The Interactive Effect of Task Complexity and Informal Hierarchy Steepness on Team Coordination and Performance:
Evidence from a Diverse Field Study.
Master´s Thesis
MSc Human Resource Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
January 29, 2017
Alexander Seng Studentnumber: S2680483
Warmoesstraat 7a 9724JH Groningen Tel.: +49 (0)174 9892275 E-Mail: a.seng.1@student.rug.nl
Supervisor: Jacoba Oedzes
Course: Master´s Thesis HRM
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ABSTRACT
Nowadays teams are usually confronted by diverse and complex tasks but research still lacks clarity about how this affects team´s ability for coordination and performance. The same holds for how hierarchical structures can benefit or harm teams under different levels of complexity. Therefore, the underlying research was motivated to shed light on the processes that ultimately determine team success or failure, by investigating the interaction between task complexity and informal hierarchy steepness. A field study was conducted including 263 team members from 57 teams out of various business sectors. The results could not resolve mixed findings about the impact of complexity on coordination and could not provide support for informal hierarchy steepness as an appropriate moderator for this relationship. But interestingly, findings revealed a significant positive main effect of informal hierarchy steepness on team performance. Based on this, informal hierarchy steepness is concluded to play a central role in determining team success.
Keywords: teams, task complexity, hierarchy, coordination, influence, performance
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INTRODUCTION
“Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” (Edward E. Hale, 1922).
In line with this early prediction about the importance of teamwork, organizations nowadays increasingly rely on teams to solve complex and diverse tasks (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001) leading to an overall growing importance of teams in business (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). This is because, in contrast to working alone, teams are able to combine diverse sets of knowledge, skills and resources that lead to higher performance of teams as compared to individuals. However, along with the benefits of teamwork (e.g. having greater sets of skills and knowledge available) also come potential downfalls. This arises from the fact that within teams, multiple people have to work collectively which requires successful interpersonal coordination (Bruns, 2013; Fisher, 2014). In fact, successful coordination appears to be vital for teams in order to reach high performance. In other words, group members have to be able to successfully combine their individual contributions in order to collectively accomplish their goals (Fisher, 2014; Marks, Sabella, Burke, & Zaccaro, 2002; Wang, Lin, & Yang, 2014). Accordingly, coordination is a critical antecedent factor for team performance (Gardner, 2010).
Previous work has suggested that coordination success (and therefore also performance) is dependent on the complexity of groups’ tasks. Nowadays, task complexity was found to be generally increasing for teams because of more diverse and complex dependencies between tasks and members (Espinosa, Lerch, Kraut, Salas, & Fiore, 2004).
Interestingly, however, the level of complexity differs from one team to another and is determined by the nature of tasks with which teams are typically confronted. While some teams have to deal with relatively simple and routine tasks, others are confronted by more
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complex and diverse tasks. It seems intuitively appealing that teams facing more complex tasks experience greater difficulty in coordinating their activities and that task complexity therefore prevents successful performance.
Nonetheless, mixed findings exist about how task complexity affects coordination success. On the one hand, by simply requiring more coordination, increasing complexity can result in better coordination necessitating team members to collectively adapt to task demands and adjust their behaviour to facilitate successful task completion. This perspective is supported by Wittenbaum, Vaughan, & Stasser (1998) who found that an increase in complexity leads to more coordination activities. On the other hand, task complexity might impede team coordination as it is simply more difficult to coordinate successfully (Xiao, Hunter, Mackenzie, Jefferies, & Horst, 1996). In accordance with Xiao et al. (1996), it will be argued for a negative relationship between task complexity and coordination success because of the difficulties for coordination in coping with the increase of different components and interdependencies.
Reviewing both approaches, coordination success significantly hinges on team´s ability to divide tasks, resources and responsibilities amongst team members in order to align their individual interactions. One key determinant of teams’ ability to deal with task division effectively is hierarchy steepness (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Ronay, Greenaway, Anicich, &
Galinsky, 2012). Functional theories of hierarchy contend that strong hierarchies (i.e., steep hierarchies) have advantages of reducing conflicts, increasing cooperation and enhancing team functioning (Cantimur, Rink, & van der Vegt, 2016; Halevy, Chou, & Galinsky, 2011a;
Ronay et al., 2012). This is because, in strong hierarchies, a “chain of influence” is present in the group through which members effectively influence each other in decision-making and resolving disagreements (Hage, 1995). As such, steeper hierarchies may help teams to cope with difficulties related to high task complexity and may therefore alleviate the proposed negative relationship between task complexity and coordination success. In contrast, under
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low hierarchy steepness, teams experience problems with allocating tasks and responsibilities, maintaining communication, minimizing conflict and consensus over collective goals (Anderson & Brown, 2010) because through the absence of clear roles and division of labour.
