Faculty of Economics and Business
MULTIPLE TEAM MEMBERSHIP:
THE EXPERIENCE OF ROLE OVERLOAD WITH REGARD TO
INDIVIDUALS’ JOB SATISFACTION WHEN SPANNING MULTIPLE TEAM
BOUNDARIES
Master Thesis
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior Department
27/01/2017
Friederike Anna Böckermann Star Numanstraat 91a, Groningen
f.a.bockermann@student.rug.nl S3044017
Supervisor: Dr. Thom de Vries
I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Thom de Vries for his great support, engagement and useful feedback throughout the process of this master thesis. I would also like to thank the HR development manager and the global project managers of the
- 1 - Abstract
In modern organizations a significant number of employees are working in several teams at a time. Referred to as multiple team membership (MTM), it is a form of work organization that involves individuals participating simultaneously in multiple teams. MTM enhances creativity and productivity by exposing team members to a greater diversity of expertise, opinions and perspectives. At the same time, it implies challenges for individuals to span various team boundaries. Given this insight, the present study was motivated to examine the impact of boundary spanning on the individuals’ well-being in multiple team contexts. Corroborating my predictions, members of simultaneous projects experienced role overload when spanning multiple team boundaries, which in turn had negative effects on their job satisfaction. In addition, the breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure of individuals as moderators in the underlying study were found to be not significant. These findings advance new knowledge on antecedents and relationships within the context of MTM and motivate further research to identify conditional factors. In practice, the findings may prove to be fruitful in the understanding and management of MTM while raising managers’ awareness of potential implications on the employees’ welfare.
- 2 - Introduction
In response to the growing demand of rapid development of products and process innovations, amplified by technological change and global competition, organizations more commonly focus on project management (Pinto & Pinto, 1990). Thus, organizations increasingly implement project teams to ensure organizational innovation and flexibility (Edmonson & Nembhard, 2009; Fong, 2003). ‘While the implicit assumption has been that individuals work in one team at a time, many individuals are now being asked to juggle several projects and their associated multiple team memberships simultaneously.’ (Mortensen, Woolley & O’Leary, 2007, p.1). Referred to as Multiple Team Membership (MTM), it is the attempt of today’s competitive and innovative organizations to assign employees to various teams at the same time (O’Leary, Mortensen & Woolley, 2011). Indeed, MTM may yield positive effects as it exposes team members to diverse knowledge, values and perspectives. By this, it is assumed to enhance the team members’ learning and performance. At the same time, MTM may pose considerable difficulties and challenges for individuals such as increased workload and role stress (O’Leary et al., 2011). In this context, it is of particular interest to reveal factors of MTM on individuals’ well-being as innovative and knowledge-intensive companies, which make intensive use of this work arrangement, rely heavily on the employees’ welfare (O’Leary et al., 2011; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). Uncovering factors on the indirect relation between MTM and the individuals’ job satisfaction is therefore the fundamental approach in this underlying study.
- 3 - project scopes, discussing and managing requirements and most importantly obtaining key information from external parties (Marrone, Tesluk & Carson, 2007). By transferring knowledge, boundary spanning is expected to increase not only organizational learning and effectiveness (Joshi et al., 2009) but it is also assumed to enhance the innovativeness of organizations (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). Some researchers have even gone so far as to argue that boundary spanning can be considered as ‘[…] a source of competitive advantage for the organization’ (Joshi et al., 2009, p.732).
- 4 - remains to be seen whether individuals experience role overload when spanning boundaries in a multiple team context and how it affects the individuals’ job satisfaction.
- 5 - and embeddedness in social organizational networks (Joshi et al., 2009). Thus, I argue that organizational tenure of project members moderates the individuals’ perception of role overload when they span multiple team boundaries. Given this background, the central research question in this underlying study is the following.
In the context of multiple team membership, to what extent is boundary spanning related to perceived role overload with its impact on individuals’ job satisfaction and how is this relationship moderated by the breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure of individual team members?
