University of Groningen
Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance
Yuan, Yingjie; Van Knippenberg, Daan
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Journal of Business and Psychology
DOI:
10.1007/s10869-021-09745-4
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Yuan, Y., & Van Knippenberg, D. (2021). Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance: Team Size as Moderator and Collaboration as Mediator. Journal of Business and Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-021-09745-4
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Metadata of the article that will be visualized in OnlineFirst
1 Article Title Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance: Team Size as Moderator and Collaboration as Mediator
2 Article Sub- Title 3 Article Copyright
-Year
The Author(s) 2021
(This will be the copyright line in the final PDF)
4 Journal Name Journal of Business and Psychology 5
Corresponding Author
Family Name Yuan
6 Particle
7 Given Name Yingjie
8 Suffix
9 Organization University of Groningen
10 Division Department of Human Resource Management &
Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business
11 Address Nettelbosje 2, 9747AE, Groningen, The Netherlands
12 e-mail yingjie.yuan@rug.nl
13
Author
Family Name Knippenberg
14 Particle van
15 Given Name Daan
16 Suffix
17 Organization Drexel University
18 Division LeBow College of Business
19 Address Philadelphia, USA
20 e-mail 21 Schedule Received 22 Revised 23 Accepted 9 March 2021
24 Abstract The social network perspective provides a valuable lens to understand the effectiveness of team leaders. In understanding leadership impact in team networks, an important question concerns the structural influence of leader centrality in advice-giving networks on team performance. Taking the inconsistent evidence for the positive relationship of network centrality and leadership effectiveness as a starting point, we suggest that the positive impact of leader centrality in advice-giving networks is contingent on team needs for leadership to meet communication and coordination challenges, which we argue are larger in larger teams. Developing our analysis, we examine the
AUTHOR'S PROOF
mediating role of member collaboration in the relationship of leader network centrality and team performance as moderated by team size. Based on a multi-source dataset of 542 employees and 71 team leaders, we found that leader centrality in advice-giving networks related positively to team performance in larger teams but negatively in smaller teams. Results supported the mediated moderation model via member collaboration in smaller teams, but not in larger teams.
25 Keywords separated by ' - '
Team leadership Centrality Advicegiving networks Team size -Collaboration
26 Foot note information
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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1 2 3 ORIGINAL PAPER 4 56
Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance: Team Size
7as Moderator and Collaboration as Mediator
8 Yingjie Yuan1
&Daan van Knippenberg2 9
10 Accepted: 9 March 2021
11 # The Author(s) 2021
12 Abstract
13 The social network perspective provides a valuable lens to understand the effectiveness of team leaders. In understanding
14 leadership impact in team networks, an important question concerns the structural influence of leader centrality in
advice-15 giving networks on team performance. Taking the inconsistent evidence for the positive relationship of network centrality and
16 leadership effectiveness as a starting point, we suggest that the positive impact of leader centrality in advice-giving networks is
17 contingent on team needs for leadership to meet communication and coordination challenges, which we argue are larger in larger
18 teams. Developing our analysis, we examine the mediating role of member collaboration in the relationship of leader network
19 centrality and team performance as moderated by team size. Based on a multi-source dataset of 542 employees and 71 team
20 leaders, we found that leader centrality in advice-giving networks related positively to team performance in larger teams but
21 negatively in smaller teams. Results supported the mediated moderation model via member collaboration in smaller teams, but
22 not in larger teams.
23 Keywords Team leadership . Centrality . Advice-giving networks . Team size . Collaboration
24
25 The trend towards team-based organizations calls for the
de-26 velopment of our understanding of team leadership (Day et al.,
27 2006). Building on the long-standing recognition of
leader-28 ship as embedded in social interactions within the team
29 (Morgeson et al.,2010), and the notion that intrateam
relation-30 al patterns involving leaders and members are complex and
31 heterogeneous (van Knippenberg & Mell,2016), scholars
32 have increasingly adopted the social network perspective to
33 capture how a leader’s network position affects leadership
34 effectiveness in teams (Carson et al., 2007; Carter et al.,
35 2015). This social network perspective complements other
36 perspectives on team leadership such as behavioral-style
ap-37 p r o a c h e s a n d s h a r e d l e a d e r s h i p a p p r o a c h e s ( v a n
38 Knippenberg,2017), by uniquely capturing how a leader’s
39 position within the team network of social relationships
influ-40 ences leadership functioning. Network positions vary in their
41
connectivity with other members and thus reflect how well
42
positioned a leader is to effectively and efficiently influence
43
team members when needed (Balkundi & Kilduff, 2006;
44
Balkundi et al.,2011; Carter et al.,2015; Sparrowe & Liden,
45
2005).
46
In considering leaders’ network positions, the emphasis is
47
primarily on network centrality, the extent to which the leader
48
is centrally positioned within the team’s interaction patterns
49
(Balkundi & Harrison,2006). For leadership, this is typically
50
captured by the advice-giving network—the work-related
51
flow of information, guidance, and advice from the leader to
52
team members (Borgatti & Everett, 2006; Kilduff &
53
Krackhardt, 2008). Centrality in advice-giving networks is
54
of particular relevance to leadership effectiveness, because
55
central positions in such information flows indicate direct
56
and widespread task-related influence on team members
57
(Sparrowe et al.,2001). Consistent with the notion that a vital
58
task of team leadership is to supervise and regulate team
func-59
tioning, scholars proposed a positive role for leader centrality
60
in stimulating team performance (Balkundi & Harrison,2006;
61
Balkundi & Kilduff,2006).
62
Building on this earlier work, we propose that the
relation-63
ship between leader centrality in the team advice-giving
net-64
work and team performance is contingent on team * Yingjie Yuan
yingjie.yuan@rug.nl 1
Department of Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business
Q1 , University of
Groningen, Nettelbosje 2, 9747AE, Groningen, The Netherlands 2 LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA Journal of Business and Psychology
AUTHOR'S PROOF
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65 characteristics. The value of such a moderation perspective is
66 corroborated by the inconsistent findings for the impact of
67 leader centrality (Balkundi et al.,2011; Mehra et al.,2006).
68 Network theories have indicated that the value of a network
69 position is subject to the contextual characteristics of a given
70 network (Borgatti & Foster,2003; Borgatti et al.,2009). The
71 advantage of network centrality should be no exception in this
72 respect. We identify team size as a fundamental influence on
73 the benefits of leader centrality. Team size is a parsimonious
74 indicator of the complexity of intrateam processes and
com-75 munication (LePine et al.,2008). Teams with more complex
76 communication patterns experience more process loss and
77 have stronger needs for leadership guidance and interventions.
