1
Team peer control and individual performance
The mediation role of feeling energized and the moderating role of intra-team
trust
Master thesis
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Department of Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior
MSc Human Resource Management
Student: Femke Postma
S3854663
f.postma.5@student.rug.nl
Abstract
Lately, research about the influence of peer control within teams has intensified. The results on the effect of team peer control are mixed. Therefore, with this study I aimed to investigate how team peer control positively affects an employee’s individual performance. Drawing on various literature, I proposed that the positive relationship between team peer control and individual performance was mediated by “feeling energized”, provided that within a team a climate of intra-team trust existed. To be able to test this, 54 teams were recruited to participate in a Qualtrics survey. The data was analysed in SPSS and the results on the first hypothesis revealed opposite to wat was expected, indicating a negative relation between team peer control and individual performance. However, through feeling energized, a positive relation between team peer control and individual performance was found. Unfortunately, this research was unable to confirm that intra-team trust moderated the indirect relationship team peer control on individual performance, through feeling energized. Additionally, further implications for organizations and supervisors are presented and directions for future research are suggested.
Introduction
Nowadays, organizations have increasingly recognized the need for self-management within teams, besides supervision of a supervisor, since these type of team structures have a potential to positively influence organizational processes (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008). Primarily within self-managed teams, team peer control serves as a control mechanism to monitor and influence one another in order to coordinate work (Baker, 1993; Manz & Sims. 1987; Thompkins & Cheney 1985). In recent literature, a growing interest of team peer control has been acknowledged due to an increasing use of teams and self-management in organizations (De Jong & Elfring, 2010).
Loughry & Tosi (2008) refer to peer control as: “A form of informal control that
emerges among and is exercised by members who have no formal authority over one another”.
Peer control within a team has been growing in importance besides hierarchical control in coordinating the direction and persistence of individual efforts of team members (Marks, b, & Zaccaro, 2001). Studies on team peer control (Langfred, 2004; Loughry & Tosi, 2008) have shown that the influence of peer control within a team is mixed, since team peer control may enhance team performance, but can also act as a barrier (Langfred, 2004; Loughry & Tosi, 2008).
However, evidence also suggests that team peer control can restrict performance, rather than enhance it (Taylor 1916, Roethlisberger, and Dickerson 1939). An explanation for this was given by Tosi et al (2000), who state that peer control within a team might result in an unpleasant work climate and employee negativity, since employees might not always know how to appropriately influence their peers within a team, and act such that peers become angry or upset.
This research aims to contribute to the literature on team peer control by examining wat boundary condition positively influences the relation team peer control and individual performance. This is worthwhile to investigate since organizations and teams can benefit from the positive outcomes that team peer control generates (Loughry and Tosi, 2008). Furthermore, organizations might miss important cues for improvement when team peer control is not being practiced within a team (Morrison and Milliken, 2003). An explanation for low team peer control is that individuals within a team may hesitate to speak up to fellow peers since they might fear some type of repercussion (Ryan and Oestreich, 1998).
It is worthwhile to investigate under what condition the performance of team peer control, leads to energized feelings of a “controlled” individual. A potential moderator of the relationship between team peer control and feeling energized is intra-team trust. Data from former studies suggest that trust promotes ‘we’ thinking within a team, which contributes to a positive atmosphere and the willingness to consider others’ interests next to one’s own and the expectation that the other will consider others’ interest next to their own (Rosendaal & Bijlsma-Frankema. 2015. Furthermore, trust is an important characteristic of a team, since a climate of trust within a team promotes employees to speak up and stimulates the willingness to be vulnerable (Morrison and Milliken, 2003). Also, intra-team trust results in positive expectations, a willingness to contribute to the organization and help other team members. (Dutton, 2003; Kahn, 1990). When taking these elements of trust into account, I expect that a high level of intra-team trust generates a positive acceptance of team peer control through the willingness to be vulnerable, and a willingness to contribute to a positive atmosphere and to consider others’ interests, which together can be captured by employees experiencing an ‘energized feeling’ (Dutton, 2005).