Therefore, it is proposed that informal hierarchy steepness moderates the negative relationship between task complexity and coordination success such that the negative relation is less pronounced under high hierarchical steepness. Moreover, it is argued that the interaction between complexity and steepness significantly affects team performance through coordination success. Hence, higher degrees of team coordination success lead to higher degrees of team performance.
As hierarchy steepness may prove to resolve coordination problems due to task complexity, practitioners should not lose track of the importance of hierarchy in groups.
Specifically, practitioners may choose to adjust roles and responsibilities inside a team in order to create a clear hierarchy that may help groups to coordinate successfully and perform well. Finding research-based evidence to the underlying proposition will advice practitioners to raise hierarchical steepness for teams who are confronted by more complex tasks because hierarchies provide clear division of roles and labour which enhances coordination (Halevy et al., 2011a). With respect to theory, the main contribution of the underlying research lies in resolving mixed findings in literature about the relationship between task complexity and coordination success by presenting hierarchy steepness as a key moderator. As mentioned earlier, in situations of high task complexity, some scholars argue for a positive relationship because teams are capable to adjust and cope with complexity. In contrast, others argue that high complexity produces difficulties and therefore is negatively related to coordination.
Introducing hierarchy steepness as a moderator delivers an explanation for those mixed findings in literature as steeper hierarchies provide an appropriate framework for teams with clear distribution of tasks, resources and responsibilities facilitating coordination (Magee &
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Galinsky, 2008). Therefore, in some studies teams were successful in dividing their tasks, roles and responsibilities whereas other teams were not.
Furthermore, this study aims to shed new light on the functionalist perspective of hierarchies. The functionalist perspective is an approach proposing that hierarchies are a solution for major problems occurring when working in teams. So far, scholars argued that hierarchies can overcome problems such as collective-decision making in teams, motivating individual members to contribute to the group, reducing intra-group conflict and facilitating communication in order to improve intra-group coordination (Anderson & Brown, 2010;
Halevy, Chou, Galinsky & Murnighan, 2011b; Ronay et al., 2012). This study assumes that informal hierarchies lead to higher coordination only under high task complexity wherefore it argues that hierarchies are only functional under certain situations. This adds a boundary condition to the functionalist perspective generalizing that in situations with no need for hierarchies, hierarchies are not necessarily functional but in contrast, hierarchies become functional when complexity increases.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The relation between task complexity and team coordination
Task complexity is an objective task characteristic, reflecting the degree of uncertainty and the number of different components and interdependencies (Campbell, 1988; Lee, Espinosa, & DeLone, 2013). Complex tasks are typically unpredictable, high in variability and non-repetitive in nature (Ven & Delbecq, 1976; Withey, Daft, & Cooper, 1983). That means a complex task is characterized by a great number of different task components and interdependencies which, for teams to perform well, all need to be successfully integrated and coordinated (Campbell, 1988; Lee et al., 2013).
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Coordination has been defined as the “alignment of actions allowing teams to combine individual efforts to accomplish collective goals” (Fisher, 2014). In order to arrive at aligned interactions, team members have to manage interdependencies among activities (Bruns, 2013;
Malone & Crowston, 1994). When a team possesses a high level of coordination, the work of all members contributes to their collective goals, but when coordination is low, team members work in a different pace or are unable to combine their separate tasks into one coherent whole;
this has a negative impact on team performance (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). In order to reach coordination success, individuals need to obtain insights into the working of their team members, share information with their team members, and mutually adjust with them (DeChurch & Marks, 2006). With regard to task complexity, which is characterized by high numbers of interdependencies, teams have to manage those interdependencies (e.g.
coordinate) more successfully when task complexity is high rather than low. Nonetheless, mixed findings exist in literature about the relationship.
One line of empirical work has found a positive relationship between task complexity and team coordination. For example, Wittenbaum et al. (1998) found that confronted by increasing task complexity, teams tend to engage in more coordination activities – and it is suggested that this increases coordination success. Similarly, Ven & Delbecq (1976) discovered that uncertainty increases the need of using coordination activities and knowledge in order to cope with increased complexity. The findings of Hovik & Hanssen (2015) further support this by stating that teams facing more complex tasks score better on coordination.
However, the underlying suggestion in these papers assumes that increased coordination activities would automatically lead to coordination success (Ven & Delbecq, 1976;
Wittenbaum et al., 1998) which is doubtful because a direct linkage between more coordination activities and coordination success misses evidence. Furthermore, it is highly unclear if teams posses the required knowledge to cope with an increasing demand. Hence,
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greater task complexity includes the potential danger of a knowledge-lack which can easily lead to coordination failure because teams become overwhelmed.