In order to provide new insights in the field of MTM with respect to the individuals’ well-being, I test the underlying model in cooperation with an international high-technology organization in the automotive industry. As the innovative company is structured as a matrix organization, it focuses on cross-functional projects that involve employees from different functional areas. Therefore, project members are simultaneously involved in multiple teams. The sample of the study consists of 140 participants across three different business units, who are involved in at least two projects. A survey investigates the individuals’ team membership together with boundary spanning activities, organizational tenure, functional experiences and assesses role overload together with individuals’ job satisfaction. Findings revealed that project members experience role overload when they span boundaries in the context of MTM. Moreover, the findings constitute that role overload is negatively related to the individuals’ job satisfaction. However, the moderating effects of the breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure are not significant in this model.
- 6 - research. Additionally, this study underlines the importance of individual consequences of MTM and related boundary spanning, as existing research findings are mostly collected at team level (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). By integrating moderating factors, I do not only investigate antecedents and relations within the context of MTM, but I also consider the conditions under which boundary spanning is perceived as stressful. Beyond these theoretical implications, the study’s findings may help organizations with multiple project teams to gain an understanding of antecedents and determinants of MTM with regard to the individuals’ well-being. These findings may prove valuable for progress in research, but also for organizations to gain new insights on effective management of multiple project teams to ensure personal and organizational welfare.
FIGURE 1 Conceptual model
Theoretical Background
Modern organizations become more intra-connected by redesigning work activities around project teams (O’Leary et al., 2011; Pinto & Pinto, 1990). In the light of my study, project teams are defined as temporary work arrangements that consist of cross-functional members, who are to achieve clearly defined objectives. Each project, which implies the need of human Multiple Team
Membership
Boundary Spanning
- 7 - activities and demand for sufficient resources, has to be finalized within a specific timeframe including set start and end dates (Atkinson, 1999).
Multiple Team Membership
Since companies more commonly assign employees to multiple projects, they are asked to occupy various roles and switch between different teams, tasks and contexts. Considered as Multiple Team Membership, it is the situation in which individuals are simultaneously members of two or more teams within a given period of time (O’Leary et al., 2011). Although it has been acknowledged that MTM is more present in today’s organizations, the amount of research in this field is still rather limited and lacks empirical evidence (Mathieu et al., 2008; Wageman et al., 2012). Despite assumptions about positive and negative effects of MTM, significant gaps exist in our understanding for the conditions in which these different effects emerge.
- 8 - Looking beyond these organizational benefits, it has to be considered that MTM also affects employees on an individual level (Mortensen et al., 2007). When employees are involved in multiple project teams they are required to occupy various roles simultaneously. Thus, MTM implies not only switching between tasks, but also switching between their team contexts including distinct roles, procedures, technologies and locations. These switching costs require a high amount of effort in terms of time and attention, which may consequently decrease learning and productivity of the individual (O’Leary et al., 2011). Related studies of psychosocial consequences of multi-projected works have shown that employees experience disrupted task fragmentation and time scarcity leading to increased stress levels. Accordingly, it is assumed that members are less likely to develop skills and to improve their work practices (Zika-Viktorsson, Sundström & Engwall, 2006). Instead, research at individual level has shown that a growing number of work teams leads to individuals experiencing more role overload, which can subsequently decrease performance (Joshi et al., 2009; Zika-Viktorsson, et al., 2006). MTM with its multiple role obligations can be perceived as too demanding. Particularly when individuals are employed in various, incompatible roles they can experience a role conflict (Coverman, 1989). Thus, working simultaneously in various teams can lead to misallocation of attention resulting in role conflict, overload and stress (Friedman & Podolny, 1992; Mortensen et al., 2007).
Boundary Spanning
- 9 - 914). Accordingly, it is assumed that MTM is related to boundary spanning (O’Leary et al., 2011) because members of multiple teams are required to build diverse relationships with disconnected parties involving external members from e.g. different functional domains. By this, individuals share resources and knowledge with distinct team members and consequently span multiple team boundaries (Marrone, 2010). Based on this perspective, MTM is considered to be an antecedent of boundary spanning in this study.
