POSITIVE AFFECTIVE TONE AND TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP AS ANTECEDENTS OF TEAM LEARNING

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TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP AS

ANTECEDENTS OF TEAM LEARNING

Master thesis, Msc. Human Resource Management,

University of Groningen, Faculty of Business and Economics

September, 2010

LUMINITA FEDIUC Plutolaan 329 9742 GK Groningen (0)610770537 L.Fediuc@student.rug.nl Student number 1830473 Supervisor Dr. F.Walter 2nd Supervisor Laetitia Mulder Acnowledgements:

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Executive Summary

This paper studies the effect of team positive affective tone on team learning, under the condition of transactional leadership. Moods are defined in the academic literature as being diffused and with no specific focus, and the main objective was to prove that teams with positive affective tone engage in team learning only when their leaders exhibit transactional leadership behaviours.

The study used a multiple linear regression to assess the moderating role of transactional leadership on the relation between team positive affect and team learning. Data was collected in a one month interval using questionnaires. The sample consisted of 40 teams employing 192 respondents of Romanian nationality.

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POSITIVE MOOD AND TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP AS ANTECEDENTS OF TEAM LEARNING

Abstract

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1. INTRODUCTION

Research on affect in the workplace has constantly been a matter of interest in the academic literature, starting from 1930 and continuing at a faster pace since 1990 (Brief & Weiss, 2002). Consequently, moods and emotions began to be perceived as more than just variations in rationality. Instead, they are recognized as useful and adaptive elements of cognition (Korb and Nicholson, 2000). Although recently there has been noted an increased interest in affect, there are still a lot of theoretical and methodological issues to be addressed regarding this subject. Latest studies have split into two directions. One branch of research is centered on the creation of mood and emotions at the workplace, while the other one focuses on the effects of employees‟ feelings, in the form of performance outcomes (i.e helping behavior, creativity) (Brief & Weiss, 2002). This project belongs to the second branch by referring to the relation between positive moods and learning.

Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) firmly state that moods and emotions are responsible for inducing a high degree of variance in performance-relevant job behaviors. Job performance has been found to be improved by positive moods (Staw & Barsade, 1993; Tsai, Chen & Liu, 2007; Kaplan et al., 2009). Nevertheless, the effects that moods have on people are various. Fredrickson (2001) suggests that positive moods widen the array of thoughts and actions that come to mind, and thus, the individual finds it easier to access a higher range of ideas and actions (Fredrickson, 1998). Also, positive affect leads to a „„broad, flexible cognitive organization and ability to integrate diverse material” (Isen, 1987; Miner & Glomb, 2010). Following the same line of reasoning, Miner & Glomb (2010) state that individuals in pleasant moods will integrate a diverse array of information faster and more efficiently than the ones who are exhibiting negative moods. Based on these findings, it can be reasonably concluded that positive mood influences learning.

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moods (Bass et al., 2008). Moreover, positive mood broaden the relationship between thought and action, leading to increased novelty and exploration of ideas (Frederickson, 2003; Bono & Ilies, 2006).

It has been shown that team learning behaviors have a positive influence on team effectiveness (Chan, Pearson & Entrekin, 2003; Wong, 2004) and are correlated with a high level of satisfaction (Zellmer-Bruhn & Gibson, 2006). In addition, learning behaviors are antecedents of team performance in organizations (Edmondson, 1999). Taking into account the importance of learning within an organization, it would be interesting to empirically corroborate whether it is being influenced by positive mood.

Moreover, this project takes a step further and studies the outcomes of positive mood on learning at the team level of analysis focusing on the relationship between team‟s positive affective tone (George, 1990; George and Brief, 1996) and team learning. The reason for doing so is twofold. Firstly, research on teams is relatively new, teams‟ impact on organizational performance starting to be studied about two decades ago (Molleman & Slomp, 2006). This happened mainly because organizations started to recognize the benefit of team work and as a result, the use of teams has increased in popularity (Levi & Slem, 1995). Studying positive affective tone would bring more insight to the literature on team processes and develop a higher understanding of the mechanisms that trigger team performance. Secondly, by organizing work in teams, and icreasing team learning, companies gain a competitive advantage (Edmondson, 1999; Jones, 2007). Taking into account the actual economic setting characterized by volatility and harsh competition, this can be an asset of high utility for a business. Thus, by revealing the relation between team‟s positive affective tone and team learning, organizations would be more aware about the way that the work environment has to be built. More explicitly, if the mechanisms through which positive affect influences team learning are known, then the work environment should be designed to contain them.