This research intends to examine whether a climate of trust within a team will have a positive effect on the relation between team peer control and individual feeling energized, such that team peer control will have a positive effect on in individuals energized feelings, and through feeling energized, on individual performance. Specially understanding the relation between team peer control and the relatively new variable “feeling energized” will help organizations to effectively increase employees’ performance. The research questions of this study are as follows:
1) How are team peer control and individual performance related?
3) Does intra-tram trust moderate the relation between team peer control and feeling energized, such that:
- If intra-tram trust is high the relation between team peer control and feeling energized is positive?
- If intra-team trust is low the relation between team peer control and feeling energized is negative or not significant?
In order to test this argumentation, the first part of this thesis starts with providing a theoretical explanation of the concepts team peer control, intra-team trust, feeling-energized and individual performance. The focus will be on the presumed relation between these concepts. The next chapter includes a description of the methodology which will be used for this study. The third chapter is concerned with the results of the analyses. Finally, in the discussion, the research question will be answered and specific areas for further research will be identified.
Theory and hypotheses
Peer control
Cardinal, Sitkin & Long (2004) define control as: “A process through which managers
seek to align employees’ attitudes and behavior with organizational objectives”. Research
recently acknowledged a more informal control mechanism performed by peers (Barker, 1993). Peer control is defined by Loughry (2010) as: “A form of organizational control that occurs
among workers who have no formal authority over one another”. Throughout this thesis a
combination of both definitions will be used to define “peer control” on a team level, referring to “informal control among workers within a team, that aligns employees’ attitudes and
behavior with organizational objectives”. This seems to be a proper definition since it
Peer control and individual performance
As mentioned in the introduction, team peer control has been found to produce beneficial, but also detrimental organizational effects. One major benefit is that controlling team members may positively influence individual performance of another team member, if team peer control maximizes an individuals’ effort and contribution towards achieving organizational goals (Steward, Courtright, & Barrick, 2012). Furthermore, Loughry and Tosi (2008) state that team peer control enhances performance in team setting since it detects opportunities to motivate, assist, or encourage employees who perform poor. Performance is defined as: “The extent to which the productive output of a team or individual meets or exceeds
the performance standards of those who review and/or receive the output (Hackman, 1987).
Throughout this thesis the term performance will solely refer to the productive output of the
individual, given that the aim is to investigate performance outcomes at an individual level of
analyze.
performance, I propose a replication of this effect at the individual level of analysis of performance:
Hypothesis 1: Team peer control will have a positive effect on individual performance. Feeling energized as a Mediator
Research to date has not yet determined a commonly agreed upon theoretical explanation for how team peer control operates and impacts organizational relevant outcomes (Kirsch and Choudhury, 2010). Especially, little is known about the mediating process between team peer control and individual performance. However, a promising recent development in the literature on performance introduces the concept of employees “feeling energized” by another team member (Baker et al., 2003). Quinn, Spreitzer, & Lam (2012) state that energy is a fundamental resource for performance. When people have energizing interactions within a team, they are likely to take this positive experience into following interactions, which results in a positive spillover effect (Baker et al., 2003). Feeling energized is a relatively new variable, expressing a positive effect of interacting with other team member on a focal team member (Yang, Liu, Wang, & Zhang, 2017). Energized feelings by another team member are likely to foster job engagement and provides employees with the ability and motivation to participate in work relevant work activities (Owens, Baker, Sumpter, & Cameron, 2016, p. 42). Furthermore, energizing feelings result in a positive mood that enables individuals to act and contribute within their team or organization, since such relations promote feeling of belongingness, affiliations, and connection within a team (Quinn & Dutton, 2005). Thus, investing energy in one’s own performance will also be perceived as contributing to performance (Quin & Dutton, 2005).
need to interact with one another and thereby learn from a fellow team member, which decreases performance since learning from interactions increases performance (Spreitzer, Porath, & Gibson, 2012). I assume the opposite to happen when people feel energized (Casciaro & Lobo, 2008), resulting in a positive effect on individual performance because it will increase learning from interactions which stimulates a change in certain behavior. Hence, I expect, that is if team peer control exerts a positive effect on feeling energized, this will mediate the relation between peer control and individual performance. This is represented in the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Feeling energized mediates the positive relation between team peer control and individual performance
In the next section I will propose a team climate condition which will promote a positive relation between team peer control and feeling energized.