Boundary spanning, i.e. the extent to which knowledge and resources are shared externally, is important for the engagement of multiple teams because it determines the individual, team and organizational performance (Joshi et al., 2009). As such, it is suggested to help accomplishing performance goals and task objectives (Marrone, 2010). Since Ancona and Caldwell’s (1992, 1992a) pioneering investigation, researchers have acknowledged the importance of boundary spanning researchers as it was considered to be a significant predictor for effective knowledge transfer and innovativeness. Accordingly, scholars argue that the performance of boundary spanning influences success and can therefore be measured as a competitive advantage of modern companies (Joshi et al., 2009). However, in contrast to these benefits, boundary spanning also posed challenges. Since boundary spanners switch between various teams that can differ in individual values and beliefs, employees might face conflicting role expectations (Friedman & Podolny, 1992), which align with the aforementioned negative consequences of MTM resulting in misallocation of attention and role stress (Mortensen et al., 2007).
- 10 - Role Overload
According to the classical theory, every employee in an organization has its own role including specified sets of tasks and corresponding responsibilities (Rizzo, House & Lirtzman, 1970). Due to the redesign towards concurrent multiple project teams, this traditional understanding of roles with its related tasks and responsibilities has become more blurry. As individuals are required to interact and link with numerous members from external environments (Marrone et al., 2007), they often face conflicting role expectations together with high time pressure and workload (Friedman & Podolny, 1992; Marrone et al., 2007). Thus, the consequence for individuals that is most associated with boundary spanning in the context of project work is role overload (Marrone et al., 2007; Zika-Viktorsson, et al., 2006). In this study, role overload is defined as a person-role conflict in which role expectations exceed the individuals’ abilities to accomplish a task in a certain timeframe (Beehr, Walsh, & Taber, 1976; Iis, 2011). Accordingly, the researchers Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn and Snoek (1964) further elaborate that role overload is experienced by individuals when role demands are perceived as overwhelming and present resources as insufficient to deal with, which often results in stress.
Besides this person-role conflict, the individual boundary spanner is assumed to deal frequently with the intersender conflict. Since individuals are required to meet the requests of different role senders (Kahn et al., 1964), they do not only face simultaneous but also conflicting pressures (Marrone et al., 2007). As such the engagement in spanning multiple projects and respective roles can lead to incompatible role expectations that contribute to the individuals’ perceived role overload (Friedman & Podolny, 1992; Marrone et al., 2007). Taking into account these consequences of boundary spanning for individuals in terms of role overload, I hypothesize in my research the following.
- 11 - A Moderation Model
Taken together, the present study suggests that multiple team membership (MTM) is associated with boundary spanning at individual level (Hypothesis 1). In addition, a relationship between boundary spanning and perceived role overload is suggested as the main relationship (Hypothesis 2). It appears particularly useful to reveal potential moderating variables that may influence whether the perceived role overload by individual project members may be strengthened or mitigated when spanning multiple team boundaries. Based on studies of boundary spanning antecedents in single team contexts, theorists argue that team members’ attributes, such as tenure and background determine team boundary spanning activities (Joshi et al., 2009). Applying these findings to the individual level in the context of multiple teams, I investigate the moderating role of the breadth of an individual’s functional experience (Hypothesis 3) and organizational tenure (Hypothesis 4).
Breadth of functional experience
- 12 - diverse functional background get acquainted with multiple social contexts requiring numerous forms of interactions. Through this, employees are more likely to understand the organizational context and to build relationships within the company (Joshi et al., 2009).
Based on diverse functional expertise and gained social, interpersonal skills, I assume that the individuals’ breadth of functional experience influences the extent to which team members perceive boundary spanning as stressful. Accordingly, I suggest that those team members with a wide breadth of functional experience perceive less role overload when spanning boundaries due to their diversity of functional expertise and greater interpersonal skills. In contrast, those specialized employees with experiences in few functional domains are considered to lack important expertise and social skills to establish relationships with external team members and therefore perceive boundary spanning as more stressful. Based on this, I suggest that the relationship between boundary spanning and perceived role overload is critically shaped by the breadth of functional experience of individual project members. Hence, I hypothesize the following.
Hypothesis 3: The relationship between boundary spanning and role overload is moderated by the individuals’ breadth of functional experience. This relationship is positive when the breadth of functional experience is lower, but negative when the individuals’ breadth of functional experience is higher.
