INTRATEAM TRUST AND TEAM LEVEL
INNOVATION
The mediating role of team learning behaviors and moderating roles of trust in supervisor and team self-efficacy
Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management 11-06-2017
University of Groningen Faculty of Business Economics
C. Hardam s3024369 Annastraat 22a 9724 LH Groningen Tel: 0639795810 e-mail: c.hardam@student.rug.nl Supervisor dr. K.M. Bijlsma-Frankema 2nd Assessor dr. T.A. de Vries
1 ABSTRACT
In the current ever-changing and evolving business environment, the ability to innovate is becoming more and more important for organizational survival and success. With teams bearing the brunt of creative and innovative activities within organizations, the study of team-level innovation has become increasingly relevant. The current study set out to address the often inconsistent, confusing outcomes of team level innovation research by introducing intrateam
trust and team learning behaviors as proposed promoters of innovation at the team level. Within
a moderated-mediation framework, the current study proposes that intrateam trust will promote team level innovation, as well as team learning behaviors, a relationship expected to be moderated by trust in the team’s supervisor. Subsequently, it is proposed team learning
behaviors will mediate between intrateam trust and innovation at the team level. Finally, team learning behaviors are proposed to promote innovation, with this relationship expected to be moderated by the perception of team self-efficacy. This study’s findings provided no support for the hypothesized mediation and moderating effects. However, the current study did find support for the hypothesis that intrateam trust may foster learning behaviors occurring at the team level. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Key words: intrateam trust, team learning behaviors, team innovation, trust in
2 INTRODUCTION
Contemporary business environments are increasingly characterized by complexity and dynamism (Bresman, 2010; Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997). In order to be successful in such a challenging environment, organizations progressively rely on their employee’s ability to cope
with ever-changing situations and contexts by learning and the subsequent application of their new-found knowledge (Argote & Ingram, 2000). Innovation, defined as introducing and implementing new ideas, processes or products (West & Farr, 1990), with the aim to benefit the performance of the team, the organization or society in general (Anderson & West, 1998; Hülsheger, Anderson & Salgado, 2009), is fundamental to an organization’s capability to stay competitive in a dynamic environment. Moreover, innovation has been found to contribute to the effectiveness and welfare of organizations (West & Anderson, 1996) and is a primary factor in achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage (Baer, 2012).
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2002) to innovation in individuals, results of research at the team-level have largely been inconsistent. In a meta-analytic review spanning three decades of research on team level predictors of innovation at work, Hülsheger et al. (2009) have stated that due to inconsistent findings and contradictory arguments, the current state of the literature is still a “Jungle of
inconsistent findings” and this characterization is in line with how West and Farr (1989) had
summarized team-level innovation literature two decades earlier. These observations therefore warrant further research on explanatory variables and possible moderators.
Since innovative activities inherently carry a certain level of ambiguity and uncertainty due to the novelty of the situation or proposals, risk-taking is inevitable in the process, and the close link between risk-taking and innovation within the organizational setting has been recognized by academics (March & Shapira, 1987; Latham & Braun, 2009).
Trust between team members may play an important role in coping with risk, as it has been found that a trusting environment will increase team members’ willingness to take risks by cooperating and sharing information with team members (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995), and trust between team members was found to promote the extent to which team members will allow themselves to be vulnerable to the actions of others (Costa, Roe & Taillieu, 2001). It can thus be expected the higher level of willingness to take risks promoted by trust between team members may contribute to innovative performance at the team level. Moreover, we reason trust may be essential for innovation, as it may bring about psychological safety within teams (Edmondson, 1999), which has been found to promote innovation across several previous studies (West & Anderson, 1996; D’Andrea-O’Brien & Buono, 1996; Edmondson, Bohmer &
Pisano, 2000; 2001).
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willingness to accept vulnerability towards team members (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt & Camerer, 1998), as a possible antecedent of team innovation, and by studying its effects on team innovativeness, this study’s aim is to contribute to understanding how to promote innovation in
teams.
Since prior research has indicated learning behaviors as one of the key predictors of innovation (Awang, Sapie, Hussain, Ishak, & Yusof, 2014), we expect team learning behaviors, such as sharing information, asking questions and discussing errors through interaction (Argote, 1999; Edmondson, 1999) to mediate the relationship between intrateam trust and team innovativeness. This inquisitive and reflective behavior between team members is expected to be positively related to the generation and implementation of new ideas and thus team level innovation. In the current study, we expect intrateam trust to be positively related to the level of learning behaviors occurring at the team level, as trust was found to instigate seeking and help-giving behavior and to promote collaboration within teams (e.g. Good, 1988; McAllister, 1995; Russ, McNeilly & Comer, 1998; Hattori & Lapidus, 2004), as well as increasing information- and knowledge sharing between team members (Klimoski & Karol, 1976; Rutten, Blaas-Franken & Martin, 2016).
In addition to interpersonal trust between team members, a trusting relationship may also be formed with the team’s leader. Trust in the leader has been associated with team member’s
commitment to the goals of the leader (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002), and it can cause teams to divert from their own motives and goals, directing their efforts toward the achievement of team goals (Bijlsma-Frankema, de Jong & van de Bunt, 2008). We therefore expect trust in the supervisor to enhance the proposed positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors, as opposed to the condition where there is a low level of trust in the team’s leader.
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learning behaviors and team innovativeness, as it was found to induce confidence in teams, allowing them to better cope with the ambiguity (Gully, Incalcaterra, Joshi, & Beaubien, 2002) that is characteristic of innovation activities.