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relation being stronger if perceived feedback is high. More specifically, positive mood is positively influencing team learning under the condition that team members perceive the received feedback as being based on the overall team‟s performance. The relation does not take place when perceived team feedback is deficient.

Moods are defined as being diffuse and without any specific orientation towards an object (Cropanzano et al., 2003). Thus, it can be assumed that positive affective tone translates in an increase in team learning if there is a conjuncture which helps team members to focus their efforts in this direction. Leadership may be that missing link.

Leaders are known to offer guidance, motivation and support to their followers in order for those to accomplish a common goal (Jung & Avolio, 2000). They influence tasks, policies, tactics and objectives, but in the same time they create ideas and principles, empower approaches and guide behaviors as well (Yukl, 1998). Especially transactional leadership, as belonging to those leadership styles that focus on goal attainment, may determine the relationship between positive mood and team learning. It is characterized as goal-oriented, and links rewards with performance. Transactional leadership guides people to achieve the established goals by focusing on prior logic, incremental change, efficiency, safety, and continuity (Bass, 1985). By offering a goal to look up to and guidance to achieve it, transactional leadership may help the team to focus its constructive behaviors induced by positive mood on taking up learning activities. This should happen because through learning, the team can increase its chances to attain that specific goal.

Despite the extensive research dealing with the effect of team positive affective tone in a work setting environment, the literature does not succeed to answer the question of whether teams with members in positive mood tend to engage in learning activities. This paper explicitly addresses the question of team learning resulting from positive mood and the effect of transactional leadership on that relationship. The examined model is illustrated in Figure 1.

--- Insert Figure 1 about here ---

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possible implications in the human resources field. Having teams involved in learning activities gives the organization a competitive advantage. In conclusion, it is important to see which are precursor factors of team learning and to what extent they relate to each other. Thus, a clearer image regarding the circumstances under which team learning occurs can be obtained.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES

2.1 Positive affective tone

Even though there is no unanimously accepted definition of mood, in line with some academic works (Weiss, 2002; Cote, 2005) we describe moods as feelings of relatively low intensity and with no clear antecedent causes. The feelings comprised by positive mood are calmness, satisfaction, energy, enthusiasm, happiness, inspiration. During the last decade, researchers started to connect moods to key work outcomes such as employee task performance and helping coworker behavior (George and Brief 1996; Podsakoff et al. 2000; Tsai et al., 2009). Their importance is recognized by researchers who state that moods may be vital for the assessment of how, with what strength and for how long employees are focusing their efforts on fulfilling tasks (George & Brief, 1996). People in positive mood tend to be more active and more willing to help each other. Also, they are inclined to be more open and receptive to the environment. Studies have shown that being in a good mood leads to optimism, higher creativity, perseverance in duties and remembering positive information (George, 1990; Zaccaro, 2001; Bass et al., 2008; Tsai et al, 2009).

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Saavedra (2005) conducted a study among 70 work teams and found that there is convergence in team members‟ moods.

Positive affective tone boosts the quantity of information that is processed in teams, permits flexible cognitive processes and leads to shared flexible models. As a result, also the creativity and innovation of team members is enhanced (George, 1990; Zaccaro, 2001; Grawitch et. al, 2003; Fredrickson, 2001).