78 Advice-giving centrality provides team leaders with a
strate-79 gic position to quickly detect such needs and step in to guide
80 team members. We therefore propose that leader centrality in
81 advice-giving networks is more positively associated with
82 team performance in larger teams, where intertwined
interac-83 tion patterns and unwieldy communication benefit more from
84 leadership interventions.
85 Further developing this analysis, we propose that member
86 collaboration—the process of members working together to
87 accomplish team tasks—mediates the interactive effect of
88 leader centrality and team size (see Fig.1for the conceptual
89 model). The merit of leader network centrality is more
prom-90 inent in larger teams, where leaders can quickly detect
prob-91 lems in member coordination and foster member collaboration
92 by providing guidance, developing shared understanding, and
93 resolving tensions. Smaller teams, in comparison, tend to
ex-94 perience less process loss (e.g., communication and
coordina-95 tion challenges) and are more likely to address these
chal-96 lenges without regulation by team leaders. Accordingly, there
97 is less benefit from leader centrality for member
98 collaboration—leader centrality may even be disruptive to
99 collaboration when it invites team members to concentrate
100 communication on the team leader.
101 Social network analysis has advanced a powerful case for
102 the importance of leader network centrality in promoting
lead-103 ership effectiveness in teams (Carter et al.,2015). At the same
104 time, inconsistent findings within this stream of research
in-105 vite more attention to when and how leader centrality affects
106
team performance. Accordingly, the present study contributes
107
to the development of the social network perspective on team
108
leadership by identifying a key moderating influence in team
109
size as a parsimonious yet fundamental indicator of team
110
needs for leadership. The implications of this contingency
111
view are broad-ranging in that they should extend to other
112
team and contextual characteristics that reflect team needs
113
for leadership. From a team-process perspective, our focus
114
on member collaboration adds to the limited understanding
115
of how leader centrality promotes team performance, which
116
so far was primarily concerned with the mediating role of
117
leadership perceptions (Balkundi et al.,2011).
118
Leader Centrality in Advice-Giving Networks
119
and Team Performance
120
As one of the most relevant networks to team functioning and
121
performance (Kilduff & Krackhardt, 2008; Sparrowe et al.,
122
2001), advice networks refer to interpersonal communication
123
flows about work-related problems in organizations. In
prin-124
ciple, advice networks refer to two distinct flows. The
infor-125
mation flow of providing team members task-related
sugges-126
tions (i.e., advice-giving) reflects help-giving actions and
im-127
plies interpersonal influence. In counterpoint to this, receiving
128
advice suggests the flow of dependence, obligation, and
vul-129
nerability in interpersonal connections (Soltis et al., 2013;
130
Zagenczyk & Murrell,2009). Whereas earlier research often
131
did not specify advice-giving or advice-receiving in
132
operationalizations, recent social network research has
in-133
creasingly emphasized the importance of this distinction
134
(Agneessens & Wittek, 2012; Hayat & Mo, 2015; Soltis
135
et al.,2013). In leadership research, advice-giving is
concep-136
tually more relevant because of its close association with the
137
leadership role in teams. Prior studies operationalized such
138
advice-giving flows as incoming of advice-seeking ties (e.g.,
139
Balkundi & Harrison, 2006). Because incoming
advice-140
seeking ties do not equate to advice-giving (one can be asked
141
for advice but not give it), in the present study, we assess
142
advice-giving ties directly.
Leader centrality in advice-giving networks
Member
collaboration Team performance
Team size Fig. 1 Conceptual model of
leader centrality and team size on team performance
J Bus Psychol
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143 Centrality in advice-giving networks captures not just the
144 number of advice ties that one has; it is also an indicator of
145 influence. Providing work-related information, guidance, and
146 advice to others in effect positions one to influence others.
147 Accordingly, the more central one’s position in the team’s
148 advice-giving network, the more influential one is within the
149 team. Centrality in the advice-giving network reflects a
stra-150 tegic position to directly communicate with team members
151 about work-related issues and to shape the way they handle
152 those issues. Considering that one primary responsibility for
153 team leaders is to direct and support members in team tasks
154 whenever needed (Day et al.,2006; Stewart,2006), centrality
155 in the advice-giving network represents a positional
advan-156 tage. As the leader is more central in the advice-giving
net-157 work, (s)he possesses more direct and influential channels to
158 communicate task objectives, to distribute resources and
sup-159 port, to address conflicts, and to motivate team members. In
160 addition, centrality in the advice-giving network gives rise to
161 perceptions of reputation and impact (Ibarra & Andrews,
162 1993). This signaling effect also fosters positive responses to
163 leaders with high centrality and enhances the effectiveness of
164 leadership interventions (Balkundi et al.,2011).
165 In a meta-analytic review, Balkundi and Harrison (2006)
166 summarized 13 effect sizes across different types of leader
167 centrality (from advice-seeking networks to friendship
net-168 works) and established a positive link between leader network
169 centrality and team performance. This finding inspired
follow-170 up research to advance our understanding of this link focusing
171 on centrality in the advice network. The evidence for the
im-172 pact of leader centrality in the advice-giving network from
173 these studies is inconsistent, however. Whereas some studies
174 found a positive relationship between advice centrality and
175 leadership effectiveness (Balkundi et al.,2009; Balkundi
176 et al.,2011), other studies found no relationship (Mehra
177 et al.,2006; Venkataramani et al.,2016). This begs the
ques-178 tion of moderation in this relationship, which has only been
179 addressed at the dyadic level (leader-follower relationships)
180 and not at the team level. Venkataramani et al. (2016) found
181 that leader centrality only stimulated employee voice to the
182 extent that the subordinate was central in the network. Their
183 finding is important to the present discussion because it
sup-184 ports the contingency perspective on the effect of leader
cen-185 trality. Yet, it did not address effects on team outcomes, which
186 cannot be extrapolated from these findings given that
central-187 ity is a relative judgment.
188 The essence of team leadership lies in satisfying a team’s
189 needs to enhance team effectiveness (Day et al., 2006;
190 Morgeson et al.,2010). Team leaders are expected to address
191 a variety of team needs, such as establishing shared identities
192 (Hogg et al.,2012; van Dick et al.,2018), creating collective
193 understandings (e.g., transactive memory systems (Bachrach
194 et al.,2019), coordinating knowledge exchange and
commu-195 nication (Boies et al.,2015; Lee et al.,2010), and integrating
196
inputs from different members (Shin & Zhou, 2007). The
197
strategic value of a central position in the team social network
198
helps leaders enact these leadership roles effectively and
effi-199
ciently. From the contingency perspective of leadership, the
200
value of network centrality is reduced when teams have less
201
need for such leadership. For instance, having team leaders in
202
the center of team decision-making is a blessing when team
203
members experience communication problems and conflicts,
204
but may add very little when team communication is smooth
205
and self-organized (Hollenbeck et al., 2011; Nederveen
206
Pieterse et al.,2019). This points to the moderating role of
207
factors reflecting the complexity of team communication and
208
coordination and its associated need for leadership
involve-209
ment. We identify team size as a fundamental influence in this
210
aspect.