Concluding, the focus of our study is to investigate whether team learning behaviors mediate the relationship between intrateam trust and team innovativeness, while concurrently, we will assess whether trust in the supervisor strengthens the relationship between intrateam trust and team learning behaviors and whether the perception of team-self efficacy enhances the positive relationship between these learning behaviors and team innovativeness (see figure 1).
6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Intrateam Trust and Team Innovation. In the current study, we propose that
intrateam trust is positively related to the level of innovation within the team. For clarity’s sake, two stages in innovation are differentiated. Innovation incorporates both the creativity stage, which refers to the generation of new and useful ideas (Hirst, van Knippenberg & Zhou 2009; Hulsheger et al., 2009), and the implementation stage, referring to the actual implementation of the new ideas (West, 2002; West, Hirst, Richter, & Shipton, 2004), that contribute to both organizational effectiveness and survival (Anderson, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004; Hirst et al, 2009; West et al., 2004). In accordance with the definition by Schippers, West and Dawson (2012, p. 771), our study defines team innovation as an outcome resulting from teams generating and implementing novel and useful solutions to problems and challenges encountered in the workplace (Drucker, 1985; Hirst et al., 2009).
Intrateam trust is based on Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt and Camerer’s (1998, p. 395) definition and is defined in this research as “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept
vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of fellow team members”. As our study concerns the team level, we focus on intrateam trust, defined here as
“the aggregate levels of trust that team members have in fellow teammates” (Langfred, 2004,
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between trust and risk. They stated that a trustor inherently puts himself at risk by accepting vulnerability towards the trustee, and that the outcome of trust is the trustor’s risk-taking in relationship with the trustee.
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Without a sufficient level of interpersonal trust, people may not be willing to expose themselves and come forward with their ideas in such a manner. Finally, and in accordance with this, Carolyn (2009) has posited that trust enables innovation, as it allows people to feel free to experiment and develop new ideas.
Another basis for our expectation that trust will promote team innovation lies in the abundance of research linking trust to team performance. A recent meta-analysis of 112 independent studies focusing on this relationship, spanning 7763 work teams by De Jong, Dirks and Gillespie (2016) have found intrateam trust to be positively related to team performance, even when controlling for team trust in leader and previous team performances. Trust was found to be an important antecedent of team performance due to it positively affecting interpersonal relationships and interaction between team members (Joshi, Lazarova, & Liao, 2009). Intrateam trust plays a valuable role in diminishing uncertainties about fellow team members, which allows members of a team ‘to interact as if the social uncertainty and vulnerability was resolved
in a favorable way” (De Jong & Elfring, 2010, p. 536). Team members that trust each other
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indications regarding the link between trust and innovation, and the expectation that the benefits trust has for team performance will also prove valuable for innovation at the team level, we propose the following.
H1: Intrateam trust will be positively related to team innovativeness
Intrateam Trust and Team Learning Behaviors. In our study, we propose that team
learning behaviors may mediate between intrateam trust and team innovation, thereby also suggesting intrateam trust is related to the prevalence of team learning behaviors in groups. Team-learning behaviors are “activities team members collectively engage in to acquire, share,
refine, or combine task-relevant knowledge through interaction with one another”
(Edmondson, 1999, p. 353). As this learning process involves and is characterized by “asking
questions, seeking feedback, experimenting and discussing errors” (Edmondson, 1999, p. 351),
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prerequisite for team members to initiate learning activities such as asking for feedback and talking about mistakes and errors.
Team learning behaviors also imply a collective effort, which is necessary to combine the team member’s knowledge and acquire and refine the information available. Cooperation can thus
be seen as an important facet of team learning behaviors, for which trust can be helpful. In the academic field, it is widely accepted that trust promotes positive interpersonal relationships, prompting people to seek and give help, and leading to cooperative behavior among individuals and groups (Axelrod, 1984; Good, 1988; McAllister, 1995; Hattori & Lapidus, 2004; Middel, Boer & Fisscher, 2006). Conversely, Joshi, et al. (2009) found that a lack of trust will prevent team members from focusing on collective interests rather than their own, which impedes their motivation to contribute to the team. We thus expect that a higher level of trust may facilitate team member’s motivation to contribute to collective learning and
engage in team learning behaviors. Concluding, the increase in communication, interaction, cooperation and motivation to work together between team members, facilitated by higher intrateam trust, is expected to lead to a higher level of team learning behaviors.
H2: Intrateam trust will be positively related to team learning behaviors.