Organizational Tenure
- 13 - Joshi et al. (2009) describe the impact of organizational tenure by assuming that it facilitates the organizational knowledge and embeddedness in social organizational networks. Based on this perspective, organizational tenure is assumed to affect the individuals’ boundary spanning behavior. It is further suggested that members with high tenure and long-term organizational experiences are in a better position to build intraorganizational relationships and cross boundaries than newcomers (Joshi et al., 2009).
Applying this assumption to the study, I suggest that organizational tenure influences the extent to which individuals feel overburdened when spanning boundaries. I further propose that highly-tenured members face less role overload when they span boundaries, due to their familiarity with the organizational culture, structure and procedures. Moreover, they can rely on established social networks and relationships, which might facilitate connections to external members. In contrast to that, I suggest that low organizational tenure makes the challenge of collaborating with various members of external teams more difficult. Due to the lack of organizational knowledge and social networks, I propose that low-tenured project members feel more role overload when spanning multiple project teams. Therefore, my fourth hypothesis states the following.
Hypothesis 4: The relationship between boundary spanning and role overload is moderated by the organizational tenure of individual project member. This relationship is positive when the individuals’ organizational tenure is lower, but negative when the organizational tenure is higher.
Job Satisfaction
- 14 - recognized definitions of job satisfaction in organizational research. Accordingly, it is ‘[…] a pleasurable or positive expressive state resulting from an appraisal of one’s job or job experiences’ (Locke, 1976, p.1300).
Ensuring the employees’ job satisfaction is of high importance because it is associated to essential behaviors and outcomes that are crucial for the organizational well-being (Spector, 1997). Hence, scholars found job satisfaction to be related to the job performance (Judge, Thoresen, Bono & Patton, 2001) and organizational citizenship behavior (Williams & Anderson, 1991), as well as to the absenteeism and turnover intention of employees (Kirkman & Shapiro, 2001). However, the level of perceived job satisfaction has not only an impact on organizational outcomes but it also implies personal consequences (Spector, 1997). Considered as an antecedent of mental health, research studies have identified a strong correlation between individuals’ job satisfaction and subjective, psychological well-being of employees (Judge & Klinger, 2008).
Given this importance of job satisfaction in times of growing demands and perceived workload, I investigate job satisfaction as the outcome of perceived role overload in the present study. Individual project members are considered to experience role overload as pressure based on task-related requests and constraints (Kahn et al., 1964; Spector & Jex, 1998), such as time pressure or fragmented and interrupted tasks that are especially prevalent in multi-project work settings (Zika-Viktorsson, et al., 2006). Due to such pressure, individuals are assumed to feel uncertain about the completion of work. Hence, employees with a high amount of workload might be more frustrated or anxious and are therefore expected to be less satisfied with their job (Spector & Jex, 1998). Based on this, I predict a negative relationship between role overload and the project members’ job satisfaction and therefore suggest the following.
- 15 - Methodology
Sample and Procedure
This study examined the proposed hypotheses in project teams of an international, high-technology organization in the automotive industry. As this company holds a leading position on the global market, it is constantly challenged with a high demand of rapid and innovative development, technological change and with fast-growing international competition. Similar to many modern high-technological companies, the host organization has structured its work around cross-functional project teams in order to enhance its organizational innovativeness and efficiency. Employees are not only required to fulfill a line position, but also to work in multiple project teams at the same time. These teams are cross-functional involving members from distinct departments and international sites. The research was conducted across three business units of the organization. These units were of particular interest, as they operate in projects that are distinct in terms of their size, duration and degree of international collaboration. By considering these diverse characteristics, the study was provided with project teams that reflect and represent the actual situation in project works within the company.
- 16 - that respondents lose their anonymity (Sue & Ritter, 2012). Furthermore, I decided to distribute the survey via an anonymous link. Considering the situation that I was not provided with individual email addresses of project members combined with the large sample size and high time constraints of the global project managers to distribute personalized hyperlinks to members outweighed the disadvantage of multiple responses to an anonymous link. To ensure the understanding of the research project, I prepared a research overview with benefits and requirements of the study including the hyperlink to the survey. This document was sent to the three global project managers of the business units, who passed it to their respective project members.