211
The Moderating Role of Team Size
212
Possibly the most basic and fundamental influence on the
213
complexity of communication in teams is team size (Kerr,
214
1989; Latané et al., 1979; Poulton & West, 1999).
215
Resources such as expertise, social capital, and diverse
per-216
spectives of team members accumulate as team size grows
217
(Guzzo & Shea, 1992). Yet communication problems and
218
the need for leadership intervention also develop in teams as
219
team size grows (Campion et al.,1996). Research showed that
220
in comparison to members of smaller teams, members of
larg-221
er teams tend to be less motivated to participate in team
activ-222
ities (Peltokorpi & Hasu, 2014), less engaged in team
223
decision-making (Curral et al.,2001), more likely to
experi-224
ence task and relational conflicts (Amason & Sapienza,1997),
225
and more prone to form subgroups and cliques (Carton &
226
Cummings,2012). Members of smaller teams are often more
227
cohesive and more satisfied with team experiences (Haleblian
228
et al., 1993). Arguably, a key commonality underlying all
229
these effects is that effective communication and coordination
230
are more challenging for larger teams. As teams grow leaders,
231
it is increasingly difficult to effectively communicate to all
232
members, and there is a growing tendency for members to
233
disengage from team communication. Thus, communication
234
and coordination to support collaboration become more
chal-235
lenging in larger teams.
236
We propose, therefore, that the relationship between leader
237
centrality in the advice-giving network and team performance
238
is more positive in larger teams. Larger teams with more
com-239
plex communication challenges have a stronger need for
lead-240
ership to coordinate and support collaboration across different
241
phases of teamwork. In earlier phases, larger teams have more
242
need for leadership to bring together team members for
dis-243
cussion and communication (Pearce & Herbik,2004), to
cre-244
ate shared understandings of team objectives and task
require-245
ments, and to organize and mobilize different types of
re-246
sources. In later phases, larger teams benefit more from J Bus Psychol
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247 leaders motivating members, smoothing out social
interac-248 tions, and retaining commitment and satisfaction among team
249 members (Poulton & West,1999). A central position in the
250 advice-giving network allows leaders to quickly detect such
251 needs and offer guidance and input when and where needed.
252 This advantage of central positions thus facilitates the
fulfill-253 ment of leadership functions.
254 Smaller teams, in contrast, have less need for leadership,
255 because members can more easily communicate with all other
256 members to identify task problems, evaluate ongoing
activi-257 ties, and make corrections. Members are also more easily
258 monitored in smaller teams, reducing the opportunity to
dis-259 engage from the team process. Even when needed, leaders are
260 relatively reachable regardless of their network positions due
261 to the smaller size of communication networks. This renders a
262 central position of team leaders less important for team
mem-263 bers to effectively coordinate and collaborate. When smaller
264 teams can effectively meet challenges without the team leader
265 stepping in, leader centrality in the advice-giving network
266 may to some extent even disrupt team collaboration. Leaders
267 in the center of communications may obstruct direct
commu-268 nication among team members, because communication
269 among team members can be weakened by a tendency to
270 prioritize communication with the leader (Brass &
271 Burkhardt,1993; Leenders et al.,2003). What this in effect
272 means is not only that leader network centrality has a less
273 positive influence on team coordination and performance in
274 smaller teams but also that this influence may be negative for
275 smaller teams. Thus, we propose:
276 Hypothesis 1: Team size moderates the relationship
be-277 tween leader centrality in the advice-giving network and
278 team performance, such that leader centrality is more
279 positively related to team performance as teams are
280 larger.
281
Mediated Moderation Model via Member
282
Collaboration
283 Understanding the influence of leader network centrality with
284 our focus on contextual needs for leadership also requires
285 attention to the next issue—the mediating mechanism
in-286 volved. Our understanding of the mechanism mediating
be-287 tween leader network centrality and team performance is
un-288 derdeveloped (Carter et al.,2015). Empirical tests of how
289 leader centrality affects team outcomes are scarce. Balkundi
290 et al. (2011) presented a perceptual model to explain that the
291 positional advantage of leader centrality evoked positive
per-292 ceptions of leader charisma in subordinates, which would lead
293 to more positive responses to a leader’s behaviors or
sugges-294 tions. This provides a basis to understand the influence of
295 leader centrality from the perspective of subordinate
296
perceptions. Yet, as relevant as more positive perceptions of
297
the leader are, they do not capture the team process through
298
which leader centrality affects team outcomes. We identify
299
member collaboration as the mediating process explaining
300
the effect of leader centrality on team performance as
moder-301
ated by team size.
302
Member collaboration refers to the collective process of
303
members transforming team inputs into team products
304
(LePine et al.,2008; Reagans & Zuckerman,2001; Zaccaro
305
et al.,2001). Organizational research has established a
posi-306
tive link between member collaboration and team
perfor-307
mance (Bedwell et al., 2012; LePine et al., 2008; Marks
308
et al.,2001). In a collaborative team, individual members are
309
prone to share task understandings and strive together to
310
achieve team goals. When members are less collaborative,
311
individual endeavors are dispersed and less integrated. As a
312
result, it impairs the synergistic process of combining diverse
313
resources into team products.
314
We propose that member collaboration mediates the
inter-315
active effect of leader centrality and team size on team
perfor-316
mance. As outlined in the previous section, leader centrality
317
provides a positional benefit for leaders to quickly detect
is-318
sues and to guide and motivate team members in larger teams.
319
These benefits of leader centrality obtain more for larger
320
teams, where the communication and coordination among
321
team members are more challenging and raise greater needs
322
for leadership guidance. As a result, there is greater value in
323
team leaders being well positioned in larger teams. The issue
324
here is much more than enacting leadership behaviors to
di-325
rectly affect individual members’ behaviors. Rather, because
326
larger teams struggle more with creating shared
understand-327
ings of teamwork that is the cornerstone of collaborative
ef-328
forts (Amason & Sapienza,1997; Wong,2004), network
cen-329
trality in larger teams enables leaders to build shared views of
330
team objectives and member roles and to develop unitary
331
teamwork processes. Core to team performance are the
coor-332
dinated collaborative efforts of team members. Leaders more
333
central in the network of larger teams are better positioned to
334
stimulate such collaboration both by fostering shared
under-335
standings for collaboration and by stepping in to help solve
336
problems that individual members meet.