Trust in Supervisor and Team Learning Behaviors. The strength or direction of a
relationship between an independent and a dependent variable may be modified by the value of a moderator variable (MacKinnon, 2011). This study incorporates a moderator variable that proposedly qualifies the relationship between intrateam trust and team learning behaviors. We have discussed interpersonal trust between team members, however trust may also form between the team and its leader. In the current study, it is proposed that trust in the team’s leader
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as referent, we define trust in the leader as ´the employees’ psychological state comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based on positive expectations of the behavior and intentions of the team leader”. Presuming cooperation in the team and team learning behaviors are in line
with the leader’s goals, it can be of vital importance that team members perceive their leader to
be trustworthy. Bijlsma-Frankema et al. (2008) acknowledged that intrateam trust may lead to team members adopting goals that are not congruent with the goals of the team’s leader, as trust
may form an us-rationality between team members, while concurrently a them-rationality may be adopted towards the team’s leader. Initial support was subsequently found for their argument that trust in the supervisor would promote directedness to team goals as defined by the team’s
leader through adoption of an us-rationality with the leader (Bijlsma-Frankema et al., 2008). The us-rationality with the leader is expected to make team members consider what important goals of the team’s leader are, and take these into account when acting. We thus expect teams
that trust their leader, in addition to trusting their fellow team members, will not strive for their own goals, but instead will be inclined to display the team learning behaviors their leader desires, as opposed to when there is merely a high level of mutual trust between team members. Building on this, Dirks and Ferrin (2002), in their meta-analysis spanning four decades of research on trust in leadership, found that trust in the leader was positively related to followers’ commitment to leader’s decisions and set goals, as well as an increase in follower effort. Trust
in the leader may thus facilitate followers embracing the decisions of the leader, which is required for the team to be able to perform well (Dirks, 2000). Furthermore, it was found that when team members trust their leader, they are more likely to divert from their own reservations and personal motives and are motivated to rather direct their efforts and energy towards the achievement of team goals (Dirks, 2000). A climate in which the team trusts the leader is thus likely to promote team members’ intentions to act in the best interest of the team, rather than
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linked to team members pursuing shared team goals and behaving in ways that contribute to the performance of the team (Hinds & Mortensen 2005). In a condition where there is a higher level of trust in the leader, it is thus expected that the proposed positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors is further strengthened. Conversely, the condition of low trust in the leader is expected to mitigate this effect. Dirks (2000) stated that team members are not likely to follow objectives and strategies set by the leader if they do not trust their leader to have the team’s best interests at heart, which impedes team members to work together effectively. In a
condition of low trust in the leader, we expect high intrateam trust teams to be less committed to their leader’s goals, due to forming a them-rationality towards their leader
(Bijlsma-Frankema et al., 2008). Teams will likely focus on their own interests instead, which we expect will weaken the proposed positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors. We thus propose the following;
H3: Trust in the supervisor will moderate the relationship between intrateam trust and team learning behaviors, such that when trust in supervisor is high, the effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors will be stronger than when trust in supervisor is low.
Team Learning Behaviors and Team Innovation. Intrateam trust is expected to lead
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building mutual shared knowledge and observing and interacting with others engaged in learning behaviors, allows team members to adopt new strategies to determine productive and innovative solutions for work tasks, develop new capabilities, and to become more skilled at facing challenges (Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2003; DeShon & Gillespie, 2005; Dweck, 1986; Porter, Gogus, & Yu, 2010; Timmermans, Petegem, Elseviers, & Denekens, 2011). Learning activities that take place within teams also improve the team members’ ability to adapt to the environment, which we expect may contribute to their innovative capability, and several researchers have linked team learning activities to an increase in team performance (Kozlowski, Chao, & Jensen, 2010; Edmondson 1999; van Woerkom & Croon, 2009). In line with these insights, main effects of learning behaviors on innovation have been found in several studies, which have identified team learning behaviors as a key factor that promotes innovation processes (Awang et al., 2014; Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999; Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, & Kirschner, 2006: Edmondson & Lei, 2014). Bearing in mind previous research, we expect to find comparable results in our current study and therefore propose the following.
H4: Team learning behaviors will be positively related to team level innovation
H4a: Team level learning behaviors will (partially) mediate the relationship between intrateam trust and team level innovation
Team Self-efficacy as moderator. In our study, it is proposed that the relationship
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propose that the perception of high team self-efficacy may help team members take the next step in the innovation process from ideas to implementation, as self-efficacy has been found to mobilize motivation, cognitive resources and actions necessary to perform specific tasks (Bandura, 1997; Gibson & Earley, 2007). If team members collectively share the belief they are capable of performing well together, they thus are expected to be more motivated and more likely to make the transition from team learning behaviors to actual implementation of their novel ideas and proposals. This expectation is further supported by Edmonson’s (1999) and Gully et al.’s (2002) proposition that team self-efficacy fosters a team’s confidence, which
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et al., 2002), and thus lack the assuredness to follow up on their innovative ideas towards implementation, ultimately weakening the proposed positive effect of team learning behaviors on team innovation.
H5: Team level self-efficacy will affect the relationship between team learning behaviors and team level innovation, such that when team self-efficacy is high, the positive effect of team learning behaviors on team innovation will be stronger than when team self-efficacy is low.
METHODOLOGY
Procedure. To gather the data for our research, online questionnaires were distributed
within several locations of a Dutch non-profit organization with 290 teams regulating the payment of social security in the Netherlands. Invitations to participate in the questionnaire were distributed by email to 3670 members of the organization’s work teams, and to 153 direct supervisors (‘team coaches’) of these teams. Participants were informed the questionnaire items
served to measure behavioral concepts and were instructed to select the answer most applicable to the situation outlined in the questions. Following recommendations by Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Lee and Podsakoff (2003) about preventing common source bias, the dependent variable team innovation was measured using data from a separate supervisor questionnaire. The dependent variable data was thus drawn from a different source than the other constructs, such that the validity of any conclusions about the relationships between the independent variable, the moderators and the dependent variable do not suffer from common source bias.
Data aggregation. As this research is conducted at the team level, four measures for
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were computed for each of these four constructs. The results of these calculations are reported in table 1.