Notably, other theorists argue for a negative relationship of task complexity on coordination success. That is, due to an increased number of interdependencies and task components, team members have more difficulty in aligning all their interactions and therefore successful team coordination is more difficult to achieve (Bruns, 2013; Lee et al., 2013; Tesluk, Mathieu, Zaccaro, & Marks, 1997). Higher complexity requires teams to engage in coordination activities in order to be successful but simultaneously create the probability of failure (Xiao et al., 1996). Therefore, task complexity was found to easily cause goal conflicts, task interference and unwilled competition (Xiao et al., 1996). Hence, increasing complexity makes it more difficult to run team processes effectively and thereby raises the probability for conflicts, mistakes and misunderstandings.
Indeed, empirical work supports this assertion by showing that projects having many interacting parameters have a higher probability of failure (Pich, Loch, & Meyer, 2002). In line with this, the likeliness of mistakes and misunderstandings was found to be higher when teams were confronted by more complex tasks rather than by more simple ones (Pich et al., 2002). Further, Xiao et al. (1996) have demonstrated that characteristics of task complexity as multiple and concurrent tasks, uncertainty, complex work procedures or competition about responsibilities challenge coordination processes and increase the potential for breakdown in team coordination.
Thus, the strong and prevalent argumentation for a negative main effect combined with lacking clarity of the opposed argumentation, lead to the following proposition:
Hypothesis 1. Task complexity and coordination success are negatively related.
9 The moderating effect of hierarchy steepness
There is consensus in literature that influence asymmetries (influence is the capacity to change the actions, behaviours or opinions of others; Emerson, 1962) unavoidably emerge within work teams even when members seem to have equal influence at first sight (Cantimur et al., 2016). Teams with large influence asymmetries suggest greater informal hierarchy steepness (i.e., stronger hierarchy) whereas teams with smaller asymmetries have lower hierarchy steepness (i.e., weaker hierarchy) (Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Ridgeway & Walker, 1995). Hierarchy steepness refers to the overall degree of member´s differences in influence within the team (Bunderson et al., 2016) and is characterized as a property of a relation rather than an attribute of an actor (Emerson, 1962). In the following, hierarchy strength (i.e., weak vs. strong) is conceptualized as hierarchy steepness which is the dominant conceptualization in the literature nowadays (Bunderson et al., 2016; Cantimur et al., 2016; Everett &
Krackhardt, 2012).
Regarding the proposed negative effect of complexity on coordination it is assumed that hierarchy steepness is one crucial factor that moderates this negative relationship.
According to the functionalist perspective strong hierarchies are beneficial for groups because they help teams in creating clear structure and maintain communication (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011a). Indeed, empirical work demonstrates that hierarchies were found to help groups to successfully deal with the division of tasks, resources and responsibilities (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009; Van Vugt, 2006). This is interesting because high complexity was identified as one reason why teams fail to successfully coordinate (Pich et al., 2002; Xiao et al., 1996). Therefore, hierarchy steepness and the proposed effects on the complexity- coordination relationship will be exemplified in the following. Hierarchy steepness is assumed to overcome potential difficulties in reaching coordination in teams working on complex tasks because steeper hierarchies minimize conflict and facilitate communication through differential appropriation of responsibilities and control (Anderson & Brown, 2010;
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Cantimur et al., 2016; Ronay et al., 2012). In other words, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which are characteristic of strong hierarchies (i.e., steep hierarchies), help to reduce conflicts about responsibilities and resources and increase coordination by giving teams a comprehensive framework for actions (Halevy et al., 2011a). Therefore, it is proposed that hierarchy steepness moderates the negative relationship of task complexity on team coordination.
Under low hierarchy steepness it is assumed that the expected negative relationship between task complexity and coordination success (H1) will be strong. The reason for this is that teams with low hierarchical strength lack a clear framework that defines roles and responsibilities and thereby restricts actionability (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011a; Ronay et al., 2012). Under situations characterized by low task complexity this absence of a clear organizing framework in the form of hierarchy is not problematic but under higher task complexity team members have to integrate their tasks into a coherent whole and the need for hierarchy to help with this becomes more pending (Lee et al., 2013). In such situations coordination success will suffer because of overwhelming difficulties which cannot be solved considering that tasks and responsibilities are ambiguous and lead to a lack of clarity increasing the likeliness of conflict, mistakes and misunderstandings (Tesluk et al., 1997; Xiao et al., 1996). Taken together, low hierarchical strength cannot cope with the difficulties of increasing task complexity and therefore raises the probability of coordination failure (Xiao et al., 1996) causing a strong negative effect. In contrast, in teams with high hierarchical steepness this negative effect becomes less pronounced due to the fact that steeper hierarchies enhance coordination through clear distribution of tasks, responsibilities, and roles which is exactly what is required by teams working on complex tasks (Anderson &
Brown, 2010). Situations with low task complexity are unproblematic as they do not impede coordination by problems compelling teams to coordinate greater numbers of different task components and interdependencies (Lee et al., 2013). The non-existence of challenging
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complexity makes tasks relatively simple and teams can coordinate successfully. Moreover, even situations involving high task complexity are unproblematic as steeper hierarchies deliver the needed scope for actions which was found to be beneficial for coordination success (Halevy et al., 2011a; Ronay et al., 2012). As such, increasing task complexity will not decrease coordination success because the strong informal hierarchy prevents this. Despite this, the unequal distribution of influence within steeper hierarchies facilitates coordination of individual´s efforts and ultimately benefits the group as wholes (Van Vugt, 2006).