337
Smaller teams, in contrast, typically experience fewer
com-338
munication and coordination problems. A major reason is that
339
members in smaller teams can easily and frequently
commu-340
nicate with each other. Accordingly, smaller teams are in less
341
need of team leaders to develop shared understandings and
342
meet challenges. There would still be a role for such
leader-343
ship, but the benefits of leader centrality in fostering member
344
collaboration are less prominent in smaller teams where it is
345
easier for members to self-organize collaborative efforts.
346
Moreover, there can also be a downside to leader centrality
347
in smaller teams in that the more employees receive
informa-348
tion and advice from leaders, the less likely they are to seek J Bus Psychol
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349 inputs elsewhere in the team (Kratzer et al.,2008). The fewer
350 benefits there are to leader centrality, the greater the risk that
351 leader centrality could even be counterproductive in reducing
352 the communication among members that lies at the
founda-353 tions of member collaboration. We thus propose:
354 Hypothesis 2: Member collaboration mediates the
inter-355 action effect of leader centrality in the advice-giving
net-356 work and team size on team performance.
357
Method
358
Data and Sample
359 Data were collected from seventy-five franchised stores of a
360 bakery group located in central China. These seventy-five
361 franchise stores shared the same performance environment:
362 Each store functioned independently as a team and took full
363 responsibility for its performance. Store managers as team
364 leaders closely monitored and regulated team activities to
365 meet performance requirements and customer needs. This
set-366 ting qualified for our research aim to observe the impact of
367 leader centrality on team performance.
368 To avoid common source bias, we sent out
paper-and-369 pencil questionnaires to employees and team leaders (i.e.,
370 store managers) respectively in two time slots. Five research
371 assistants first administered surveys to team members on-site
372 and collected them right away to ensure the confidentiality of
373 employee responses. Two weeks later, one author distributed
374 questionnaires to all team leaders during a monthly review
375 meeting in the headquarter office. Reminders were sent to
376 absent employees and leaders in the following week. In total,
377 567 out of 577 employees filled out the subordinate
question-378 naire, and 73 out of 75 team leaders filled out the supervisors’
379 counterparts. After matching two waves of data, we dropped
380 two teams with incomplete supervisor responses (a team of 14
381 members and a team of 6 members) and 5 incomplete
subor-382 dinate responses. The final sample consisted of 542
em-383 ployees and 71 team leaders from 71 teams. Team size ranged
384 from 4 to 22 members (Msize= 8.67, SDsize= 3.27).
385
Measures
386 Both leader and subordinate surveys were provided in
387 Chinese. We went through a back-translation process to
en-388 sure validity across languages (Brislin,1970). One author first
389 translated all items into Chinese. Then two native Chinese
390 graduate students blind to the purpose and content of this
391 study translated them back into English and compared them
392 against the original. We found a high level of consistency in
393
the translation. This ensured that the Chinese items were
394
equivalent to the original ones.
395
Leader Centrality We measured leader centrality with the
396
widely adopted roster method (Perry-Smith,2006). Each
em-397
ployee received a name list of all coworkers (including the
398
team leader) to rate their advice-giving to each ratee on a
6-399
point Likert scale (1=“less often than several times a year”, 2
400
= “several times a year”, 3 = “once a month”, 4 = “several
401
times a month”, 5 = “several times a week”, 6 = “daily”). The
402
question was“To what extent do you give professional advice
403
to this person when s/he has work-related problems?” The
404
response rate per team varied from 71.4 to 100%, with merely
405
two teams below 80%. These high response rates satisfied the
406
minimum requirement of 70% (Borgatti et al., 2006) and
407
allowed us to conduct social network analysis with sufficient
408
credibility. We operationalized leader centrality as Bonacich’s
409
power centrality (positive beta centrality). This index of power
410
centrality accounts for the centrality of team leaders’
connec-411
tions in the advice network (Bonacich, 1987) and has been
412
recognized as superior to Freeman’s degree centrality measure
413
in capturing the central role and information impact of
indi-414
vidual members relative to the rest of the team (Borgatti et al.,
415
2002). It was often adopted in prior leadership research (e.g.,
416
Mehra et al.,2006).
417
Team Performance Two weeks after the subordinate survey,
418
team leaders rated team performance in the previous fiscal
419
season with four items on a 10-point scale from“not at all”
420
to“extremely well”: (1) the overall quality of teamwork, (2)
421
the work efficiency as a team, (3) the punctuality of teamwork,
422
and (4) performance requirements on each sales season. These
423
four items were adapted indigenously from Mohammed and
424
Nadkarni’s (2011) measure of team performance and
validat-425
ed through our interviews on executive management (e.g.,
426
chief operation officers). Cronbach’s alpha was 0.71.
427
Member Collaboration Due to the shared working
environ-428
ment and frequent contacts with team members on a daily
429
basis, team leaders were capable of assessing how members
430
worked together to meet team requirements. This was also
431
confirmed in our pre-survey interviews on executive
manage-432
ment. We used a single-item measure developed with
refer-433
ence to Zhu et al.’s (2018) intrateam collaboration measure for
434
member collaboration, on a 10-point scale from“not at all” to
435
“extremely well.” The item was “Team members collaborate
436
to accomplish team tasks together.” The content validity of
437
single-item measures for team collaboration has been
evi-438
denced in prior team research (Cha et al.,2015), consistent
439
with claims from methodologists that single-item measures
440
are not inferior to multi-item measures (Gardner et al.,1998)
441
and could provide sufficient construct validity and reliability
442
(Rossiter,2008; Rousseau & Tijoriwala,1998). J Bus Psychol
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443 Control Variables We controlled for three factors that might
444 influence the relationship between leader centrality and team
445 performance. First, we controlled for average individual
per-446 formance to underline the unique impact of leader centrality
447 on team performance, recognizing that bringing together high
448 performers naturally increases team performance (Klein &
449 Kozlowski,2000; Kozlowski & Klein,2000). Team leaders
450 rated the individual performance of each subordinate on four
451 aspects of employee performance: (1) job obligations and
re-452 quirements, (2) punctuality on work tasks, (3) work quality,
453 and (4) conformity to norms and regulations. Cronbach’s
al-454 pha was 0.82. Second, we controlled for average member
455 conscientiousness, which was concluded in previous
meta-456 analytic reviews to predict team performance (Peeters et al.,
457 2006). Third, considering that team tenure is predictive of the
458 number and strength of social ties individual members have
459 (Mehra et al.,2001; Reagans & Zuckerman,2001) and thus
460 can reflect member influence in advice networks, we
con-461 trolled for average team tenure of individual members for a
462 more accurate view of leader centrality and its impacts.