ICC refers to the consistency in team members’ responses on the measured constructs compared
to members from different teams, or the amount of variance in a variable explained by group membership (e.g. Bliese, 2000). A group level construct should ideally yield significant ICC (1) and acceptable ICC (2) values to be deemed reliable (van Mierlo, Vermunt, Rutter, 2009). The results in table 1 above show significant ICC (1) values for all constructs but self-efficacy. Using the widely-accepted guidelines of Cicchetti (1994), we found the ICC (2) coefficients for trust in supervisor and team learning behavior to be fair, whereas the reliability coefficients of intrateam trust and self-efficacy were unsatisfactory. Following this, similarity in team member’s ratings, or interrater agreement (IRA), was measured by computing the Rwg index
(James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984). The Rwg and R*wg (Lindell, Brandt, & Whitney, 1999) values,
which are reported in table 1, were found to exceed the critical cutoff value of .70 (James et al., 1984), with values falling in-between .71 to .90, which LeBreton & Senter (2008) denote as being an indication of ‘strong agreement’. Having found satisfactory Rwg values indicates that
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Sample. 1248 employees that were part of 278 different teams responded, resulting in a
response rate of 33,2 %. Teams constituted of 15.47 members on average (SD = 9.13). Supervisors were asked to rate 270 teams, but only a total of 173 actual teams were rated on their level of team innovation. After aggregating the data of individual employees to the team level and merging the supervisor dataset with the employee dataset, teams with missing values on one or more of the measured variables were excluded to prevent different sample sizes in the following data analyses, as would be the case in pairwise exclusion. As a result of the dataset verification, 110 teams were thus excluded because either their workers or their direct supervisor did not complete the questionnaire and team means for the variables examined in our study could not be computed. The sample used for this research consisted of 168 teams, of which on average 5,11 team members responded (SD = 2.98).
Measures
Intrateam Trust. Intrateam trust was measured using a 5-item scale consisting of items
designed by De Jong & Elfring (2010) which can be found in Appendix A. The items were measured using a Likert Scale ranging from 1 (‘completely disagree’) to 7 (‘completely agree’). Example items: ‘I trust my team member’/ ‘I can be sure my team members keep their word’
(see Appendix A for all the items included in this study). To test for internal consistency of the scale, the Cronbach’s alpha of the 5-item scale was calculated, and found to be .87. A Cronbach’s Alpha should be above .80 for the scale to be considered reliable, thus this scale
was found to be sufficiently reliable.
Trust in Supervisor. Trust in supervisor was measured using a 5-item scale consisting
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The internal consistency of the scale was found to be excellent, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .91
well above the required value of .80, such that this scale can be deemed a reliable measure of trust in supervisor.
Team Learning Behavior. Learning behavior within the teams was measured using a
7-item scale consisting of items from Van der Vegt & Van de Vliert (2005), drawing on Drach-Zahavy & Somech (2001). The items were measured using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (‘completely disagree’) to 7 (‘completely agree’). Example items: ‘Members of this team freely contest each other’s opinion’; ‘Members of this team frequently take time to evaluate in what way the working process may be improved’. The internal consistency of this scale proved to be excellent, with the scale’s Cronbach’s alpha of .91 well above the required value of .80. This
scale is thus a reliable measure of team learning behaviors.
Team Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was measured using a 3-item scale consisting of items
from Spreitzer (1995). The items were measured using a Likert Scale ranging from 1 (‘completely disagree’) to 7 (‘completely agree’). Example items: ‘I am confident about my ability to do my job’; ‘I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities’. This scale’s Cronbach’s alpha was .91, and thus indicated to be a reliable measure of
self-efficacy.
Team Innovation. Team Innovation was measured using a 4-item scale consisting of
items from De Dreu & West (2001) which can be found in Appendix B. The items were measured using a Likert Scale ranging from 1 (‘not at all) to 7 (‘to an extremely high degree’). Example items: “To what extent does the team actually implement new ways to execute tasks?”; ‘To what extent does the team actually apply creative solutions for problems?”. This scale had a Cronbach’s Alpha of .93, signaling a high internal consistency between the items and thus
19 RESULTS
Data analysis
Factor analysis Before analyzing the collected data, an exploratory factor analysis was
carried out, to check whether the intrateam trust, trust in supervisor, team learning behavior,
self-efficacy and team innovation scales were sufficiently discriminating. A principal
component analysis with an orthogonal Varimax rotation was used as extraction method for all 24 measured items (see table 2). Small coefficients with an absolute value below .2 were suppressed. The factor analysis produced 5 factors, with for each measured construct loadings between .72 and .93, and cross-loadings below .35. The initial eigenvalues of all five factors produced by this analysis cumulatively explained 74.15% of the variance. Based on these results, all items were kept for the following analyses.
Test for normality A Shapiro-Wilk test was carried out to test whether the data used in
this research are normally distributed. The results of this test are reported in table 3. The test did not yield significant scores for both intrateam trust (W= .99, p = .23) and team innovation (W =.99, p= .22) and thus we cannot reject the premise that these variables are normally distributed. For these variables, we see both a relatively low negative skewness and low kurtosis, in line with the indication that data for these variables is normally distributed. The test yielded statistically significant scores for team learning behavior (W =.98, p <.01), self-efficacy (W = .96, p <.001) and trust in supervisor (W = .95, p <.001) however, indicating that data for these variables is not normally distributed.