The moderating role of intra-team trust
As mentioned in the previous section, team peer control may maximize an individuals’ contribution towards achieving organizational goals and increases an individuals’ effort (Steward, Courtright, & Barrick, 2012). Quinn & Dutton (2005) propose that feeling energized promotes positive feelings, such as high motivation, towards achieving organizational goals. However, previous findings also suggest that de-energized feelings generate negative energy as it can be perceived by individuals to be draining (Labianca & Brass, 2006). These positive and negative effects of feeling energized lead me to assume that team peer control might not always lead to increased individual performance by feeling energized, as this probably depends on a boundary condition. This boundary condition is valuable to investigate since feeling energized, is relevant for increased performance (Gerbasi et al., 2015).
compromising the intention to accept vulnerability based on positive expectations of the intentions or the behavior of another”. These positive expectations refer to an individual’s
belief that actions of another are beneficial (Gambetta, 1988; Luhmann, 1988), while recognizing one’s own vulnerability (Lewis & Weigert. 1985). This thesis especially focuses on trust among team members, therefore the team level variable “intra-team trust” will be used to refer to a perception of trust that reflect positive expectations among members of the same team and that emerges at a team level (De Jong & Elfring, 2010).
Hence, I expect that when employees perform peer control towards one another within a team, one’s individual performance will increase through feeling energized, provided that there is a climate of intra-team trust. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: The positive indirect relationship between team peer control and individual performance as mediated by feeling energized is stronger when intra-team trust is high rather
than low.
The conceptual model in figure 1 covers the content and relationships of the sections mentioned above.
Figure 1
conceptual model
Method
Participants and procedureactions and individual performances. To maximize the response rate, all participants received a personalized e-mail which briefly explained wat the study contained and assuring the participant that responses where be completely anonymized and confidential.
To increase reliability of the outcomes of this study, all teams were asked to fill in the Qualtrics survey twice. The first survey was launched halfway February and the second in the second week of April. After the second wave, a separate questionnaire was sent to the teams’ supervisors in order to collect their performance rating of individual employees. This questionnaire was sent to the supervisor on the 20th of April, one week after the second wave of the questionnaire for the employees. 52 supervisors where approached to fill in the questionnaire, from which 45 responded, leading to a response rate of 86,54% among the supervisors. The response rate from the questionnaire filled in by the employees was 73,84%, Teams with a lower response rate than 60% where excluded from the sample, leading to a final sample that contained 34 teams, including 191 team member and 33 supervisors. The average age of the respondents in the final sample was 42,32 (SD = 12,91 years) and the average time an employee has worked within their firm is 10,22 years. (SD = 10,47). The gender distribution of the sample showed that 48,2 % of total sample is male and 51,3% female (SD = .511). The average supervisor age was 43,79 (SD = 10,05). 48,5% of the supervisor population was male whereas 51,5 is female (SD = .51).
Measures
Peer control. To assess the extent to which respondents “peer control” fellow team
members, a measure designed for the PhD study of Giulio Ockels was used: “If this team
member does something that I perceive as not right, I will talk to him or her”. Respondents
performed within a team. The peer control scores were aggregated to team level scores, by calculating the mean score of each team that has a response rate equal or higher than 60%.