463 Discriminant Validity and CFA Models Because team leaders
464 reported both member collaboration and team performance,
465 we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to test the
dis-466 criminant validity of these two measures. The two-factor
mod-467 el (member collaboration and team performance as two
sepa-468 rate factors) showed a good fit with the data (χ2
= 2.50, df = 4;
469 CFI = 1.00; RMSEA = 0.00, SRMR =0.03), with all items
470 loading significantly on their intended factors. Compared with
471 the one-factor model in which all items loaded onto one latent
472 variable (χ2= 8.76, df = 5; CFI =0.96; RMSEA =0.10, SRMR
473 =0.06), the two-factor model was significantly superior (χ2 (1)
474 = 6.26, p < .05). This supported our operationalizations of
475 member collaboration and team performance as distinct
476 variables.
477
Results
478 Table1 shows the descriptive statistics and correlations of
479 variables in this study.
480
Hypotheses Testing
481 We tested hypothesis 1 in a hierarchical regression. In support
482 for hypothesis 1, we found an interaction between leader
cen-483 trality and team size in shaping team performance (ΔR2
484 =0.10, b =0.15, t = 2.95, p < .01, 95% BCa CI = [0.05,
485 0.25]). The overall moderation model explained 29% of the
486 variance in team performance (see Table2and Fig.2).
487 To capture how the relationship between leader centrality
488 and team performance varied as a function of team size, we
489 probed the regions of significance for this effect with Johnson
490
and Neyman’s (1936) technique (Preacher et al.,2006). We
491
used Tan’s (2015) R package‘probemod’ for this analysis. As
492
shown in Table3, leader centrality was positively related to
493
team performance when team size was larger (11 and above),
494
but negatively related to team performance when team size
495
was smaller (7 and below).
496
Next, we tested the mediated moderation model
(hypothe-497
sis 2) with the R package“mediation” (Tingley et al.,2014).
498
This method allowed us to identify indirect effects at specific
499
values of the moderator. Following MacKinnon et al.’s (2004)
500
suggestion, we used the bias-corrected bootstrapping
simula-501
tion method to construct confidence intervals for indirect
502
effects.
503
Hypothesis 2 predicted that member collaboration
mediat-504
ed the joint impact of leader centrality and team size on team
505
performance. As shown in Table4, the impact of the
leader-506
centrality-by-team-size interaction decreased after the
inclu-507
sion of member collaboration. Our analysis of mediated
mod-508
eration showed only a weak indication of an indirect effect
509
across all levels of team size (ACME =−0.07, 95% BCa CI =
510
[−0.20, 0.02], p = .1). Considering that we anticipated that the
511
effect of centrality may not be positive across all team sizes
512
(possibly negative in smaller teams), the average causal
me-513
diated effect across all team sizes might not reveal an accurate
514
view for testing hypothesis 2. Thus, we analyzed conditional
515
indirect effects of leader centrality on different regions of team
516
sizes, in line with the significant regions detected above. In
517
line with predictions, in smaller teams (7 members and less),
518
the average causal mediated effect (ACME) was negative
519
(ACME =−0.13, 95% BCa CI = [−0.29, −0.02], p = .04). In
520
larger teams (11 members and more), the average causal
me-521
diated effect (ACME) was positive but nonsignificant (ACME
522
= 0.39, 95% BCa CI = [−0.66, 1.11], p = .49). Thus,
hypoth-523
esis 2 was only supported in the conditional indirect effect for
524
smaller teams but not for larger teams.
525
Supplementary Analysis of Leader Advice-Receiving
526
Centrality
527
We focused on advice-giving networks to study leader
posi-528
tions for leadership effectiveness, for it is the advice-giving
529
network that captures how leaders exert influence and
regula-530
tions. Advice-receiving networks, on the contrary, reflect
de-531
pendency and lack of influence. In this supplementary
analy-532
sis, we complemented our conceptual focus on advice-giving
533
networks with an analysis of advice-receiving networks. We
534
anticipated that the effect of leader advice-receiving centrality
535
would follow a different pattern and that our prediction of
536
leader advice-giving centrality would hold when taking the
537
advice-receiving centrality into account.
538
We measured advice-receiving ties using the same
ap-539
proach as for advice-giving. Team members reported on each
540
co-worker including the team leader,“To what extent do you J Bus Psychol
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541 receive professional advice from this person when having
542 work-related problems?” Results of a regression analysis 543
using otherwise the same predictors as for our primary
analy-544
sis revealed a marginally significant interaction between t1:1 Table 1 Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among study variablesa
t1:2 Variables Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6
t1:3 1. Team performance 7.65 1.17
-t1:4 2. Leader centrality in advice-giving networks 0.98 0.20 −0.08
-t1:5 3. Team size 8.65 3.29 0.03 −0.06
-t1:6 4. Member collaboration 8.73 1.45 0.64*** −0.13 −0.13
-t1:7 5. Average member performance 7.33 0.98 0.40*** 0.06 0.02 0.32**
-t1:8 6. Average member conscientiousness 7.23 0.57 0.12 −0.02 −0.19 0.21† 0.14
-t1:9 7. Average team tenure 1.10 0.38 0.12 −0.17 −0.14 0.09 0.06 −0.15
a N = 71 †p < .1 * p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .001
t2:1 Table 2 Regression results of hypothesis 1 and supplementary analysisa
t2:2 Variables R2 B t 95% CIs
t2:3
Lower Upper
t2:4 Hypothesis 1 (leader advice-giving centrality as a predictor)
t2:5 Constant 7.43 20.60*** 6.71 8.15
t2:6 Average member performance 0.40 3.20** 0.15 0.66
t2:7 Average team tenure 0.12 0.96 −0.13 0.38
t2:8 Average member conscientiousness 0.07 0.54 −0.19 0.33
t2:9 Leader centrality in advice-giving networks −1.30 −3.05** −2.15 −0.45
t2:10 Team size 0.03 0.72 −0.05 0.11
t2:11 Leader centrality × team size 0.15 2.95** 0.05 0.25
t2:12 ΔR2 0.10**
t2:13 R2 0.29**
t2:14 Supplementary analysis (leader advice-receiving centrality as a predictor)
t2:15 Constant 7.01 16.58*** 6.16 7.85
t2:16 Average member performance 0.45 3.51*** 0.19 0.71
t2:17 Average team tenure 0.13 0.96 −0.14 0.39
t2:18 Average member conscientiousness 0.16 1.19 −0.11 0.43
t2:19 Leader centrality in advice-receiving networks 0.63 1.21 −0.41 1.68
t2:20 Team size 0.08 1.67† −0.02 0.18
t2:21 Leader centrality × team size −0.10 −1.71† −0.23 0.02
t2:22 ΔR2 0.03†
t2:23 R2 0.25**
t2:24 Supplementary analysis (advice-giving centrality with advice-giving centrality subtracted)
t2:25 Constant 6.93 17.73*** 6.16 7.85
t2:26 Average member performance 0.38 3.08** 0.19 0.71
t2:27 Average team tenure 0.18 1.44 −0.14 0.39
t2:28 Average member conscientiousness 0.16 1.29 −0.11 0.43
t2:29 Leader centrality in advice-giving networks (advice-receiving subtracted) −1.00 −2.56* −0.41 1.68
t2:30 Team size 0.10 2.21* −0.02 0.18
t2:31 Leader centrality × team size 0.13 3.35** −0.23 −0.02
t2:32 ΔR2 0.12** t2:33 R2 0.32*** aN = 71 *** p < .001 ** p < .01 †p < .1 J Bus Psychol
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545 leader centrality in the advice-receiving network and team size
546 on team performance (b =−0.10, t =−1.71, p < .1, 95% BCa CI
547 = [−0.23, 0.02]; see Table2). Thus, the findings for leader
548 advice-receiving centrality in a sense mirror those for
ad-549 vice-giving, suggesting that where influence on the team is
550 concerned, receiving reflects the opposite of
advice-551 giving—and thus corroborating our conceptual argument for
552 the focus on advice-giving.