Accordingly, it is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 2. Hierarchy steepness moderates the relationship between task complexity and team coordination success, such that the negative relation is more pronounced under low hierarchical steepness.
The relationship between a team´s coordination and performance
In the literature on coordination it is assumed that coordination among team members is one essential mechanism through which unique inputs such as diverse individual abilities or task-relevant knowledge are transformed into team performance (Fisher, 2014; Fleishman &
Zaccaro, 1992). Especially in interdependent teams the ability of team members to work together is the main function of effectiveness (Gardner, 2010). Teams who are able to successfully coordinate their individual actions are therefore likely to have a higher performance in comparison to teams coordinating their actions less successful. This reasoning is in line with LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu, & Saul (2008) who assumed that converting individual cognitive, verbal and behavioural activities into one coherent whole benefits achieving collective goals and in turn enhances team performance.
Indeed, there is overwhelming empirical support for the positive relationship between a team´s coordination and performance. Dailey (1980) conducted a research with R&D project groups and obtained significant results that coordination is an important antecedent of
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team performance. Further research on cross-training found that team coordination improves team`s ability to accomplish its overall goal (Marks et al., 2001, 2002). In line with this, coordination was proved to be a strong indicator of team performance in different settings such as virtual teams (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2007), software development projects (Parolia, Goodman, Li, & Jiang, 2007) or boards of directors (He & Huang, 2011). In sum, coordination was found to be an antecedent of team performance because team members need to coordinate in order to exchange expertise and information. This in turn facilitates teams to work on goals collectively which consequently enhances team performance (Wang et al., 2014). Hence, it is proposed:
Hypothesis 3. The interaction between task complexity and hierarchy steepness positively affects team performance because of coordination success.
FIGURE 1. Conceptual Model
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METHODOLOGY
Sample and Procedures
In order to mitigate concerns of research focusing on one type of teams, data was collected from a diverse sample of teams out of various business sectors. Data was conducted from teams out of more than 12 different industries including amongst others: business
Task Complexity
Hierarchy Steepness
Team Performance Team
Coordination
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services, information technology, healthcare, finance and government services. In terms of organizational size, 18 teams (32%) worked in organizations with fewer than 20 employees, 15 teams (26%) in organizations with 20 to 99 employees, 14 teams (24%) in organizations with 100 to 499 employees, and 10 teams (18%) in organizations with a size of 500 or more employees.
Data collection was conducted via an online questionnaire by the University of Groningen in which participation was voluntary and confidentiality assured. After teams were identified team leaders were invited to participate in the study. The participating teams were selected on the required criteria consisting of at least 4 members, having common goals, being interdependent, jointly accountable and having regular team meetings (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; see for similar procedures Bunderson et al., 2016). Those who agreed to participate provided additional information by filling in team description forms. Such team description forms included contact details, name of the team members, organization and department as well as specification of the team´s tasks and goals. In the following, two separate surveys were distributed: a team leader survey and a team member survey. In the member survey team members rated dyadic influence (as input for the hierarchy strength calculation), task complexity and team coordination. In the leader survey leaders rated overall team performance.
In this study 79 teams were initially approached and filled in team description forms.
Of these, twenty-three were unresponsive, declined or were later excluded because less than 50% of the team responded or team leader remained unresponsive. Overall, the final sample consisted of 263 respondents from 57 work teams. The response rate was 77% for team leaders and 71% for team members. The size of the participating teams (including team leader) ranged from 4 to 13 whereby the mean team size was 5.04 (SD = 1.97). The distribution of gender for team members was 44% male and 56% female having a mean age of 31.46 (SD = 10.21), mean organizational tenure of 6.23 (SD = 8.11) and a mean team
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tenure of 3.37 (SD = 4.51). The majority of all team members (59%) had an associate degree in college. With regard to team leaders 56% were male and 44% were female with a mean age of 36.04 (SD = 10.35), mean organizational tenure of 9.65 (SD = 8.66) and mean team tenure of 5.05 (SD = 5.01). Moreover, 67% of all leaders obtained a bachelor´s degree in college or higher.