20 Table 2. Factor loadings and communalities of a factor analysis with Varimax
rotation for 24 items
Learning behavior Trust in supervisor Intrateam Trust Team Innovation Self-Efficacy Learning behavior 1 .75 Learning behavior 2 .73 .28 Learning behavior 3 .82 Learning behavior 4 .82 .20 Learning behavior 5 .76 .35 Learning behavior 6 .78 Learning behavior 7 .73 .21 Trust in Supervisor 1 .86 Trust in Supervisor 2 .81 .22 Trust in Supervisor 3 .81 Trust in Supervisor 4 .90 Trust in Supervisor 5 .88 .21 Intrateam trust 1 .23 .23 .72 Intrateam trust 2 .25 .73 Intrateam trust 3 .25 .21 .72 Intrateam trust 4 .26 .29 .76 Intrateam trust 5 .24 .27 .75 Team Innovation 1 .88 Team Innovation 2 .90 Team Innovation 3 .89 Team Innovation 4 .92 Self-Efficacy 1 .83 Self-Efficacy 2 .93 Self-Efficacy 3 .93
21 Table 3. Shapiro-Wilk test for normality
Descriptives Shapiro-Wilk test
Skewness Kurtosis Statistic
Intrateam trust -0.36 (.19) 0.36 .99
Team learning behavior -0.56 (.19) 1.24 .98*
Self-Efficacy -0.86 (.19) 1.28 .96**
Trust in supervisor -1.01 (.19) 2.14 .95**
Team innovation -0.16 (.19) 0.24 .99
Note. n = 168 teams, * p < .01, ** p <.001
Multi-collinearity
Variance inflation factors (VIF) were calculated to check whether there should be concern for correlation (multicollinearity) between predictors in our regression analysis. In general, it is assumed that when a VIF exceeds 10 and tolerance values are lower than .10, there is indication for a potential problem with multicollinearity (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010). With VIF values between 1.13 and 1.80, the results of our analysis show that it can be assumed there are no issues with multicollinearity.
Table 4. Multicollinearity analysis
Tolerance VIF
Intrateam Trust .56 1.80
Learning Behaviors .72 1.39
Self-Efficacy .88 1.13
Trust in Supervisor .77 1.29
22 Descriptive statistics
Descriptives Table 5 shows means, standard deviations, and zero-order Pearson
correlations of all variables involved in our model. Team’s mean intrateam trust was found to
be 5.43 (SD = .61), Team innovation was found to be rated 4.40 on average (SD=1.11), Team learning behavior’s mean was found to be 4.52 (SD = .76) and trust in supervisor was rated 5.41 (SD =.86) on average by the teams in the sample. Finally, the mean for team’s self-efficacy
was found to be 6.11 (SD = .47)
Correlations. Contrary to what was expected, there is no positive correlation between
intrateam trust and team innovation (r = -.10, p =.22), suggesting the absence of a main effect between the independent and dependent variable in our model. The correlations between intrateam trust and team learning behaviors, trust in supervisor and team self-efficacy were however all positive and significant (respectively: r =-.51, p <.01; r = .46, p <.01 and r =.33, p <.01). Finally, team self-efficacy was found to correlate positively and significantly with team learning behaviors and trust in supervisor (r =.22, p <.01, and; r =.20, p <.05).
Table 5. Descriptive statistics
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Intrateam trust 5.43 .61 -
2. Team innovation 4.40 1.11 -.10 -
3. Team learning behaviors 4.52 .76 .51** -.07 -
4. Trust in supervisor 5.41 .86 .46** .09 .13 -
23 Regression analysis
Before testing our hypotheses using the Hayes method, preliminary regression analyses are carried out using ordinary least square regression in SPSS to test several of the relationships proposed and whether a mediating effect from our hypothesized mediator Team learning behaviors on the direct relationship between intrateam trust and team innovation may be expected. The results of these analyses are reported in table 6. Baron and Kenny (1986) have distinguished four requirements for mediation. The first requirement is that the total effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable should be significant. Our analysis shows this effect to be non-significant however (β= -.11, p = .22), and thus the results violate the first requirement for mediation. We further checked whether the path from the independent variable to the mediator was significant using ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis, for which the results indeed provided an indication (β= .39, p < .001). We then tested whether the path
from the mediator to the dependent variable was significant, which we subsequently did not find (β= -0.08, p = 0.35). Adding our mediator variable to the last regression analysis, the
24 Table 6 OLS regression analyses results
Regression I (DV = Team Innovation)
Regression II (DV = Team Learning behavior)
Regression III (DV= Team Innovation)
Regression IV (DV = Team Innovation)
B SE t p B SE t p B SE t p B SE t p
Intrateam Trust -0.11 0.09 -1.22 0.22 0.39 0.05 7.65*** 0.00 - - - - -0.09 0.10 -0.86 0.39 Team learning behavior - - - - - - - - -0.08 0.09 -0.94 0.35 -0.04 0.10 -0.36 0.72
R2 .01 .26 .01 .01
RΔ .01 .26 .01 .01
25 Hypothesis testing
To test this study’s hypotheses, and its conceptual model, two bias-corrected bootstrapping
moderation analyses using model 1 (Hayes, 2013), a bias-corrected bootstrapping mediation analysis using model 4 (Hayes, 2013) and one bias-corrected bootstrapping moderated mediation analysis using model 21 (Hayes, 2013) were performed. Results of these are reported respectively in tables 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Hypothesis 1: We expected Intrateam trust to be positively related to team
innovativeness. Zero-order Pearson correlations reported in table 5 previously gave an indication of the absence of a main effect of intrateam trust on team innovation. This relationship was further examined in the following OLS regression analysis. Results of our first regression reported in table 6 confirm the absence of a significant main effect of intrateam trust on team innovation, as only a weak, non-significant negative effect of intrateam trust on team innovation was found (β = -.011, p = .22). This outcome was replicated in our mediation analysis using Hayes’ (2013) model 4, of which the results are reported in table 7. When testing
the relationship with all variables of our model included, using Hayes’ (2013) model 21, intrateam trust still has a weak, non-significant negative effect on team innovation (β = -.06, p = .56), as can be seen in table 10, by the presence of zero within the confidence interval, CI 95% [-.027, 0.15]. As such, we did not find support for our first hypothesis in our current study, and thus must reject it.