553
In a second analysis, we subtracted leader advice-receiving
554
centrality from the advice-giving centrality measure for a
ro-555
bustness test. Results of the moderation analysis revealed
con-556
sistent findings as in our primary analysis (see Table2): This
557
alternative advice centrality measure positively interacted
558
with team size (b =0.13, t = 3.29, p < .01, 95% BCa CI =
559
[0.05, 0.20]), with the entire model explaining 32% of the
560
variance.
561
Supplementary Analysis of Collective Leadership in
562
Advice-Giving Networks
563
As noted in the Introduction, the current focus on the network
564
centrality of team leaders is not in opposition to other
perspec-565
tives on team leadership; our focus on the role of the formal
566
team leader is not to deny the influence of the collective shared
567
leadership that team members may display. The leadership
568
literature has long recognized that team members more or less
569
engage in shared leadership in team functioning (Contractor
570
et al.,2012; Day et al.,2006; Friedrich et al.,2009) and that
571
shared leadership shapes team performance independent of
572
formal leaders’ influence (Nicolaides et al., 2014; Wang
573
et al.,2014). Prior research approached shared leadership from
574
a social network perspective and captured it in the
decentral-575
ization of team networks (Carter et al.,2015; Contractor et al.,
576
2012). In this supplementary analysis, we aimed to test the
577
robustness of the effect of leader advice-giving centrality
578
when controlling for shared leadership from the social
net-579
work perspective.
580
In line with prior studies (Contractor et al.,2012), we
cap-581
tured collective leadership as the decentralization of the
582
advice-giving network. Decentralized advice-giving networks
583
suggest that advice influence disperses among team members,
584
in contrast to centralized networks where the advice power
585
concentrates on one or few individuals. First, we tested the
586
influence of collective leadership on team performance.
587
Results showed no main effect of collective leadership on
588
team performance (b =0.01, t = 0.18, p > .1, 95% BCa CI =
589
[−0.08, 0.09]), nor an interaction effect with team size (b
590
=−.00, t =−0.13, p > .1, 95% BCa CI = [−0.01, 0.01]). In a Q3
591
second analysis, we entered collective leadership and its
inter-592
action with team size as controls in a robustness test of
hy-593
pothesis 1. Results were consistent with our primary analysis,
594
with a positive interaction between leader advice centrality
595
and team size (b =0.16, t = 3.63, p < .001, 95% BCa CI =
596
[0.07, 0.24]). This supported the robustness of our findings.
597
Discussion
598
There is a growing appreciation of the strategic positions
599
of leaders in team networks and possible impacts on team
600
effectiveness (Balkundi et al., 2009; Carter et al., 2015;
6 7 8 9 10 Low advice-giving centrality High advice-giving centrality T eam perf
ormance Low team size High team size
Fig. 2 Interaction effect of leader’s advice-giving centrality and team size on team performance (hypothesis 1)
t3:1 Table 3 Conditional effect of leader network centrality on team performance (hypothesis 1)
t3:2 Team size B t 95% confidence interval
t3:3 Lower Lower t3:4 4 −0.71 −2.92*** −1.19 −0.22 t3:5 5 −0.56 −2.78** −0.96 −0.16 t3:6 6 −0.41 −2.50* −0.74 −0.08 t3:7 7 −0.27 −1.92† −0.54 0.01 t3:8 8 −0.12 −0.94 −0.37 0.13 t3:9 9 0.03 0.22 −0.24 0.30 t3:10 10 0.18 1.13 −0.14 0.49 t3:11 11 0.32 1.71† −0.06 0.70 t3:12 12 0.47 2.05* 0.01 0.93 t3:13 13 0.62 2.27* 0.07 1.17 t3:14 14 0.77 2.41* 0.13 1.40 t3:15 15 0.91 2.51** 0.19 1.64 t3:16 16 1.06 2.58** 0.24 1.89 t3:17 17 1.21 2.63** 0.29 2.13 t3:18 18 1.36 2.67** 0.34 2.37 t3:19 19 1.50 2.70** 0.39 2.62 t3:20 20 1.68 2.73** 0.45 2.91 t3:21 21 1.81 2.75** 0.50 3.13 t3:22 22 1.95 2.77** 0.54 3.35 †p < .1 * p < .05 ** p < .01 J Bus Psychol
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601 Oh et al.,2004). In this respect, leader centrality has been
602 emphasized as the most important influence to consider
603 (Balkundi & Kilduff,2006). Contributing to this emerging
604 stream of research, we developed a model capturing
mod-605 eration and mediation in the influence of leader centrality
606 on team performance. We found that this relationship was
607 more positive in larger teams than in smaller teams
(hy-608 pothesis 1). We also found partial support for the
mediat-609 ing role of member collaboration in this moderated
influ-610 ence (hypothesis 2)—the conditional indirect effect was
611 significant for smaller teams but not for larger teams.