Measures
Task Complexity. In order to measure task complexity the employee questionnaire included a Likert-scale from 1 to 7 about the type of task that participants perform.
Subsequently, task complexity was measured on an individual level. All items could be answered on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). The 8 items, based on Withey et al. (1983), amongst others included: “In general, we perform repetitive activities in doing our jobs” and “We follow an understandable sequence of steps in performing our team tasks.” Scores were averaged to form a single indicator of task complexity. The internal consistency was high (Cronbach´s α= .78) and aggregation statistics supported aggregation to the team level: ICC1 = .31; ICC2 = .60; mean rwg = .84.
Hierarchy Steepness. The variable hierarchy steepness was measured using a dyadic rating system. Employees were given the names of all team members and were asked to indicate the extent to which each team member “exerts influence over me” (1 = not at all; 2 = somewhat; 3 = to a large extent). Dyadic influence ratings were aggregated to team level as hierarchy steepness resembles the extent of influence asymmetries inside a team. In this process steepness was computed as the standard deviation of influence scores within a team.
This approach of measuring steepness is based on respected research in the field of hierarchies (Bunderson et al., 2016; Cantimur et al., 2016).
Team Coordination. The term team coordination was measured on an individual level rated by team members on a 7-point Likert scale. For this, 5 items were used which amongst
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others included “My team works together in a well-coordinated fashion.”, ”My team has trouble coordinating the pace members want to work at” and “My team has difficulty with timing interactions between members.” (Janicik & Bartel, 2003; Lewis, 2003). Past research provides compelling evidence that those items are valid indicators of team coordination.
Scores were averaged to form a single indicator of team coordination in which Cronbach´s alpha was .78 and aggregation statistics supported aggregating to the team level: ICC1 = 0.32;
ICC2 = 0.61; rwg = .80.
Team Performance. Due to high diverse work teams executing a great range of tasks related to different roles and responsibilities, team performance was appropriately broadly measured. Therefore, team leader rated team performance on a 7-point Likert scale in terms of how their team scores on productivity, effectiveness, ability of meeting deadlines and objectives as well as work pace and quality (Van der Vegt, De Jong, Bunderson, & Molleman, 2010). Cronbach´s alpha was .85 suggesting that leaders evaluated an overall valid construct of team performance.
Control variables. Analyses were controlled for age and gender diversity as these demographics of group composition were found to influence performance and individual interactions (Gladstein, 1984). In addition, team size and team tenure (for employees and leaders) were included as controls as team size varied substantially across teams and both variables are commonly associated with team performance (e.g. Ancona & Caldwell, 1992;
Katz, 1982). All controls were included in the descriptive and correlation table 1 in order to demonstrate absence of significant correlations.
Statistical analyses
Prior to testing the hypotheses all independent variables were z-standardised to facilitate interpretation of the results. In addition, missing values for control variables were replaced by the mean. After this, data was analyzed by regression analysis based on 5.000
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bootstrap samples using Process Macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2014). Again, because none of the control variables exhibited a significant relation with the outcome variable in the model, all control variables were excluded from hypotheses testing to avoid biased parameter estimates.
Notably, results remained relatively unchanged when incorporating any or all control variables.
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for all variables are reported in Table 1. As table 1 indicates, there was a non-significant relationship between task complexity and coordination (r = -.12, p > .05). This is somewhat contradictory to the first hypothesis (a negative relationship was hypothesized) but analyses may demonstrate that the negative relationship only holds under low informal hierarchy steepness. Furthermore, a non- significant relationship exists between team coordination and team performance (r = .06, p >
.05). This correlation contradicts previous work that has quite consistently demonstrated a positive correlation between team coordination and team performance (e.g. Fisher, 2014;
Fleishman & Zaccaro, 1992; Gardner, 2010). Interestingly, hierarchy steepness was found to be significantly correlated with team performance (r = .31, p < .05). This is in line with the findings of Halevy et al. (2011b) who found support for the functionalist perspective stating a positive relationship.
17 TABLE 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations.
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 Task complexity 3.46 .69
2 Hierarchy steepness .43 .27 .15
3 Team coordination 4.82 .91 -.12 -.13
4 Team performance 5.52 .79 -.05 .31* .06
5 Team size 5.04 1.97 -.06 -.09 .02 .00
6 Team tenure (employee) 3.25 2.89 .16 -.11 .09 -.10 .01
7 Team tenure (leader) 5.07 4.99 -.01 -.08 -.02 .20 .05 .46**
8 Age diversity 31.62 8.10 .10 -.28* .06 -.17 -.03 .62** .24
9 Gender diversity 1.57 .37 -.18 .16 -.02 .02 -.13 -.02 .04 -.06
N=57. *** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05.