2.2 Team learning

In her article from 1999, Edmondson defines team learning as “the activities carried out by team members through which a team obtains and processes data that allow it to adapt and improve”. Learning behavior relates to feedback seeking, information sharing, asking for help, talking about errors and experimenting (Edmondson, 1999) and it comprises information acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, and information storage and retrieval. Team learning is an important matter for the organization to take into consideration because by cooperating with each other, group members can transfer knowledge among them (Ellis et al., 2003). It is based on individual learning, but at the team-level, it captures the collective knowledge pool, potential synergies among team members and unique individual contributions, becoming a team-level property (Argote, McEvily, & Reagans, 2003; Kozolowski & Ilgen, 2006). As a result, the productivity of a team is higher than the whole amount of individual productivity of its members. Previous studies in the field of team learning state that within teams, people learn not only from their personal experiences (Ickes & Gonzalez, 1994; van Woerkom & van Engen, 2009; Edmondson, 1999). To this respect, they gather knowledge from the experience of other team members, customers, and people outside the team or outside the organization.

2.3 The relationship between team positive affective tone and team learning

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2001) They are willing to involve in a larger range of activities and are more open to new experiences (Fredrickson, 2001; Miner & Glomb, 2010). In addition, experiencing positive moods boosts the aspiration for exploration and discovery (Aspinwall, 1998; Isen, 1990). Team learning involves having the team taking up initiatives and ideas, sharing information and discussing errors (Edmondson, 1999). As a consequence, it would be easy to conclude that teams with positive affective tone are more inclined to take up the previous stated learning actions.

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2.4 Transactional leadership and its role in guiding positive moods and cultivate learning

Garman et. al (2003) depict three objectives of transactional leadership. Firstly, a transactional leader should provide clear goals so that the team members would get a better understanding of their duties. Secondly, he/she should motivate improvement and thirdly, achievements should be recognized by creating opportunities for rewarding. Transactional leadership includes skills like goal-setting, feedback, and reinforcement strategies which help team members maintain effective programs (Corrigan and Garman, 1999). These skills ease the fulfillment of the previous stated objectives, reflecting behaviors in which there is a focus on reward contingencies and exchange relationships (Burns, 1978). Moreover, this leadership type widens the relation between the leader and the team members by offering orientation and goals. By providing their team members with formal systems and training programs, they guide future actions and decisions necessary to reach the objectives (Shrivastava, 1983). If transactional leadership behaviors are not exerted at all, then team members would experience confusion and uncertainty (Hinkin and Schriesheim, 2008).

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Avolio (1999) and Bass et.al (2003) refer to this type of leadership behavior as being dissatisfying and counterproductive.

Transactional leaders focus mostly on the need for employees to perform their work and reach objectives. However, it is not a form of leadership dependent on a unique personality type but on the way situations are used so that efficient and positive consequences are obtained (Bono& Judge, 2004). This paper aims to demonstrate that if they are in a positive mood, employees engage in team learning if the exhibited leadership type within the team is transactional. Namely, when transactional leadership is high, then the relation between team‟s positive affective tone and team learning is positive. When transactional leadership is low, then there is no expected relationship between team‟s positive affective tone and team learning. The reason for expecting an interactive relationship is that positive mood may represent an important source of energy and resources but this does not automatically imply that an individual will utilize these potentials to facilitate the team‟s learning. More likely, individuals will direct their efforts to improve their own personal learning and performance instead of using them in the advantage of the team. (Walter & Van der Vegt, 2009). As a consequence, in order for the positive affective tone of the team to have an effect on team learning, moderating variables are needed. Transactional leadership sets clear goals and provides guidance in attaining them. Thus, employees may canalize their behavior influenced by positive mood to collect, process and share information necessary to improve their performance. In other words, the creativity, tendency to information sharing and optimism of the team members, all induced by positive moods, instead of being wasted, may be directed towards learning activities. Moreover, transactional leadership behaviors imply rewarding or punishing for actions and results. By linking incentives to actions, employees‟ performance related behaviors improve (Burns, 1978). However, transactional leadership is generally seen as a leadership style that does not promote learning (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Coad & Berry, 1998). Nevertheless, employees may be driven by these action incentivizing behaviors to use the tendencies triggered by positive affective tone of the team for engaging in team learning. This would be done in order to help the team improve.