Intra-team Trust. Consistent with my conceptualization, I measured intra-team trust
using De Jong et al (2014) unidimensional intra-team trust scale. In this scale, the multifaceted nature of intra-team trust is captured by having each item reflect one of the different types of relational risks identified in Sheppard and Sherman’s (1998) typology. For instance, the item
“I am confident that my team members will take my interests into account when making work-related decisions” indicates the risk of neglect, whereas the item “I can rely on my team members to keep their word” reflects the risk of unreliability. A more general item to approach trust is as follows: “I trust my team members”. Respondents indicate their agreement with the
items on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). These scores represented an indication of the degree of trust within a team. The intra-team trust scores were aggregated to team level scores, by calculating the mean score of each team.
Feeling energized. To evaluate the extent to which respondents consider their work
relationships as energizing, I measured the number of outgoing energizing ties (by outgoing, I meant the participant’s perception of each person in his or her own network). I used the measure tailored by Gerbasi et al (2015): “People can affect the energy and enthusiasm we have at work
in various ways. Interactions with some people can leave you feeling drained; [whereas] others can leave you feeling enthused about possibilities. After a conversation with this team member, I get to work inspired and full of energy”. Respondents indicated a value from 1 (strongly
Individual performance. Performance was measured by rating the quantity and quality
of work of each individual employee. Both the amount of work every individual employee delivered and the quality of their work was scored by their direct supervisor on an eleven-point scale (0= very poor, 10 = excellent).
Control variables. I considered gender as a possible control variable that may influence
the hypothesized relationship between team peer control and feeling energized, due to the fact that studies found that women are more likely to speak up towards a colleague when he/she makes a mistake compared to men (Roussin, Larraz, Jamieson, & Maestre, 2018). The degree of speaking up might be of influence the degree to which peer control is exercised in a team. The respondents indicated whether they were male (1), female (2) or other (3) by choosing which options applied to them. In addition, I considered tenure as a possible control variable as research has shown that tenure predicts voice (in other words to speak up) (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). This led me to assume that tenure might stimulate the level of peer control exercised by individuals in a team.
Results
Factor analysesTable 1 Factor analysis Component 1 Component 2 Component 3 Component 4 Intra-team trust 1: .82 Intra-team trust 2: .74 Intra-team trust 3: .84 Intra-team trust 4: .86 Intra-team trust 5 .85 Peer control .98 Feeling energized .96 Individual performance 1: .90 Individual performance 2: .91
Note: factor loading < .20 were suppressed
Data analysis
The following section contains the results of the analyses. To check the internal reliability of the measures that were used for the analysis, I computed the Cronbach’s Alpha for all relevant measurement scales. For the variable intra-team trust the reliability of the scale was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha that trespassed the critic value of .80 (α = .87). For individual performance I have conducted performance scores for all team members by calculating the mean score of the quality and quantity items, since separating the scores of gave no significant different results on the analysis. The variable individual performance also indicated a high level of internal consistency of the scale with a Cronbach’s alpha that trespassed the critic value of .80 (α = .84).
measures is to perform test-retest reliability (Zhang et al., 2011), however due the a low response rate on the seconds wave of the survey, the results were not sufficient to perform this reliability test.
Following, I checked the data on assumptions. Regression analyses require that several assumptions are met, so therefore I started by checking the data on outliers and normal distribution, since the presence of outliers might have harmful effects on the statistical analysis. After checking the data on assumptions, the dependent variable “individual performance” showed outliers worth mentioning. The histogram in Figure 2 illustrates three outliers after testing for normality. Furthermore, the Shapiro-Wilk test shows that the dependent variable is not larger than .05 in terms of significance (W =.000, P < .001), this concluded a significant non-normal distribution.
Figure 2
Outliers independent variable "individual performance”
(Eugene, Lee, & Famoye, 2002). Since removing the outliers had no significant effect on the normal distribution of the dependent variable, I decided to keep the outliers for the analysis and carry on with the regression analysis.