612 Two supplementary analyses spoke to the robustness of
613 these findings by establishing the distinctiveness of leader
614 advice-giving centrality from (1) leader advice-receiving
615 centrality and from (2) collective leadership as reflected in
616 the advice-giving network, and by showing the robustness
617 of our findings when controlling for these other aspects of
618 the advice network.
619
Theoretical Implications
620
The social network perspective offers insights to identify how
621
a leader’s position within the team network of relationships—
622
most notably network centrality—affects leadership
effective-623
ness (Kilduff & Krackhardt, 2008; Klein et al., 2004;
624
Krackhardt,1999). Prior studies of leader network centrality
625
advocated its positive effect (Balkundi et al.,2009; Balkundi
626
& Kilduff,2006). Since these seminal studies, however, the
627
field has not advanced much beyond this posited main effect
628
even in the face of inconsistent evidence for this effect. This is
629
somewhat surprising considering the prevalent contingency
630
view of team leadership effectiveness (Day et al., 2006;
631
Zaccaro et al.,2001).
632
To advance this line of research, we developed a
contin-633
gency approach and proposed that the effect of leader
central-634
ity should be understood from the perspective of team needs
635
for leadership (Day et al.,2006; Zaccaro et al.,2001). We t4:1 Table 4 Conditional
Q2 indirect effects of leader centrality on team performance (hypothesis 2)
t4:2 Ba t 95% CI
t4:3
LLCI ULCI
t4:4 Total effect (DV: team performance)
t4:5 Constant 7.28 24.30*** 6.69 7.86
t4:6 Average member performance 0.23 2.08* 0.01 0.44
t4:7 Average team tenure 0.09 0.81 −0.12 0.29
t4:8 Average member conscientiousness −0.01 −0.13 −0.22 0.20
t4:9 Leader centrality in advice-giving networks −0.93 −2.59* −1.63 −0.22
t4:10 Team size 0.05 1.43 −0.02 0.11
t4:11 Member collaboration (mediator) 0.62 5.54*** 0.40 0.85
t4:12 Leader centrality × team size 0.11 2.70** 0.03 0.19
t4:13 Conditional indirect effect
t4:14 Small teams (team size: 4–7) −0.13* −0.29 −0.02
t4:15 Large teams (team size: 11–22) 0.39 −0.66 1.11
t4:16 Conditional direct effect
t4:17 Small teams (team size: 4–7) −0.14 −0.31 0.16
t4:18 Large teams (team size: 11–22) 1.55* −0.10 2.57
t4:19 Conditional total effect
t4:20 Small teams (team size: 4–7) −0.27† −0.46 0.09
t4:21 Large teams (team size: 11–22) 1.95† −0.44 3.16
t4:22 Proportion mediated
t4:23 Small teams (team size: 4–7) 0.48† −5.05 0.86
t4:24 Large teams (team size: 11–22) 0.20 −22.53 0.21
N = 71. CI, confidence intervals *** p < .001 ** p < .01 *p < .05 †p < .1 a
Estimates for standard error (SE) were bootstrapped for 10,000 times J Bus Psychol
AUTHOR'S PROOF
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636 suggested that such needs for leadership in the substantive part
637 can be linked to a fundamental team characteristic—team size.
638 The importance of team size in team operations has been
639 stressed for a long time already, even when team size only
640 receives little empirical attention (Curral et al.,2001; Poulton
641 & West,1999). Our study underscores the value of team size
642 in predicting leader centrality effects. The results of this study
643 revealed that leader advice-giving centrality was only a
posi-644 tive influence on team performance in larger teams and can
645 even compose a negative influence in smaller teams. This
646 negative influence of leader centrality had not been
document-647 ed before, but is consistent with other lines of research
sug-648 gesting that a highly central member may block information
649 flows among team members and impair performance
650 (Hollenbeck et al.,2011; Pan et al.,2019).
651 Whereas the present study focused on team size as a key
652 indicator of team needs for leadership, the implication of this
653 underlying rationale is broader-ranging. Following a similar
654 logic, many factors relating to team needs for leadership can
655 be expected to affect the effectiveness of leader network
cen-656 trality. Team diversity, for example, is predictive of team
657 needs for leader interventions and thus highly relevant to the
658 influence of leader centrality in teams. The
Categorization-659 Elaboration Model of team diversity stressed the conditional
660 impact of team diversity (van Knippenberg et al.,2004). Team
661 diversity may benefit team performance (Bell et al.,2011) and
662 also stimulate task and relational conflicts among members
663 (Hobman et al., 2003). Diverse teams may struggle with
664 workflow issues and thus benefit more from leadership
inter-665 ventions (Kearney & Gebert,2009; Nederveen Pieterse et al.,
666 2019). In a similar vein, Tröster et al. (2014) found that teams
667 with higher cultural diversity benefited more from a
central-668 ized workflow network than less diverse teams. Despite the
669 absence of leadership focus in their study, their interpretation
670 in terms of a greater need for centralized coordination in more
671 diverse teams is well aligned with our proposition here. This
672 implies that linking the influence of leader network centrality
673 with team diversity could be a valuable next step in addressing
674 the broader implications of our analysis. It also invites
re-675 searchers to consider other moderating factors of the
relation-676 ship between a leader’s network centrality and team
perfor-677 mance that could feed into team communication and
coordi-678 nation challenges, and thus into team needs for leadership.
679 The implication of well-positioned team leaders can also be
680 extended to other perspectives of team leadership in literature.
681 Leadership functions in teams become manifest in various
682 forms. Team leaders are expected not merely to provide
guid-683 ance or suggestions when needed, but also to create shared
684 identities and understandings in team members (Steffens et al.,
685 2014) and to develop shared leadership and self-leadership
686 (Stewart et al., 2019). The social network perspective
687 concerning strategic leader positions can add value to these
688 approaches too (Carter et al.,2015). For instance, the social
689
identity perspective to team leadership emphasizes the benefit
690
of group prototypical leaders as well as leaders cultivating
691
collective identities in subordinates to motivate “collective
692
self-determination” (Hogg et al., 2012; van Dick et al.,
693
2018). This line of research has not been linked with the social
694
network perspective. An intriguing direction for future studies
695
may be to explore strategic network positions (e.g., network
696
center, or brokerage) for leaders to effectively foster collective
697
identity in teams.