Hypotheses Testing
Table 3 presents the results of the regression analyses examining the main and interactive effects of the independent variables on team coordination and team performance.
Model 1 reports the results for the model that include team coordination as dependent variable whereas Model 2 and 3 present the results for the models with team performance as dependent variable. The first hypothesis expected a negative relationship between task complexity and team coordination success. Regression analysis showed a non-significant negative relation (model 1; B = -.10, SE = .12, p = .45). Therefore, obtained results were not in line with the hypothesis. The same holds for the second hypothesis predicting that hierarchy steepness moderates the relationship between complexity and coordination, such that the negative relation is less pronounced under high hierarchical steepness. As shown in table 3, the interaction coefficient for task complexity x hierarchy steepness was not significantly
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associated with coordination success (model 1; B = .17, SE = .15, p = .25). In the following Figure 2 illustrates the moderating effect of hierarchy steepness on the relationship between task complexity and team coordination. Additionally the conditional effect of task complexity on team coordination is given at different values of the moderator in table 2.
FIGURE 2. The moderation effect of hierarchy steepness on the relationship between task complexity and team coordination
TABLE 2. Conditional effect of task complexity on team coordination at values of steepness Conditional effect of IV on DV at values of the moderator:
[95% Confidence Interval]a
Boot Indirect Relation Lower Bound Upper Bound - 1SD (-1.00) -.26 -.65 .13
M -.10 -.34 .15
+1SD (+1.00) .07 -.31 .46
Note. N = 57. Unstandardized regression coefficients are shown; standard errors are noted within parentheses.
a Based on 5,000 bootstrap samples;
*p < .05, **p < .01 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Low Complexity High Complexity
Team Coordination
Low HS High HS
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Finally, it was assumed that the interaction between task complexity and team coordination should also affect team performance (model 2; B = -.05, SE = .12, p = .59) because it was hypothesized to be mediated by team coordination (model 3; B = -.09, SE = .12, p = .44). Contrary to the expectations, both relationships were found not to be significant which shows that coordination success as a mediator is not significant on team performance.
All results of the regression analysis are presented in table 3.
TABLE 3. Regression results: Team coordination and team performance.
Model 1:
Team Coordination
Model 2:
Team Performance
Model 3:
Team Performance
Independent variable
Task complexity -.10 (.12) -.07 (.10) -.06 (.10)
Moderator
Hierarchy steepness -.08 (.13) .25 (.11)* .25 (.11)*
Interaction
Task complexity x
Hierarchy steepness .17 (.15) -.05 (.12) -.07 (.12)
Mediator
Team coordination --- --- .09 (.12)
Model F .92 2.06 1.70
R-squared .05 .11 .12
N=57. *** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05
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DISCUSSION
The main goal of this paper was to resolve mixed findings of task complexity´s effects on coordination. In relation to this, it was aimed to further shed light on when hierarchy steepness in teams has positive or negative effect on this relationship. It was expected that complexity has negative effects on coordination which are moderated by steeper hierarchies.
Furthermore, it was hypothesized that the interaction between task complexity and hierarchy steepness positively affects performance due to coordination. Results did not support these initial hypotheses but demonstrated a significant main effect of steepness on performance which comes with important implications.
Theoretical implications
In literature, mixed findings exist with regard to hierarchy steepness’ effects on performance. On the one hand, some researchers support a contingency approach arguing that steeper hierarchies sometimes harm and sometimes benefit performance because different types of hierarchies are appropriate for different kind of situations (Anderson & Brown, 2010;
Blau & Scott, 1962, Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967). On the other hand, there is strong support for a functionalist perspective on hierarchies which claims a general positive effect due to clear distribution of roles, responsibilities and tasks (Halevy et al., 2011a; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). Therefore, the obtained findings are in line with previous research about the functional perspective of hierarchies noticing a positive main effect.
Interestingly, this functional approach that argues for the positive consequences of informal hierarchy steepness raises coordination as the main mediating mechanism. That means, these theorists argue that informal hierarchy steepness is positive because group members are better able to align their efforts and coordinate well when steepness is high. The
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current findings demonstrated no significant mediation of coordination on performance. This rather curious finding suggests that informal hierarchy steepness may have positive effects on team performance because of other mediating variables. One explanation may be delivered by Bunderson and colleagues (2016) who found that informal hierarchies were positively related to performance because of its conflict-reducing properties. Even though they argued for coordination as a potential mediator as well their results only demonstrate a mediating effect of conflict towards performance. When looking at the current operationalization of informal hierarchy steepness (which is the same as the operationalization used by Bunderson and colleagues (2016)), conflict may indeed be a better explanatory mechanism than coordination.