Preliminary analysis
To test whether the variables are associated, I conducted a correlation analysis. The means, standard deviations and correlation among the studied variables are set out in Table 2. The first two columns show means and standard deviations, and alpha reliabilities for scales are reported along the diagonal.
The expectation was that peer control exercised within a team will have positive effect on individual performance. However, the negative correlation showed the opposite, indicating a negative significant relationship (R = -.24, p = .00). This would imply that a higher level of peer control within a team will result in a lower level of individual performance of the team’s members. Furthermore, the analysis showed a strong positive correlation between feeling energized and individual performance. This result (R = .26, p = .00) indicated that the more an individual feels energized, the better their individual performance will be. This is a rather interesting outcome given the negative correlation between team peer control and individual performance. Moreover, a strong positive correlation between feeling energized and intra-team trust was found (R = .27, p = .00), suggesting that the higher the level of intra-team trust is within a team, the more an individual team member will experience feelings of being energized by the other team members.
tenure was strongly correlated with both the dependent variable individual performance (R = -.23, p = .00) and the independent variable team peer control (R = .24, p = .00). The positive correlation between individual performance and tenure implied that the shorter people work within their current position, the higher the individual performance was. For team peer control, the correlation with tenure (R = .36, p = 00) indicated that higher tenured teams exercise a higher level of team peer control. As Becker’s et al. (2016) recommends to solely control for variables that significantly correlate with the study variables, I decided to include both control variables as covariates in the main analysis.
Table 2
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Gender 1,52 .51 - 2. Tenure 10,22 6,20 R = -.06 3. Peer control 5.88 .53 R = -.24** R = .34** - 4. Individual performance 7.99 1,05 R = .02 R = -.22** R = -.22** - 5. Feeling energized 5,37 .74 R = -.03 R = -.10 R = .23** R = .26** - 6. Intra team trust 5,71 .42 R = -.07 R = .19* R = .32** R = -.18* R = .27** -
Notes: N ranges from 182 to 191. For gender, 1 = male. 2 = female +p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01.
Main analysis
analysis, team peer control, intra-team trust and feeling energized where standardized to the z-scores of these variables.
The results reported in table 3 indicate that the indirect effect of team peer control on individual performance via feeling energized was positively significant (B =.09, SE = .03). This result was demonstrated by the positive effect size and the absence of 0 within the confidence interval [.04, .16]. Hence, this finding supports the expectation that feeling energized would mediate the relation between team peer control and individual performance. Noticeable is that the result on analysis of the direct relation between team peer control and individual performance showed a negative effect, whereas the indirect relationship via feeling energized was positive. The implications of these findings are worthwhile to discuss in more detail in the discussion since this outcome demands an explanation.
Table 3
Regression results for mediation effect
Notes: N = 182. +p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01
Next, team peer control was regressed on feeling energized, in which I added intra-team trust as a moderator. I expected team peer control to be perceived as rather positive when there is a climate of trust within a team. As shown in table 4 below, analysis gave the following
results: B = .05, SE = .09. The results are rather disappointing as the slightly positive indirect
Mediation variable model (Dependent variable = Individual performance)
B SE T LLCI UCLI
Gender .03 .08 .42 -.12 .18
Tenure -.20* .08 -2,58 -.35 -.05
Peer control .30* .07 3.85 .15 .45
effect is insignificant, which the presence of 0 within the confidence interval indicates CI95% [-.13, .24].
Table 4
Regression results for moderation effect
Notes: N = 182. +p < .10, *p < .05, **p <
Moreover, I hypothesized that the positive indirect relationship between team peer control and individual performance, as mediated by feeling energized is stronger when intra-team trust is higher, rather than low. To test this hypothesis, I ran PROCESS model 7. The result of the moderated mediation analysis in table 5 below indicated a non-significant result, this was demonstrated by the presence of zero within the confidence interval CI95% [-.04, .08]. However, the results show that at a medium value of intra team trust (.00 SD), the conditional indirect effect is significant.