Hypothesis 2: It was our expectation that intrateam trust would be positively related to
team learning behaviors. The zero-order Pearson correlations reported in table 5 showed a significant positive relationship between intrateam trust and team learning behavior and thus provided some initial support for our second hypothesis. Using OLS regression, we indeed found a significant positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors (β = 0.39, p <
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In addition, using model 4 of Hayes (2013) for a mediation analysis, we also found results that showed a significant positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behavior, (β = 0.51, p < .001), with a different beta, possibly on account of team learning behaviors being standardized as outcome variable using the process macro, and using bootstrapping instead of OLS regression. The results that were found thus provided support for the second hypothesis of our study, such that we can accept it.
Hypothesis 3: We predicted that team’s trust in the supervisor would strengthen the
positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors. However, the results of our moderation analysis (Hayes, 2013; model 1) reported in table 8, showed a negative and significant interaction effect (β = -0.12, p <.001) of intrateam trust and trust in supervisor on team learning behaviors, as shown by the absence of zero within the confidence interval, CI 95% [-.020, -0.04]. As opposed to what was hypothesized, intrateam trust was more strongly related to team learning behavior for lower levels of trust in supervisor (β = 0.54, p <.001), rather than for higher levels of trust in supervisor (β = 0.31, p <.001). The results thus show that when the value for trust in supervisor increases, the effect of intrateam trust on team learning behavior weakens, and thus do not provide support for what was hypothesized. We therefore must reject our third hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4: We predicted team learning behaviors would be positively related to
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Hypothesis 4a: We expected team learning behaviors to (partially) mediate the
relationship between intrateam trust and team innovation. We tested for this mediation effect using two different methods. The results from our study’s mediation analysis using OLS
regression (reported in table 6) showed that there was no significant main effect of intrateam trust on team innovation (β= -.11, p = .22). Using this method of mediation analysis, we thus
were unable to find support for the mediation effect that was predicted. The hypothesized mediation effect was also tested using Hayes (2013) model 4 for mediation analysis. The results of this additional test, reported in table 7, showed that the indirect effect of intrateam trust on team innovation, via the mediator team learning behaviors was (negative and) non-significant, (β= -.019, SE = .06), as indicated by the presence of a zero in the confidence interval CI 95% [-.11, 0.11]. We did not find proof for a significant difference in paths with the addition of the mediator, and thus the results did not support our hypothesized mediation effect. Based on both sets of results, we therefore must reject this hypothesis.
Hypothesis 5. We predicted team self-efficacy would strengthen the proposed positive
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Finally, we performed an analysis to examine the total effect of the two moderators, trust in supervisor and team self-efficacy, on the indirect effect of intrateam trust on team innovation through team learning behaviors. To test their effect on our complete model, we performed a moderated mediation analysis, using bias-corrected bootstrapping (Hayes, 2013; model 21). Based on our expectations that both team’s trust in their supervisor (Hypothesis 3) and team’s self-efficacy (Hypothesis 5) would affect the model positively, we expected the
combination of these moderators to strengthen the overall indirect effect of team learning behaviors on the relationship between intrateam trust and team innovation. However, the results reported in table 10 show non-significant effects for each possible combination of the moderators’ values, as shown by the presence of zero in each of the listed confidence intervals
31 Additional analysis
Since we found some surprising results, some additional exploration of our data is undertaken. As displayed in table 5, team self-efficacy correlates significantly at the 0.01 level with team learning behavior (r =.22, p <.01), despite the variable’s limited variance (SD = .47), suggesting the relationship is relatively robust. This raises the question whether self-efficacy may have a main effect on team learning behaviors. Using OLS regression, we indeed found a significant positive effect of self-efficacy on team learning behaviors (β = 0.22, p < .01), as our results in table 11 show.
32 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Addressing the increasing demand for team-level innovation in the current dynamic business environment, the aim of this empirical study was to contribute to understanding what may promote innovation at the team level. Our team-level study introduced intrateam trust as possible antecedent of team innovation. We expected learning behaviors occurring at the team level to mediate the relationship between intrateam trust and team level innovation, and introduced two moderators with team trust in supervisor and team-self efficacy.
The results of our regression analyses did not provide support for our expectation that intrateam trust promotes team innovation, nor for the expected mediation effect of team learning behaviors. Subsequently, the proposed moderation effects of trust in supervisor and team self-efficacy were not supported by the results of our current study. On the contrary, we did find support for our expectation that intrateam trust would promote team learning behaviors at the team level.