Specifically, informal hierarchy steepness in this sample was measured from the perspective of the “influencee” rather than from an “influencer” which acknowledges that the influence relations capturing hierarchies are based on the acceptance by one team member of another member´s influence over her or him instead of members only perceiving that they have influence over others. It is assumed that this conceptualization of hierarchy is more likely to capture the functional benefits of hierarchy steepness as a clear chain of command, allocation of task and responsibilities, maintenance of communication among members and minimization of intra-group conflict (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Levine & Moreland, 1990).
In line with this, influence as the capacity to change actions, behaviours and opinions of others (Emerson, 1962) may effectively decrease conflict through clear top-down directives from influential members which reduce ambiguities about e.g. scheduling task activities (Cantimur et al, 2016). This conflict-regulation function does not necessarily requires action or conformity from the conflicting parties but is expected to be successful through clear determination of high influential members whose decisions are likely to be accepted from both sides. Therefore, hierarchies capturing influence relations are assumed to enhance performance though greater conflict resolution which is functional as one-way relationships.
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In contrast, coordination requires collaboration and conformity from both sides and for this reason functions more like two-way relationships. For instance, high influence members are not necessarily able to facilitate coordination success as this first and foremost requires collaboration and willingness of the involved parties (instead of decision power of influential third-party members). This does not only support obtained findings in line with the functionalist approach but moreover directly sheds light to conflict as a strong mediator.
Indeed, literature points at conflict as one main explanatory mechanism behind the negative effects of hierarchy steepness on performance (Halevy et al, 2011a; Ronay et al., 2012). For example, conflict was found to be harmful for performance because members restrict collaboration and information sharing (Bendersky & Hays, 2012; Greer & Bendersky;
2013) and fail to coordinate their efforts (Kwaadsteniet & van Dijk, 2010). With regards to the effects of hierarchies, Ronay et al. (2012) further argue that when clear hierarchy exist division of labour and patterns of deference reduces conflict. Taken together, it is assumed that steeper hierarchies as influence relations are not necessarily beneficial for enhancing coordination but that they are especially appropriate for decreasing conflict. This assumption does not only strengthen the call for conflict as an explaining mechanism but moreover delivers an explanation why coordination may not be found to mediate the effects of steeper hierarchies on team performance in the underlying sample.
In addition, the reason why hierarchy steepness was not found to be a functional moderator for the complexity-coordination relation may again be reasoned by its conceptualization. Thus, the line of argumentation directly ties to previous arguments.
Hierarchy steepness as influence relations has advantages which are more pronounced in one- way rather than two-way relationships. Hence, steepness was not found to moderate the effects of complexity because its conceptualization might be more tailored for capturing advantages like a clear chain of command and minimizing conflict (Ronay et al., 2012).
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Taking these considerations into account, hierarchies conceptualized as influence relations clearly point out to conflict as the main explanatory mechanism for performance. Moreover, the average task complexity (M= 3.46; SD= .69) in this sample was relatively low considering a comparable study by Bunderson and colleagues (2016) who obtained higher average task complexity (M = 4.20; SD = .69) using the same scale and items based on Withey et al.
(1983). This might at least have prohibited stronger negative effects due to missing amounts of teams confronted with more complex tasks. In sum, this research implicates that hierarchy steepness at least conceptualized as influence relations cannot resolve mixed findings in literature. The effects of complexity on coordination are still ambiguous and future research is needed to find appropriate explanation mechanisms.
Moreover, these findings come with two important implications for existing literature on hierarchies. First, it underlines the importance of how hierarchy is conceptualized and that different ways of conceptualization have an impact on mediating variables as well as on outcomes. So, hierarchy steepness may be universally beneficial for performance but which processes actually mediate these effects may vary with the conceptualization of hierarchies.
Second, and maybe most important, the underlying research contributes to the existing functional approach by assuming that under hierarchies measured as influence relations conflict as a mediating mechanism for performance is more appropriate than coordination.
Practical Implications
The findings that hierarchy steepness is positively related to performance as well as the assumption that conflict might mediate this relationship, call for a practical approach whereby managers should design hierarchical structures that fit with the distribution of influence inside the team. Hierarchies were found to be the fundamental, ubiquitous form of social organization (Cohen & Zhou, 1991; Fiske, 1992) and emerge within teams even when
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members seem to have equal influence at the first sight (Cantimur et al., 2016). Therefore, managers should give teams enough room to develop their own influence relations and reach steeper hierarchies which were found to be beneficial for team performance. Those self- developed informal hierarchies are most likely to closely represent actual influence distribution and hence be beneficial for preventing conflicts which in turn enhances team performance. In contrast, giving fixed hierarchical structures to teams, which strongly disaccord with actual influence distribution, might even increase potential conflicts inside the team because asymmetries, which are perceived as unjustified, were found to lead to more conflict due to members challenging other positions (Bendersky & Hays, 2012; Greer &
Bendersky 2013; Greer & van Kleef, 2011).