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H1: Transactional leadership moderates the relationship between team positive affective tone and team learning. The relationship between positive affective tone and team learning will be positive in teams with high levels of transactional leadership, and non-existent in teams with low levels of transactional leadership.

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Sample and Procedure

For collecting the data, 215 questionnaires were sent to a number of 44 teams. The team leader was not asked to fill in a questionnaire. The response rate was 89.3%, which led to the exclusion of 4 teams from the survey. The teams belonged to 9 companies from Romania. These were mostly multinationals with different domains of activity comprising banking, financial services, IT services, marketing, retail, automobiles and journalism. However, almost half of the teams were provided by a large Austrian bank located in Romania. The teams consisted of 3 to 8 members, not including the team leader (Mean=5.04). Participants were between 21 and 60 years old and had an average tenure within the team of 26 months. Of the 192 respondents, 39% were males, and 61% were females, with their education ranging from high school to master degree (high school: 9%, bachelor‟s degree: 48%, master‟s degree: 43%).

The questionnaires were sent in English, as the contact persons from each company confirmed that the level of English of the respondents was sufficient in order to fill them in. Also, the respondents were assured about confidentiality, and it was stressed that it was not possible to match their answers with their identity.

3.2 Measures

To assess the statistical reliability of the scales, Cronbach‟s alpha was used as a diagnostic measure. The generally agreed lower limit for Cronbach‟s alpha is .70 (Robinson et al. 1991).

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assess on a five-point scale the level of which they felt: comfortable, calm, content, energetic, enthusiastic, inspired and satisfied. The options ranged from 1 = never to 5 = very frequently, and the Cronbach‟s alpha for this scale was α = .84. The level of measurement was individual, and in order for the positive affective tone of the team to be assessed, results were aggregated at the team level.

Team Learning was measured using the team learning survey (TLS) developed by Edmonson (1996). It comprises 10 items evaluating on a seven-points scale the degree to which the team, as a whole, engages in team learning activities. Example of questions are: “In our group, people discuss ways to prevent and learn from mistakes”, “ We regularly take time to figure out ways to improve our work process”, “Problems and errors in our group are never communicated to the appropriate people” etc. After excluding two questions which had a low degree of correlation with the other items in the scale, Cronbach‟s alpha was α= .69. The excluded questions were: “In my group someone makes sure that we stop and reflect on our work processes” and “My group often coordinates with other people to meet organizational objectives”.

Transactional Leadership was measured using 8 items from a scale derived from Bass and Avolio (1993) and reviewed by Hinkin and Schriesheim (2008). It contains elements of contingent reward and active management by exception, measured on a five-point scale. Examples of questions are: “My team leader tells me what to do in order to be rewarded”, “My team leader rewards my achievements”, “My team leader focuses on meeting the standards” etc. Because of the same reason as in the team learning scale, two questions had to be excluded in order to reach an acceptable degree of internal consistency (α= .69). The excluded questions were: “My team leader recognizes my achievements” and “My team leader talks about reward for good work”.

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they do not face the process challenges that larger groups do. However, a different line of judgment would be that members belonging to a larger team may share a more extensive range of ideas by having more knowledge resources available and deliver better results than smaller teams (Zellmer-Bruhn & Gibson, 2006)

3.3 Analysis

The expected results are at team level, and as a consequence, the scores given by team members for each variable were aggregated at team level. First, I computed the mean scores for each variable at individual level, and after that, the scores for each variable were aggregated for every team.

To uncover if team‟s positive affective tone and transactional leadership are related to team learning behaviors to vary within teams, I employed a multiple linear regression analysis. The scope was to evaluate whether there is a significant relationship and dependence of team learning behavior to positive affective tone under the condition of transactional leadership.

The regression was performed in three steps. The first step was to introduce team size as control variable. In the second step, the independent variables, positive affective tone and transactional leadership, were brought into the analysis. The third step introduced the interaction term as product of the independent variables.