- 17 - Measures
Multiple Team Membership. Consistent with existing research (O’Leary et al., 2011; Mortensen et al., 2007; Zika-Viktorsson et al., 2006), I measured multiple team membership (MTM) by asking respondents to indicate the number of projects in which they are currently involved in. I provided numbers of projects ranging from 2 to ’10 or more’, because MTM is defined as the situation in which individuals are simultaneously members of two or more project teams (O’Leary et al., 2011). Due to prior information provided by global project managers that project members are generally involved in maximum ten simultaneous teams, I limited the number of involved projects to ’10 or more’ to prevent survey fatigue.
Boundary Spanning. In line with previous research on measuring boundary spanning, I assessed interactions of individual project members with external teams (de Vries et al., 2014; Joshi et al., 2009; Marrone, 2010). As specific data of team level characteristics were not provided, because of confidentiality reasons, I focused on interactive linkages with external teams based on their distinct functional areas. Thus, I adapted previous measurements of interunit interactions by Tsai (2002) and asked the project members to indicate those functional areas with which they had regularly interacted and exchanged knowledge in projects during the past month. Based on the managers’ expertise about functional areas in project teams, I was able to provide a list of 14 functional domains (e.g. development, human resources, IT, logistics, manufacturing, purchasing, sales) to the respondents allowing them to easily mark the appropriate functional areas and by this prevented survey fatigue. In the analysis I aggregated the data to a total score of boundary spanning for each individual project member with scores ranging from 1 to 14.
- 18 - (1964). Consistent with existing research by Marrone et al. (2007), the items developed by Beehr et al. (1976) were modified and adapted to the underlying context. As a result, the used scale including four items was scored on a five-point likert scale (1 = completely disagree; 5 = completely agree). All items were combined to one reliable scale (α = .78).
Job Satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured using the scale by Brayfield and Rothe (1951). This scale, consisting originally of five items, was reduced to four items due to cross-loading of one item in the factor analysis. Hence, the four items stated ‘I feel satisfied with my present job’, ‘Most days I am enthusiastic about my work’, ‘Each day at work seems like it will never end’ (reverse coded) and ‘I find real enjoyment in my work’. They were scored on a five-point likert scale (1 = completely disagree; 5 = completely agree). All of these items were combined to one reliable scale (α = .70).
Breadth of Functional Experience. Consistent with previous research on the individuals’ degree of work experience across distinct functional domains (Bunderson, 2003; de Vries et al., 2014), I collected relevant data by asking the individual project members to indicate their years of working experience. Accordingly, I provided a list of the 14 most critical work domains for the project members (e.g. controlling, development, logistics, manufacturing, marketing and sales) based on thorough identification by global project managers. By this, I was able to compute a variable with Blau’s (1977) original formula, which was adapted by Bunderson (2003):
1 −
- 19 - maximum of .93, meaning that the respondent gathered experiences evenly across all functional domains.1
Organizational Tenure. The organizational tenure was measured by a single item. Accordingly, project members were simply asked to indicate the total numbers of years in which they had been working for the company. The organizational tenure of the respondents ranged from .5 to a maximum of 30 years.
Control Variables
Task interdependence, international collaboration and age were used as control variables, since previous research found correlations with respective main variables of this study. First, task interdependence examined the requirement to engage with team project members from external functional areas and mutual dependency to accomplish a task. It is considered as a control variable in my study, as task interdependence was found to have strong implications for boundary spanning (Choi, 2002; Joshi et al., 2009; Marrone, 2010). As a second control variable international collaboration was used. Since organizations globalize their operations, it is likely that the frequency with which employees will interact with people from foreign countries will constantly grow. Therefore, it is of significant importance to understand how such diversity in the composition of organizational groups affects individual outcomes such as workload or satisfaction (Cummings, 2004; Milliken & Martins, 1996). Third, age was intended to be another control variable in this study. Following the argumentation of previous research by de Vries et al. (2014), individuals who gained a wide array of social experiences throughout their lifetime were assumed to develop more likely interpersonal cognitive complexity, which helped to interpret different social environments such as different team contexts. Based on this assumption, I controlled for age as an indicator for social experiences
1 The score of maximum breadth is calculated as: (k-1) / k = (14-1) / 14 = .93 (Harrison & Klein, 2007; de Vries
- 20 - proposing that people of high age possess many social experiences that influence the individuals’ boundary spanning.