Furthermore, practitioners are advised to raise hierarchical strength for teams confronted by more complex tasks because steeper hierarchies are expected to provide a beneficial framework that is generally more capable in managing complexity through e.g.
clear chain of command and minimizing conflict (Ronay et al., 2012). Deriving from this, practitioners should adjust roles, tasks and responsibilities according to influence relations not because it enhances coordination (as assumed in the beginning) but for the reason that it prevents conflicts. This might be done by regular feedback rounds in which less influential members give their ideas, opinions and perspectives in order to prevent conflicts of members feeling not respected or valued. Another possibility includes anonymous surveys through which employees can give feedback and identify grievance for potential or existing conflicts.
Finally, setting clear expectations about what needs to be done and how to achieve it might prevent conflicts and can be achieved through aligning team members with the organizational and team vision and mission.
25 Limitations and Future Research
In the following, the strengths and weaknesses of the study are going to be discussed starting with notable strengths before continuing with several study limitations. The data collection which was used made it possible to collect data from a diverse sample of teams including different sources (members and leaders) and using multiple methods (peer ratings and team assessments). Moreover, hierarchy steepness was measured according to the dominant way in modern hierarchy literature (Bunderson et al., 2016; Everett & Krackhardt, 2012), acknowledging the perspective of the “influencee” rather than from the “influencer”.
However, other aspects of this research should be recognized as possible limitations.
First, a main limitation of field studies applies for this study which concerns low internal validity reflecting low causality because of lacking precision of measurement and control of behavioural variables (Sackett & Larsson, 1990). Second, it would have been generally appropriate to consider a wider range of mediating variables (e.g. conflict), moderating variables (e.g. legitimacy, information sharing) and outcome variables (e.g. satisfaction, turnover, innovation). For instance, it might be imaginable that hierarchy steepness reduces conflict but simultaneously decreases legitimacy which thereby might increase satisfaction.
Taking such considerations into account delivers a broad range of possibilities for future research.
Furthermore, this study only examined whether coordination under different levels of task complexity explains performance effects under different levels of hierarchy steepness.
But, as mentioned above, in order to gain better understanding of the underlying processes, it might be appropriate to especially include conflict as an explanation mechanism (Bendersky
& Hays, 2012; Cantimur et al., 2016). It may be the case that steeper hierarchies reduce conflicts in teams working on routine tasks as there are little arguments to doubt about the expertise of the leader (Cantimur et al., 2010). In contrast, in teams confronted by more complex tasks, hierarchy steepness might even create conflict because it requires teams to
26
constantly gain new knowledge which makes it more likely to debate and change positions inside the team more frequently (Bigley & Roberts, 2001). Thus, the underlying study is limited in its scope and extending this scope provides an extensive range for future research.
Also task complexity ranged in this sample from 1.63 to 5.58 on a seven-point scale (M = 3.46, SD = .69) which represents a limitations in the sense that teams were confronted by relatively simple and routine tasks. Including more teams with stronger complexity scores might have strengthened the proposed effects and findings. Generally, the sample size of the underlying research gives room for improvement in order to obtain more significant results and increasing causality.
Taken together, as much as this research aims to facilitate the understanding of hierarchy steepness, it also serves as a linkage for future research. Yet, there is still lacking knowledge about the processes that underlie the effects of hierarchy steepness on team functioning. Beside the mentioned aspects, it was proposed that steeper hierarchies are only functional when teams are working on ambiguous and complex tasks. However, few studies tested hierarchy steepness as a moderator of this proposition and different team contexts with higher variance in tasks might lead to different conclusions. Therefore, besides testing a broader range of performance antecedents, it is also necessary for future research to test steepness with more task characteristics and accurate control variables.
CONCLUSION
In this study, it was tried to add to the understanding of the importance of hierarchies by enhancing coordination which in turn benefits performance. Moreover, the influence of complexity as one crucial task characteristic was tested. Looking back at the beginning, the quotation “working together is success” forecasted the importance of team coordination in this process. However, based on the findings, this cannot be significantly confirmed. Instead,
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the key role of hierarchy steepness and how it is conceptualized emerged as the crux of matter for team performance. Through this, contributions to broaden the understanding under which conditions hierarchy facilitates team performance and under which conditions hierarchies are likely to have negative effects were made. Even mediating processes still remained vague, the crucial role of hierarchy steepness still needs to be acknowledged by supporting the functionalist perspectives of hierarchies. Finally, this study concludes that practitioners should be aware of the importance of hierarchies and that team success is strongly connected to how teams are structured. Or in other words, in line with Ronay and colleagues (2012), the path to team success is paved with hierarchy.
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