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& Ferrin, 2002), and extensive research has linked intrateam trust to performance at the team level (e.g. Spreitzer, 1999; Joshi et al., 2009; De Jong et al, 2016), our hypothesis that intrateam trust would promote team level innovation was not supported by the results of our study. An explanation for this surprising absence of a positive relationship may be found in Langfred’s (2004) research. His research showed trust to have a negative effect on the performance of self-managed teams with a significant level of individual autonomy, as high trust was inversely related to the level of monitoring occurring between team members, which ultimately lead to a decrease in team performance. Considering the teams in our own study’s sample all know a rather high level of self-management and autonomy as well, Langfred’s (2004) findings may explain the surprising result we found for the relationship between intrateam trust and innovation at the team level, as we argue these effects may hold for innovative performance as well. We suggest future research should incorporate a measure for team level monitoring and examine this relationship further.
Alternatively, the absence of the expected positive effect of intrateam trust on team innovation may be explained by the type of organization in which this research was conducted and the nature of the work of our sampled team members, which is addressed as a limitation further on in our discussion.
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2006), it came as no surprise that our results reflected a positive relationship between trust and these team learning behaviors.
We did not find support for our third hypothesis, as the surprising results of our moderation analysis showed a negative interaction effect of intrateam trust and trust in supervisor on team learning behaviors, rather than the positive effect that was expected. Our results indicate that when trust in supervisor rises, the effect of intrateam trust on learning behaviors actually weakens. Such an effect has been addressed before (with performance as team level outcome), as Dirks (2000) suggested we might see trust in one referent becoming more important than trust in another referent, contingent on circumstances such as the type of task a team is expected to carry out. Moreover, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) have postulated that the importance of trust in a referent for any individual may be contingent on perceived vulnerability towards that specific referent. They suggested that within the context of a self-directed work team, trust in peers may be more important than trust in a leader, since individuals in such a context depend more on their peers than on their leader (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). Considering the teams that are part of our study’s sample are teams with a high level of self-management, we seem to have found initial support for their suggestion with the results in our study.
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findings, we argue it may be possible team members forfeit their tendency to engage in team learning behaviors in favor of seeking help, advice and directives from their supervisor when there’s also a high level of interpersonal trust towards their leader, rather than when there’s
merely a high level of intrateam trust.
The surprising decrease in effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors when there’s an increase of trust in supervisor, may also indicate a potential substitute effect of these two types of trust, similar to the substitute effect Costa et al. (2001) found for control and trust between team members in work teams. To check for initial support of this substitute effect of intrateam trust and trust in supervisor, we performed a cross tabulation of these two types of trust, to check how the variable team learning behaviors would react to different combinations of low, medium and high intrateam trust and trust in supervisor. Team scores on these two types of trust were divided into three categories of equal size and for each combination the value of team learning behavior is reported in table 12 (See Appendix E). However, as table 13 in Appendix E shows, there were no teams within our sample reporting a low level of intrateam trust, which prevented us to make any meaningful inferences regarding any substitute effect based on this data. Notwithstanding this problem in the current sample, the surprising results we found while testing this hypothesis, may provide an interesting avenue for future research into the potential substitute effect between intrateam trust and trust in supervisor.
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The results of our study did not provide support for our expectation that team learning behaviors would promote team level innovation, nor the expected mediation effect of team learning behaviors on the relationship between intrateam trust and team innovation, which is in contrast with findings from previous research that identified team learning as a key factor promoting innovation (e.g. Crossan et al., 1999; van den Bossche, et al., 2006; Widmann, Messmann & Mulder, 2016). Considering this contrast with prior research, we consider a methodological issue in our own study as possible explanation. Reviewing our measure for team learning behaviors (Drach-Zahavy & Somech, 2001; van der Vegt & van de Vliert, 2005), it can be argued that two of our items (i.e. “Members of this team are critical about each other’s performance” and “Members of this team freely contest each other’s opinion”)
can be categorized as what DeCuyper, Dochy and van den Bossche (2010) have identified as constructive conflict, one of eight types of team learning behaviors. In a systematic review of the effect of team learning behaviors on team innovative work behavior, Widmann et al. (2016) found mixed results of constructive conflict on team innovative work behavior, as constructive conflict was not related to the generation of creative ideas or the exploration of innovative opportunities within the reviewed studies. The inclusion of these items in our study may thus have contaminated the actual effect of team learning behaviors on team innovation. Alternatively, limitations regarding the type of organization in which this research was conducted, and by which rater team innovation was scored, are addressed further in this discussion and may have significantly influenced our results concerning team innovation. Finally, since we did not find a significant interaction effect of team learning behaviors and team self-efficacy on team level innovation, we did not find support for the fifth hypothesis in our study. These results are not in line with our theoretical reasoning for this relationship. The absence of the expected effect of self-efficacy may possibly be
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in our study measured on a scale from 1 to 7, was found surprisingly high on average for all teams included in our sample (x = 6.11, SD = .47). With team scores ranging from 4.33 to 7, we basically explored the effects of moderate to high values for team self-efficacy. Ideally, we would desire a much higher variability, as the narrow range of our sample may have decreased correlations between our variables (Kenny, 1987) and affected our analyses. A possible cause for this limited variability is addressed in our limitations section.
