific period. This information involveda large range of relevantareas, includ-
ingmarketshares, profit rates, and financial stock positions, andwasused by the teams as the input for
their decisions in the next period.
After thepracticeroundandeach of thethreeserious rounds, theinstructorscomputedthe so-called
criterionscores, being a compositemeasure of market share, profit, and theprojectedsustainability of
the companys results after the last playing period. These scores proxy firm performance. Teams
received feedback about their criterion score after their practicing round, at the beginning of the 2nd
week, at the beginning of the 3rd week, and at the end of the management game after 3 weeks.
During themanagement game, the teams were physically located in a clearly defined area. Because
team members were allowed to autonomously divide tasks, plan activities, and distribute the different
roles across team members during the game, the degree of task interdependence varied substantially
both within and between teams. That is, whereas some of the teams chose to divide the work in such a
way that specific decisions were made by individual team members (e.g., only the marketing director
works on marketing issues), which resulted in low levels of task interdependence, other teams chose
fora collectivestrategy inwhich alldecisions were made together, which resulted in high levels of task
interdependence. In practice,however, most of the teams chose for a mixbetween these twoextremes.
Typical was that some of themembers workedclosely together, whereas others worked in relative iso-
lationon problems related to their area of expertise. This resulted in different levels of task interdepen-
dence withinone and the same team. No formal working hours were prescribed, but as a resultof time
pressure, participants generally worked for more than 10 hours a day.
Sample and Procedure
One hundred and twenty Dutch students from different faculties, including human resource man-
agement, economy, legal affairs,andorganizationalpsychology,participatedin themanagementgame
Van der Vegt, Van de Vliert / Skill Dissimilarity 77
by madalina elena on March 5, 2014jom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/http://jom.sagepub.com/ -
8/12/2019 Effects of Perceived Skill Dissimilarity and Task Interdependence on Helping in Work Teams
7/18
and were randomly assigned to 20 teams by the instructors. No effort was being made to creategroups
that were similar in composition regarding faculty, age, or gender. A presentation to allof the students
at the beginning of the business game was used to introduce the research team, consisting of the first
author and an assistant, and to ask for the students voluntary participation in a study that was pre-
sented as an investigation into the determinants of top management team effectiveness. Moreover,instructions for the completionand return of two questionnaires were provided as the study employed
a design with two measurement waves. It was explained to the respondents that questionnaires would
be coded for the purpose of Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) data matching but that their anonymity was
guaranteed and that the researchers would distribute questionnaires among the members of the work
teams who agreed to participate.
The first measurement wave was conducted after participants had interacted as a team for 1 week
(T1). A second administration of the same questionnaire was conducted 1 week later (T2). A 92%
response rate was achieved at T1 (n= 110, distributed across 20 teams) and a 65% response rateat T2
(n= 78, distributed across 15 teams). Seventy-four respondents filled out both questionnaires. Fifty-
four percent of the respondents were women, all of them were Caucasian, and the mean age was 21.1
years (SD= 1.2).
Measures
Unless otherwise stated, the questionnaires consisted of self-report Likert-type items (1 =strongly
disagree, 5 =strongly agree). When appropriate, the items for each scale were averaged to produce a
composite score for each respondent.
Perceived skill dissimilaritywas assessed using three newly developed items. The wording of the
items was such that they circumvented status differences: I have another educational specialization
than the other team members, I have other skills than my team members, and My abilities clearly
differfrom thoseof theother team members. Cronbachs alpha was.78 at T1 and.82at T2.Pretests of
this measure on a separate sampleof 48 students revealed a single reliable factor ( = .77) and showedthe perceived skill dissimilarity measure to be negatively related to team identification (r= .44,p
top related