Task Interdependence. Task interdependence was measured using the scale by van der Vegt, Emans and van de Vliert (2001). The original scale consisted of five items. However, the reverse coded item ‘I rarely have to check or work with members from other teams’ was omitted in my study because it reduced the score of cronbach’s alpha. Thus, I used four items that were scored on a five-point likert scale (1 = completely disagree; 5 = completely agree). All of these items were combined to one reliable scale (α = .74).
International Collaboration. The extent to which the individual members had to collaborate internationally within in the project teams was measured by asking the respondents to list those countries with which they had been working on a regular basis. Here, I used an open response format instead of a provided list due to operations of the company with over 230 locations in various countries around the world. Hence, I counted the listed countries and calculated a total score for each individual respondent. The range of international collaborations varied between 0 and 8, meaning that project members were working with maximum eight foreign countries on a regular basis.
Age. The age of project members was measured by using a single continuous scale in which respondents were asked to indicate their age in rounded years. The respondents’ age varied between 22 and 64 years.
Data Analysis
- 21 - task interdependence was investigated. Hence, the number of dimensions of these scales was determined by using the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation and an eigenvalue higher than 1.0. The results of the PCA revealed that one item of the job satisfaction scale showed high cross loadings with another factor. Consequently, I omitted this item. The factor loadings of the remaining items can be found in table 1. All items loaded on one of the three dimension factors and, therefore, proved to be unidimensional.
- 22 - TABLE 1 Factor Analysis Component Role Overload Job Satisfaction Task Interdependence When it comes to my roles and
responsibilities…
it often seems like I have too much work for one person to do.
.735
the expectations for what I should do are too high.
.789
I feel that I have taken on too much. .831
I feel I have to try to satisfy too many people.
.695
I feel fairly satisfied with my present job. .784
Most days I am enthusiastic about my work. .786
Each day at work seems like it will never end. .495
I find real enjoyment in my work. .798
I have to obtain information and advice from my colleagues from other teams in order to complete my work.
.775
I depend on my colleagues from other teams for the completion of my work.
.689
I have to work closely with other teams to do my work properly.
.754
In order to complete their work, colleagues from other teams have to obtain information and advice from me.
.757
- 23 - Results
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics and correlations, including means, standard deviations (SD) and Pearson bivariate correlations for the relevant variables of this study are reported in table 2. As expected, multiple team membership (MTM) was significantly related to boundary spanning (r = .18, p < .05). Results showed that boundary spanning was positively correlated to role overload (r = .18, p < .05). Furthermore, role overload was found to exhibit a significantly negative relation to job satisfaction (r = -.28, p < .01).
- 24 - TABLE 2
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 MTM 5.33 2.93
2 Boundary Spanning 7.56 3.31 .18*
3 Role Overload 3.07 .74 .06 .18*
4 Job Satisfaction 3.72 .59 .09 .04 -.28**
5 Breadth of functional experience .34 .29 .03 .17* -.08 .02
6 Organizational tenure 10.73 6.79 .02 .04 -.04 .03 .11 7 Task Interdependence 3.97 .58 .19* .26** .10 .19* .10 -.08 8 International collaboration 3.96 2.02 .17* .10 -.07 .09 .13 .10 .18* 9 Age 40.92 10.14 -.08 .08 -.10 .05 .24** .67** -.12 .03 Note. N= 140;* p < .05; ** p < .01. Hypothesis Testing
- 25 - multiplication of boundary spanning with organizational tenure. For both interaction effects, I then assessed the level of significance.
Hypothesis 1
The first hypothesis conjectured that multiple team membership (MTM) is directly related to boundary spanning at individual level. Thus, I predicted that employees, who are involved in multiple cross-functional teams, would span boundaries of their department and team. Therefore, a linear regression was calculated to predict boundary spanning based on MTM. It was found that MTM significantly predicted boundary spanning (B = .20 SE = 0.1, p < .05), meaning that the first hypothesis was supported.
Hypothesis 2
Moreover, boundary spanning was hypothesized to be associated with role overload, suggesting that the external linkages and interactions of team members would be related to perceived role overload. Thus, I calculated a linear regression to test this relationship. Results confirmed that boundary spanning significantly predicted perceived role overload (B = .04, SE = .02, p < .05). Hence, the second hypothesis was supported.