698
Our finding that member collaboration mediated the
rela-699
tionship between leader centrality and team performance,
al-700
beit only for smaller teams, invites research to further explain
701
the mechanisms through which leader centrality affects team
702
performance. There are several conceptual discussions on this
703
issue (Balkundi & Kilduff, 2006; Balkundi et al., 2011;
704
Kratzer et al.,2008; Mehra et al.,2006). Yet, to the best of
705
our knowledge, Balkundi et al.’ (2011) study was the only
706
empirical study testing how leader network centrality affected
707
team performance. They explained this with the signaling
ef-708
fect of leader centrality, such that subordinates tend to view
709
more centrally positioned leaders as more charismatic and
710
inspiring, and subsequently are more prone to accept and carry
711
out leaders’ instructions. We complement their focus on
sub-712
ordinate perceptions of leaders by focusing on behavioral
pro-713
cesses as a mechanism involved in the effect of leader network
714
centrality. A logical follow-up may be to integrate these two
715
perspectives in a two-stage mediation process. That is, leader
716
centrality may affect member collaboration not only because
717
the central leaders alter how members communicate and
col-718
laborate in workflows but also because this position leads
719
members to view team leaders more positivelyand thus be Q4
720
more open to their influence.
721
We should also consider that the mediating role of member
722
collaboration was only found for smaller teams but not for
723
larger teams. In larger teams, we did observe a positive effect
724
of leader centrality, but it was not mediated by member
col-725
laboration. Given the conservative nature of null hypothesis
726
significance testing, we would be hesitant to dismiss the
no-727
tion of team collaboration mediating the positive effects of
728
leader network centrality. Nevertheless, it is useful to
specu-729
late about alternative mechanisms that may have played a role
730
here. In that respect, we may draw on the notion that leader
731
centrality can also reduce team collaboration, as per our
find-732
ings for smaller teams and the evidence that centralized
com-733
munication may discourage communication with less central
734
team members (Brass & Burkhardt, 1993; Leenders et al.,
735
2003). The positive role of leader centrality may be less about
736
stimulating collective positive behaviors (such as member
col-737
laboration) without the direct involvement of team leaders, but
738
more about resolving conflicts among members (Babalola
739
et al.,2018). Future research would have to speak to the merits
740
of these considerations, but the fact that we did not find full
741
support for our mediation model at least suggests that it is J Bus Psychol
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742 valuable to further explore alternative mediating processes in
743 future research.
744
Practical Implications
745 By speaking to the positive and negative influence of leader
746 network centrality, our study also has managerial
implica-747 tions. Team leaders can actively seek advice-giving roles in
748 the team network of social interactions. Whereas earlier
stud-749 ies advised team leaders to strive for central positions in the
750 advice-giving network, our results suggest that leaders may
751 either want to build a central position in the team’s
advice-752 giving network or to avoid taking such a central position. Our
753 findings show that leader network centrality is beneficial in
754 larger teams but detrimental in smaller teams. This influence
755 holds regardless of the collective leadership among team
756 members. Although the cut-off point of larger (11 members
757 and more) versus smaller teams (7 members and less) in this
758 study should not be taken as absolute, the implication is clear
759 that teams benefit when leaders take team size into account in
760 determining how they position themselves within the team’s
761 advice-giving network.
762 In a broader sense, our findings suggest that managers
763 should carefully consider team needs in determining how to
764 position themselves in team social networks—to what extent
765 the team is likely to experience communication and
coordina-766 tion challenges and desires external leadership interventions.
767 Depending on the extent to which such team needs seem
like-768 ly, team leaders may consider building a more central or
pe-769 ripheral position in the advice-giving flows of teams. By
im-770 plication, organizations may also consider taking such
consid-771 erations on board in leadership development programs to help
772 leaders leverage their network positions. The social network
773 approach also provides a powerful tool for managers to
accu-774 rately detect their network positions and obtain actionable
775 insights to identify when and how to intervene.
776
Limitations and Future Directions
777 As in all research, the choices made in this study come with
778 some limitations that invite future research. First, our study is
779 correlational and does not establish causality. Ideally, future
780 work would include field experiments with interventions
781 targeted at leader centrality (i.e., as per our implications for
782 practice, leaders can to some extent actively shape their
net-783 work positions) to establish causality and to rule out the
influ-784 ence of other variables that may covary with network
785 centrality.
786 Second, our measure of member collaboration is not
787 ideal. Having both member collaboration and team
per-788 formance rated by team leaders might inflate this
rela-789 tionship, even when CFA evidence supported the
dis-790 tinction between these two variables. We followed the
791
network tradition to measure collaboration with one
792
item (Uzzi & Spiro, 2005). Future studies could employ
793
multi-item measures that may be more robust in
captur-794
ing collaboration. For team performance, future research
795
would ideally draw on more objective company
assess-796
ments of team performance from, for instance, corporate
797
performance management. This would reduce common
798
source biases and address the issue we turn to next—
799
social-desirability bias in survey responses.
800
We may also note that we administered the survey to
801
all team leaders during a monthly review meeting in the
802
headquarter of this company. Although it boosted the
re-803
sponse rate, the location and timing of this survey might
804
have triggered socially desirable responses in team leaders
805
(Thompson & Phua, 2005). This may be particularly the
806
case in a culture like China characterized by high power
807
distance and uncertainty avoidance (Bernardi, 2006). A
808
social-desirability bias in team leaders would most likely
809
result in overrating team collaboration and performance
810
(both rated by team leaders). This would lead to an
un-811
derestimation of the strength of the relationships in our
812
model, and may explain to some extent why we found
813
no evidence of the positive mediation path in larger
814
teams. Future research would benefit from using more
815
objective performance measures and from administering
816
surveys in a context that minimizes potential social
817
pressures.
818
Lastly, we only focused on leaders’ positions within
819
intrateam networks. Whereas this is important and can
820
be studied in and of itself, leaders also have external
821
functions (e.g., coordinating with other teams, securing
822
management support; Ancona, 1990; Ancona &
823
Caldwell, 1992). The current focus on the internal
net-824
work is not to deny the importance of external networks
825
of team leaders (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Mehra
826
et al., 2006). Understanding the role of team leaders’
827
network positions in both internal and external networks
828
is a valuable direction for future research (Carter et al.,
829
2015).
830
Conclusion
Q5831
The impact of leader centrality on team performance is
832
an important issue in understanding team leadership
833
from the social network perspective. Our study
contrib-834
utes to this perspective by developing a mediated
mod-835
eration model of the influence of leader network
cen-836
trality. In doing so, it lays the foundations for future
837
research to systematically map the influence of factors
838
that reflect a team’s needs for leadership—the extent to
839
which teams face communication and coordination J Bus Psychol