Moderator variable model (Dependent variable = Feeling energized)
Predictor B SE T LLCI UCLI
Table 5
Regression results of moderated mediation
Notes: N = 182. +p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01
Hypothesis testing
Hypothesis 1: Hypothesis 1 predicted that peer control exercised within a team will have a positive effect on individual performance of team members. However, the results presented in both table 2 and 5 indicated that team peer control is negatively associated with individual performance (B = -.27, SE = .08, p < .001). This finding was unexpected and suggests that team peer control has a negative effect on individual performance of team members. Hence, no support for hypothesis 1 was found.
Dependent variable model (DV = Individual performance)
Predictor B SE T LLCI UCLI
Gender -.04 .07 -.57 -.19 .10
Team tenure -.11 .08 -1,46 -.26 .04
Peer control -.27** .08 -3,31 -.42 -.11
Feeling energized .31** .07 4,20 .17 .46
Index of moderated mediation
Moderator (Intra-team trust)
Index BootSE BootLLCI BootULCI
.02 .03 -.04 .08
Conditional indirect relationship
Moderator value (Intra-team trust)
Effect BootSE BootLLCI BootUCLI
-1,00 low .05 .04 -.02 .13
.00 medium .06 .03 .01 .13
Hypothesis 2
:
Hypothesis 2 stated that under a certain condition, feeling energized will mediate the relation between team peer control and individual performance. The results reported in table 3 indicated that the indirect effect of peer control performed within a team on individual performance, via feeling energized was positive and significant (B = .09, SE = .03). The significance of this result was demonstrated by the absence of 0 within the confidence interval CI95%, [.04, .16], indicating that feeling energized at least partially mediated the relationship between team peer control and individual performance. Hence, hypothesis 2 was supported. This rather interesting result indicated that feeling energized is an important mediator with a major impact on the relationship between team peer control and individual performance.Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3 suggested that the positive indirect relationship between
Discussion
Research on peer control has been conducted for several years. However, previous studies have shown that team peer control may enhance performance, but can also act as a barrier (Langfred, 2004; Loughry & Tosi, 2008). This study aimed to contribute to this line of research by taking a closer look at under which circumstanced team peer control positively effects performance and what factors can contribute to achieve this. Literature on the positive effect of team peer control was promising, as it was shown to help organizations to effectively increase employees’ performance (De Jong, Bijlsma, & Cardinal, 2014). However, my findings suggest a relatively strong significant negative relationship between team peer control and individual performance, meaning that team peer control will have a negative effect on individual performance of team members. The results did not confirm the hypothesis that peer control exercised within a team will have a positive effect on one’s individual performance.
Since results on the effect of team peer control were mixed, I decided to take a closer look at how team peer control might result in a positive effect on individual performance. Therefore, the second hypothesis proposed that feeling energized mediates the relation between team peer control and individual performance. The results supported the second hypothesis that feeling energized was expected to mediate the relation between team peer control and individual performance.
Theoretical implications
This section contains implications from a theoretical perspective. The present research findings show no result for the first hypothesis. The relatively strong negative relation between team peer control and individual performance is contradictory to the hypothesised expectation. However, this outcome is in line with previous findings that the effect of team peer control has mixed results, and in this case results in a negative effect on individual performance (Langfred, 2004; Loughry & Tosi, 2008). The findings suggest that individual performance of team member is higher when a low level of peer control is being exercised. The negative effects of team peer control have been shown to result from an uncomfortable work climate that can emerge when people experience peer control within a team as controlling and disrespectful (Tosi et al., 2000). Perhaps this explains the negative effect of team peer control on individual performance, as people might not always know how to appropriately exercise peer control within a team, resulting in angry or upset reactions (Tosi et al, 2000). This negative atmosphere within a team might have led to decreased motivation to perform (Loughry, 2010).