Hypothesis 3
- 26 - was not significant (B = .21, SE = .27, n.s.) with a confidence level of 95 %, meaning that the third hypothesis was not supported.
Hypothesis 4
In addition to the breadth of functional experience, I also suggest the individuals’ organizational tenure to have a moderating effect on the relation between boundary spanning and perceived role overload. Thus, hypothesis 4 posited that the organizational tenure of project team members moderates this main relationship. The moderating effect was expected to mitigate the positive relationship between boundary spanning and role overload. Against this expectation, the results in table 3 revealed that there was no significant moderating interaction of organizational tenure on the assessed relation between boundary spanning and perceived role overload (B = -.02, SE = .26, n.s.) with a level of confidence of 95 %. The fourth hypothesis was, therefore, not supported by the results.
Hypothesis 5
- 27 - TABLE 3
Multiple Regression Analysis; Moderating effects
Predictors Role overload 95 % Confidence Interval
for B B SE t p LLCI ULCI Main effects Boundary Spanning .5974 .2664 2.2428 .0266* .0705 1.1243 Breadth of functional experience -.3054 .2558 -1.1936 .2348 -.8114 .2007 Organizational tenure -.0694 .2565 -.2704 .7872 -.5767 .4380 Interaction effects Boundary Spanning x Breadth of functional experience .2124 .2685 .7912 .4302 -.3187 .7435 Boundary Spanning x Organizational Tenure -.0223 .2639 -.0845 .9328 -.5442 .4996 Control variables Task Interdependence .2205 .2632 .8380 .4036 -.3000 .7411 International Collaborations -.2764 .2577 -1.0727 .2854 -.7862 .2333 .061 Note. N= 140; * p < .05. Discussion
- 28 - functional experience and organizational tenure do not affect individuals’ boundary spanning activities and role overload in this multi-project setting.
Theoretical contributions
The current study investigated the impact of boundary spanning on perceived role overload in the context of multiple project membership. Accordingly, important findings were derived from a multiple team context, a context which has been largely neglected by scholars. Previous research on multiple team membership was often conducted within the bounds of a single team (O’Leary et al., 2011). Consequently, research findings derived from single teams were transferred to the context of MTM, thus leading to assumptions rather than concrete conclusions from empirical investigations. Although these previous studies offered novel and important perspectives, they do not consider the situational factors of multiple team contexts such as task-related time pressure, interrupted and fragmented work procedures or switching costs. As a result, the current study addresses this issue by investigating the underlying model in the context of multiple project teams. By conducting the research in an international, high-technological organization, the study answers the call to explore implications of MTM in knowledge-intensive environments. Accordingly, research suggests an increased need to understand the consequences of MTM in such work environments where knowledge is frequently shared with regard to contextual factors such as scarce time and fragmented allocation of focus and attention (O’Leary et al., 2011). Therefore, this underlying study adds considerable value to prior research by determining relationships and considering unexplored foundations of multiple team membership.
- 29 - my study provides relevant contributions to the psychological implications for individuals. By investigating the psychological emerging state of individual team members with regard to their boundary spanning behavior, I extend existing research that has largely examined performance-related outcomes (e.g. Joshi et al., 2009). Based on previous findings by Marrone et al. (2007), I found evidence that boundary spanning is also related to role overload in the context of multiple, simultaneous team membership. Considering the crucial part of role overload in the model, I identified a negative association with the individuals’ general job satisfaction. Role overload was found to mitigate the job satisfaction of team members, which cannot only have detrimental impacts on the individuals’ well-being but also on the team and the whole organization. Hence, these broad findings can be used as a general direction in finding appropriate solutions to psychological challenges and issues by emphasizing the importance of role overload.
- 31 - FIGURE 2
The interaction effects of breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure on boundary spanning and role overload
Practical Implications
Knowing that multiple team membership affects the individuals’ role stress and well-being can be of vital importance to modern organizations. Therefore, this study provides practical implications for organizations that rely on multiple projects teams and offers new insights into
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Low Boundary Spanning High Boundary Spanning
R ol e O ve rl oad Low Breadth of functional experience High Breadth of functional experience 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Low Boundary Spanning High Boundary Spanning
- 32 - the management of such work arrangements with the objective to ensure the employees’ welfare.