4. RESULTS

4.1 Descriptive statistics

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--- Insert Table 1 about here ---

4.2 Hypothesis testing

Table 2 shows the results of the hierarchical linear regression of team learning on team positive affective tone and transactional leadership.

--- Insert Table 2 about here ---

After controlling for team size in the first step, results show that team positive affective tone and transactional leadership were significant in predicting team learning. The additional variance (∆R2) explained by the model after introducing the two independent variables is 0.45 ( p< 0.001).

To test the proposed hypothesis, the b-coefficients were observed. The regression points towards the interesting finding that, unlike we were expecting, positive affective tone is highly associated to team learning (b=.32, p<.001). This means that when experiencing positive feelings, team members engage in learning activities, while when their mood is low, they tend not to do that.

Transactional leadership has a significant negative relation with team learning (b=-0.14, p<0.05). In consequence, when the leader shows low transactional leadership behaviors, team members are likely to take up learning activities, while if the leader exhibits high transactional behavior, the opposite happens.

However, the interaction term is not significant (b=.02, p=n.s), and as a result, our hypothesis is not supported. Transactional leadership behavior is not found to change in any way the tendency of teams being in a good mood to engage in learning activities.

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5. DISCUSSION

Recently, a significant amount of research has been done, concerning the concept of team learning (Brooks, 1994, Edmondson et.al 2001, Thompson & Zondlo, 1995). Still, in spite of the considerable attention received, there has been little reported empirical research on team learning (Chan et. al, 2003). This paper aims to contribute a better understanding of the factors that enable and facilitate team learning. According to Edmondson (1999), understanding these factors is crucial, in order for an organization to be able to rely on its teams in changing and uncertain environments.

The study, conducted at team level, has focused on an affective state that is fairly common when it comes about taking up activities related to learning, but which is frequently ignored by researchers and professionals: positive mood. Because moods are displayed for a short period of time and have no specific focus, people tend not to always canalize them in the right direction (Weiss, 2002; Cote et. al 2005). Thus, the study focused also on transactional leadership, which is thought to give the following teams a goal and to show the way to achieve it.

At the basis of this research stood the hypothesis that one of the possibilities for positive mood to lead to team learning is that the leader would exhibit transactional behaviors. The methodology employed was a quantitative study conducted through the means of a questionnaire. A multiple linear regression was used to determine the effect of transactional leadership on the relation between positive mood and team learning.

5.1 Findings

The expectations of this research were that transactional leadership moderates the relationship between positive mood and team learning. I anticipated no relationship between positive mood and team learning when transactional leadership was low. On the other hand, under conditions of low transactional leadership, I expected a significant positive relationship between the two mentioned variables.

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hence the proposed hypothesis did not hold. A translation of this result is that if teams with members in positive mood indeed engage in learning, then it does not matter so much if the type of leadership is transactional or not.

Importantly to notice is that when studied independently, transactional leadership is found to have a significant negative relation with team learning. This is concordance with several studies (Burke et al., 2006; Judge & Piccolo, 2004) which concluded that transactional leadership behaviors are not positively related to learning, but with performance. I conducted analyses of the effect of the two dimensions of transactional leadership, contingent reward and active management by exception, on team learning to check if they relate differently. Previous studies (Zagorsek et al. 2009; Avolio, 1999) showed that contingent reward is positively related to learning, while active management by exception has a negative influence (Zagorsek et al. 2009). The impact of contingent behaviors was found to be even slightly stronger than the impact of transformational behaviors. After I employed the analysis, contingent reward reported positive correlations with team learning, while active management by exception was negatively correlated with team learning. However, these results were not significant. I expect that when the availability of the sample increases, the significance of results would also increase.

When analyzing the link between positive mood and team learning, the outcome was that positive mood significantly influences team learning. This is not entirely unexpected or surprising, and comes as a confirmation of previous research that links creativity, motivation, increased information processing and flexible cognitive processes with positive mood (George, 1990; Zaccaro, 2001; Grawitch et al., 2003; Fredrickson, 2001). Notably, this research stresses even more the importance of positive moods in the process of team learning. As future research, it can be assessed if positive moods deriving from different reasons than satisfaction with job have the same impact over team learning.