In our additional analysis, that was encouraged by the surprising correlation between self-efficacy and team learning behavior, we found a significant positive main effect of team self-efficacy on team learning behaviors (see table 11). This outcome is in line with previous academic findings, as prior research has associated team self-efficacy with learning behaviors at the team level (e.g. Edmondson, 1999). Self-efficacy may contribute to learning, because it fosters persons’ confidence that they will not be viewed as incompetent or unknowledgeable
when asking questions, but rather as suitably contributing to the elimination of mistakes and errors (Edmondson, 2004). However, when controlling for psychological safety, a concept closely related to our variable intrateam trust, team self-efficacy was found to no longer predict team learning behaviors in Edmondson’ s (1999) research. This provided an
interesting avenue for us to pursue in our additional analysis. As stated previously, intrateam trust may bring about a climate of psychological safety (Kahn, 1990; Edmondson, 1999; May & Gilson, 1999), so it made sense for us to control for intrateam trust in our own additional analysis. When controlling for intrateam trust, we found that the effect of team self-efficacy on team learning behaviors did not hold, while the significant positive effect of intrateam trust on team learning behaviors suggests intrateam trust explained the variance in team learning behavior rather than self-efficacy (see table 12). With this additional analysis, we have
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intrateam trust enables learning behavior within the team in a way that team self-efficacy cannot account for.
Implications for practice
Since workforces have increasingly been restructured into teams, and organizational structures are progressively team-based (e.g. Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Kozlowski & Bell, 2013) some findings of our study may prove valuable. Considering there is ample evidence that performance of teams is enhanced when there’s a high level of team cooperation
(Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008) and team learning (Van Den Bossche et al., 2006; Boon, Raes, Kyndt & Dochy, 2013) any organization that is concerned with increasing performance should actively seek for ways to increase knowledge sharing and -transfer and learning behaviors occurring at the team level. In light of these developments and findings, the results of our team-level study may have an important implication for managers in practice, as we have clearly shown intrateam trust may promote learning behaviors occurring between team members. Managers concerned with increasing their team’s long-term
performance should thus see to it that a climate of mutual trust, support and consideration is created within their teams and foster honesty and openness between their team’s members.
Strengths, limitations and future directions
Since most of our results did not provide support for our hypothesized relationships, we will discuss limitations of our current study and provide suggestions for future research.
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of our current research, as it has allowed us to avoid any artificial covariance between our independent variable and criterion variable (Podsakoff et al., 2003). We acknowledge that in our current study’s setup, there may however still be a concern for common source bias between our study’s independent variable and mediator. Future research may consider temporal
separation in measurement to address this issue, by measuring the predictor and criterion variables at different timeslots (Podsakoff et al., 2003), to more completely alleviate concerns of common source bias.
As the measure of team innovation used in this research is completely dependent on the supervisor’s perception of innovation in their teams, we acknowledge there may also be a limitation associated with having only the team’s supervisors provide ratings of their team’s
level of innovation. Considering teams that were part of our study’s sample are largely self-managed, are characterized by a high level of discretion in their decision-making, and as a result, many of the team’s managers fulfill a more distal supervisory role rather than being in
close proximity to subordinates and their work activities, their perception of their team’s innovation may be flawed or limited. Taking into consideration the four items from De Dreu and West (2001) that were used to measure team innovation (see appendix b), it is conceivable supervisors may not have been able to accurately recognize or appreciate innovative endeavors occurring at the team level, since team member’s creative solutions to problems, or innovative ways to execute their tasks are usually not visible to their managers. Future research on antecedents of innovation in self-managed teams may consider incorporating a measure for innovation in both the subordinate- and the supervisor questionnaire to check and account for potential significant discrepancies between the data from different sources.
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This may be especially true considering the type of organization this research was conducted in. Work in this organization is characterized by a high level of standardization of activities and practices, with employees often having to follow prescribed sets of rules and protocols, which has previously been linked with inflexibility and rigidness in employees (Gersick & Hackman, 1990). The fixed nature of the work may be a barrier for innovative endeavors altogether as employees are expected to follow rules rather than to develop new patterns of behavior (Cardinal, 2001), whereas being confined by established rules or procedures has been found to limit employees in their generation of new ideas (Scott & Bruce, 1994). Taken together, it can be argued that teams in our sample did not work within an environment in which innovation may thrive. The consequences of the type of organization and the nature of the work of its employees could therefore explain the lack of support for our hypotheses concerning intrateam trust and team learning behaviors as antecedents of team innovation. Conducting this research within -or across- other organizations and domains that are less bureaucratic, in which innovation has a more prominent role and a higher chance of occurring, may thus provide an interesting alley for future research and may yet yield results more in line with our hypotheses and their theoretical foundation.
Considering items for self-efficacy were measured using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (‘completely disagree’) to 7 (‘completely agree’), the very high mean (6.11, SD =.47) and
relatively low variance for team self-efficacy (see table 5) reported by teams included in our sample may signal a limitation in our study. Reviewing how the three items used from Spreitzer (1995) were formulated (i.e. “I am confident about my ability to do my job.”, “I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities.” and “I have mastered the skills necessary for my job.”), we acknowledge the possibility of social desirability influencing the scoring on these items. Social desirability, defined by Nederhof (1985) as “the tendency to say things which
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scores for themselves in the fear of coming off as incapable in their current job position. Future research should address these concerns, by including a recognized measure for social desirability in the questionnaire (e.g. Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; Paulhus 1984), allowing the researchers to correct the data of high scorers or register and account for the impact social desirability bias may have on these scores (Nederhof, 1985).
Finally, The ICC (2)-values found for two of our variables, intrateam trust and self-efficacy, were unsatisfactory according to Cicchetti’s (1994) guidelines. We acknowledge this may indicate a limited level of consistency in team member’s scores compared to members of
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