As boundary spanning in multi-project settings was found to be associated with role overload, organizations may draw on human resource development strategies to mitigate related factors. Therefore, managers could offer different training programs or coaching sessions (e.g. in communication skills) to project members in order to facilitate their interaction with members from external teams. As a further alternative, intercultural trainings could be provided for those members working on international projects, as results showed that international collaborations have an impact on MTM. Through such strategies, managers could facilitate boundary spanning activities of employees across multiple projects and consequently reduce their risk of becoming overburdened.
Another practical implication that can be drawn from the findings is that perceived overload played a central role in the study. It was not only found to be associated with boundary spanning, but it was also negatively related to the individuals’ job satisfaction. As role overload could be either quantitative as a result of time constraints or qualitative due to the impression of gaining insufficient skills (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993), managers should focus on both types. Accordingly, training programs on time management and project management skills could be offered to mitigate individuals’ role overload and simultaneously enhance their job satisfaction.
- 33 - team trainings in which the importance of boundary spanning can be communicated and discussed. In line with that, managers could organize lessons learned that may enhance organizational learning and working procedures, which in turn may offer employees a solution to satisfying multiple, coinciding demands.
Limitations and future research directions
The present results should not only be considered in light of the study’s strength, but also in some of its limitations, which may imply significant directions for future research. Since all variables were measured at one point in time without any manipulation, the design of this research did not allow for causal conclusions. Therefore, evidence in form of longitudinal research settings, including manipulation tests, is required in order to draw causal inferences from the present study (Robins & Hernán, 2009).
- 34 - As data was gathered through a questionnaire relying on self-evaluation measures, response bias may be another source of concern in this study (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsakoff, 2003). Self-reports can threaten the validity of variables as they may affect social desirability. Consequently, my findings might be vulnerable to response biases, such as socially desirable answers, self-serving or lying, which in turn might have mitigated the correlations (Paulhus, 2002). Although MTM, boundary spanning and the moderating variables (breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure) were based on factual data, the respondents’ perceptions of these facts can be still objectively wrong. With regard to this threat of validity, future research could benefit from including alternative methods of multiple sources, such as peer ratings or the collection of archival, objective data in order to reduce these biases.
Lastly, another important limitation is that I tested the underlying research model in only one organization. Although I examined three distinct business units, the research findings may not be applicable to all organizational settings. Hence, this company was structured as a matrix organization highly focusing on work in project teams. Considering distinct structures, team settings and a different nature of team boundaries in companies, the findings may not be applicable to other organizations. Therefore, the present study needs replication in different structured businesses with other organizational contexts.
- 35 - whether their know-how and skills are sufficient in order to fulfill their role, whereas testing for quantitative overload would include investigating time constraints (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). In line with this, future research may consider different measurements for the outcome variable in this model. Since the underlying research investigated global job satisfaction of project team members, the variable was measured by a single item approach. Although this approach was found to be valuable in terms of flexibility and reduced time and costs (Nagy, 2002), job satisfaction can also be measured by multi-item scales. Accordingly, future research could extend this model by investigating several job satisfaction facets related to multiple team contexts such as supervision, operating conditions, communications or coworkers (e.g. Job Satisfaction Survey; Spector, 1997). Through this extension, the outcome variable would be more precise and could therefore lead to more sophisticated insights.
- 36 - Finally, future research could expand the current conceptual model beyond the individual level. Team level and organizational antecedents are essential in order to consider all relevant conditional factors and to explain underlying relations, their causes and effects in the big picture.
Conclusion
In the context of MTM, this current study has examined the relationship between boundary spanning and role overload under consideration of the individuals’ breadth of functional experience and organizational tenure. In addition, the impact of perceived role overload on the job satisfaction was investigated. With this, my study contributes to an integrative understanding of challenges and implications for individual members operating in multiple project teams. Since role overload was negatively related to individuals’ job satisfaction, it emerged as a critical component in the context of MTM. It can be concluded that members spanning multiple team boundaries run the risk of experiencing role overload and consequently being less satisfied with their job. As the moderating effects were found to be not significant in this model, I hope these findings will motivate future research on variables determining perceived role overload and individuals’ well-being with regard to the prevalence of MTM in modern organizations.
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