Furthermore, the results support the second hypothesis. This outcome is consistent with previous mentioned theory that stated that energized feelings by another team member are likely to foster job engagement and provide employees with the ability and motivation to participate in work relevant work activities (Owens, Baker, Sumpter, & Cameron, 2016, p. 42). Future research could benefit from this outcome as it confirms that energy is a fundamental source for performance (Quinn, Spreitzer, & Lam, 2012). As the concept “feeling energized” is relatively new and under-examined, this finding holds an important implication for developing literature on human energy in organizations (Baker et al., 2003). Also, it is important to note that this finding contributes to the literature, since that it shows the importance of feeling energized as a mediating mechanism in the relation between team peer control and individual performance. The importance is highlighted by the finding that solely through feeling energized this relation is positive, whereas the direct relation between team peer control and individual performance is negative. However, the negative direct relation between team peer control and individual performance is much stronger (B = -.27) compared to the positive indirect result (B = .08). These rather contradicting results must therefore be interpreted with caution and demand further research.
drive the different effects of intra-team trust (Langfred, 2004). A possible contingency factor might be trust asymmetry, which is referred to as a configuration of dyadic trust relations within a team (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). High trust asymmetry weakens the positive impact of intra-team trust and low asymmetry has the opposite effect on intra-intra-team trust (De Jong & Dirks, 2012). This contingency factor might be essential to take into account in the further examination on the moderating role of intra-team trust as the idea that team peer control will be perceived as positive, rather than negative, within a climate of trust is promising (Dutton, 2003; Kahn, 1990).
Practical implications
organisational socialization, is useful as it helps new employees to learn behaviors which they need to succeed in the organization (Bauer & Erdogan, 2011, p. 52)
Also, collecting 360 degrees feedback can help to identify the current status of energizing relationships within teams. If the outcome is that de-energizing relationships are present within a team, a coach may be helpful to help repair de-energizing ties and provide recommendations for change.
Limitations and future research
It is important to note that a number of limitations need to be considered when interpreting the findings of this study and which should be addressed in future research. First, this study used two variables that were measured with a single item. In order to test reliability for these single-item measures, performing test-retest reliability is recommendable (Zhang et al., 2011). However, the corona virus made that the response rate on the second wave of the survey was extremely low, resulting in an outcome that was not sufficient enough to perform this reliability test. Future research could benefit from testing all variables on reliability by performing a test-retest method, in order to make sure that the measurements are valid (Weir, 2005, p. 231). As the current circumstances are unique and probably will not be a common obstacle in term of response rates, this is a method that can be performed in most cases of singe-item measurements.
mentioned very clearly beforehand that the survey would be completely anonymized and information being confidential. Evidence has shown that sometimes the declaration of confidentiality will remain doubtful in the minds of respondents (Kaiser, 2009, p. 1637). This was confirmed when I personally received a reaction from one of the participants, which indicated that this person was worried about the level of confidentiality of the results. It is possible that this feeling is shared by more of the participants. Participants of this study might have experienced this feeling since the survey contained a matrix in which their own names and those of fellow team member where shown. This may result in anxious feelings as participants might not feel secure enough that the results will be completely confidential (Stiles & Petrila, 2011, p. 348), resulting in missing values in the data. As for these types of measurement, such as team peer control and feeling energized, anonymous questionnaires are not effective. Other solutions must be offered in order to secure a sufficient response rate. For further research it is therefore recommended to recruit participant from outside the network of the researcher, in order to create distance between the researchers and the participants. This method might reduce the risk of people feeling anxious about confidentiality when filling in the questionnaire (Yu, 2008, p. 170).
Conclusion
indicated a positive indirect effect of team peer control on individual performance through feeling energized. The results clearly highlighted the importance of feeling energized as an important mediating factor in the relation between team peer control and individual performance. Lastly, this study has shown that a high or low level of intra-team trust made no significant difference in moderating the relationship between team peer control and individual performance as mediated by feeling energized. The moderating effect of intra-team trust was
solely significant at a moderate level, which therefore did not confirm the last hypothesis.
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