5.2 Theoretical implications

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leadership style (Judge& Piccolo, 2004), transactional leadership can have negative implications, its effect on team learning being negative. Moreover, the choice itself of team learning represents an addition to the literature, due to the relatively small amount of research that has been done with respect to this variable (Edmondson et al., 2001). Even more important, the results of this study show that even undirected positive mood can contribute to team learning.

The innovation of this research resides in raising awareness about antecedents of team learning and also about the possible moderators of positive mood and team learning relationship. It answers in the same time the performance requirements of our modern society. Increasing organizational effectiveness through learning aims in the end at increasing organizational performance. Consequently, it can be alleged that the present research has societal relevance as well.

5.3 Practical implications

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5.4 Limitations and further research

The number of teams that took part in this research is 40. The sample size of the study confines the generalizability of the reported results and entails a more thoroughly examination of the reasons for which teams pursue team learning, involving more respondents. I assume that the results would have been slightly different if more teams had been employed, in the sense that the significance of the results might increase. However, even if the number of participating teams was not so high, the studied teams were from different types of organizations and had different roles. This diminished the probability of the results being influenced by a certain job type or organization.

The country chosen for conducting the study was Romania. The results can be of course, generalized to other countries as well, but we cannot overlook the importance of culture in this study. According to Hofstede (2001) the culture of a society can be characterized in terms of five value dimensions: uncertainty avoidance, power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and long- versus short-term patterns of thought. To illustrate in the case of this study, let us take for instance, power distance and individualism. Power distance is the degree to which differences in power and status are accepted in a culture, while individualism-collectivism refers to whether individual or collective action is the preferred way to deal with issues. In Romania this dimensions take dissimilar values than in Germany for example. Littrell & Lapadus (2005) found that Germany was moderate in individualism, while Romania reported high values of this dimension. Thus, it might be the case that Romanian team members do not strive so much for the benefit of the whole team, but for the individual benefit. A consequence of this can be that the values of team learning may diverge in the two countries due to cultural differences. Power distance took moderate values in Germany and high values in Romania, highlighting the fact that the perception of team members over their team leader power and influence may as well differ.

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offering them challenging projects, training and knowledge. (Sy et. al 2005). Being a correlation study, causality cannot be determined.

Transactional leadership is found to have a positive impact on feedback learning, which is learning already embedded in the organization through culture, structure, strategy, procedures and systems (Vera & Crossan, 2004; Waldman et al., 2001) The other type of learning in this classification is forward learning. This type of learning refers to the transfer of learning among individuals or groups until it becomes institutionalized and it is thought to be positively influenced by person-focused leadership, transactional leadership being part of the task focused category. As further research, it would be interesting to see if teams with positive affective tone engage in feed-forward learning if the leadership type is transactional. Also, additional studies on this subject should employ larger samples of participant teams with different cultural backgrounds. Moreover, assessing the mood of participants at different times could bring more insight by controlling for mood fluctuation.

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APPENDIX

TABLE 1:

Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations

M SD 1 2 3 4

1.Team size 4.80 1.09

2.Team learning 4.43 .52 -.07 (.69)

3.Positive mood 3.27 .48 .43 .64** (.84)

4.Transactional leadership 3.48 .41 -.07 -.33* -.13* (.69) N =40. *Correlations are significant at the 0.05 level. **Correlations are significant at the 0.01 level. Cronbach‟s alphas are presented in parentheses.

TABLE 2:

Hierarchical regression of Team learning on Team positive affective tone and Transactional leadership

Variables Team learning

Steps 1 2 3

1 Team size -0.04 -0.06 -0.06

2 Positive affective tone 0.32** 0.32**

Transactional Leadership -0.14* -0.13*

3 Positive affective tone x Transactional Leadership

-0.02

R2 0.49** 0.49**

∆R2

0.01 0.48** 0.00

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FIGURE 1 Conceptual Model

Positive Mood Team learning