Team Functioning in Organizations
The influence of task interdependence on the negative relationship between intra-team competition and team performance.
Martine Baars S2580381
m.h.baars@student.rug.nl
Different literature acknowledges the positive relationship between task interdependency and team performance. However, when looking at the relation between intra-team competition and team performance this is less extensively studied. I argue that intra-team competition reduces team performance and this negative relation is enforced with high task interdependency.
Analysis of data obtained from 308 participants in 54 teams did not provide significant outcomes to support the hypothesis. However the literature confirms my assumption several times. Therefore further research is suggested.
Introduction
This study focuses on team functioning in organizations by looking at how competition within a team leads to reduced team performance and whether task interdependency moderates this effect. In many teams there is a need for task interdependency, which means that the degree on which task performance of an individual depends upon the abilities and efforts of others within the team (Wageman, Baker 1997). Task interdependency is a condition of team work, without it, every individual could just work for themselves. As stated by Barrick, Bradley and Colbert (2007) teams with high interdependence are mostly mentioned as ‘real teams’
whereas those with low interdependence are often referred by as ‘working groups’.
When team members need to perform a task, some aspects can be performed by individuals, while other parts of the task demand for collective action to provide a successful outcome (Wageman & Baker, 1997). The activities needed for collective action are for example;
helping, sharing of information and communication. These activities can be affiliated with cooperation. These forms are most common at interdependent teams(Wageman & Baker, 1997). When looking at competition, the previous mentioned activities do not connect to this variable. Competition emerges in cases where the main goal of a task or activity is to defeat a rival.(Rubin, 2014) The collaborative activities mentioned above are not applicable on this definition. When for example, someone helps their rival, the chance of defeating him/her at the same time, is very small. Often a collective action is needed to enhance team performance and so a successful outcome of tasks or objectives. Therefore the question of this research is, does intra-team competition indeed reduces team performance and does high task
interdependence strengthen this effect?
Task interdependence is moderator of the relationship of intra-team competition on team performance. Which is implied negative in this study. Task interdependence implies the way of working in a group or the extent to which members of a group depend on each other and interact to fulfil their work(Shaw, Duffy & Stark, 2000). Task interdependence is in accordance with the article of Yan, Francesco, Zhang & Chen (2013), the extent to which items or principles upon which the work is carried out or the work processes themselves, are connected to each other, so that changes of the state of one element affect the other ones state.
Sometimes work groups or teams work independent from each other but is still possible to have task interdependency. In his study Kiggundu (1981) uses the example of coal mine workers to visualize task interdependency. These workers had 24-hour operations with three shifts, all shifts highly interdependent. The interdependency was in such a degree, that when the first shift did not deliver good work, the other shift could not do this also.
Competition occurs when group members have goals which are negatively
interdependent (Fisher & Gregoire , 2005). Intra-group competition is according to Na’im (2004) a work setting where people in a group perceive that their goals objectives and attainments are negatively affiliated.
In the research of Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro (2001) a clear definition of team
performance is given. They imply that the success of teamwork, which can be related to team performance, is about the processes which members of a team use to work together and to accomplish the work objectives and not about the individual talents of the team members (Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro, 2001). According to Chang, Sy and Choi (2011) team
performance depends on interpersonal skills and harmony among team-members. Chang, Sy ad Choi (2011) discussing harmony which has a positive relationship with team performance.
In this research it is argued that intra-team competition reduces team performance. In all definitions of team performance just mentioned, there is something said about, interpersonal skills, working together and harmony in combination with team performance. This confirms the presumption that competition, instead of cooperation, negatively influences team
performance. In this study it is going to be researched if this assumption can be confirmed.
Theory and Hypotheses
Intra-team competition, Team performance and Task interdependency
A high performance team is assumed to be a group of people with complementary abilities, who all have the same purpose, namely collaborate to produce results. Marks, Mathieu and Zaccaro (2001) define the success of teamwork as the processes of which members of a team work together to attain work objectives and where it is not about the individual skills of the team members.
The term competition is related with zero sum thinking, which means there is one winner at the time, according to Rubin (2014). Thus when employees within a team are
competing, there is someone who wins and someone who loses. Fisher and Gregoire(2005) explain the difference between cooperation and competition as following. Competition occurs when group members do have goals which are negatively interdependent. So if one person can only reach his or her goal if the other person does not. As opposed to cooperation which occurs when the goals of group members are positively interdependent. Na’im (2004) suggests that intra-group competition is perceived when people in a work group notice that their goals and attainments are negatively associated.
Task interdependency can vary from group to group and can be measured through observation or perceptions on individual level of interdependence(Shaw, Duffy & Stark, 2000). Referring to van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert (2001) task interdependence is when members of a work group depend on each other for not only fortunate accomplishment of their jobs but also the completion of superordinate objectives and desired results. Members of a team are task interdependent when they have to share expertise, information or materials to reach the requisite performance (van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert, 2001). This last definition of van der Vegt et al. (2001) is the one which is going to be used further in this study. Because this is the most overall definition where the others mentioned before are coming together.
Intra-team competition
It is expected that the outcomes of this study support the assumption that intra-team competition reduces team performance. This paragraph substantiates this assumption. For example the study of Shaw, Duffy & Stark, (2000) reveals that implementing group-based work does hold the potential for reducing competition and fostering cooperation among co- workers. So less competition fosters cooperation among employees which in their study leads to more satisfaction of workers. Moreover, there is mentioned that satisfaction of group members is a measurement of success, thus performance (Shaw, Duffy & Stark, 2000).
Summarized Shaw, Duffy & Stark(2000) assume that group-based cooperation leads to team performance and not to group-based competition.
Furthermore, the article of van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert (2001) suggests that when there is high task interdependence within a team and the payoffs are distributed equally, thus not focused on competition, this results in higher performance. Payments with a reward system focused on differentiating of team members, thus focused on competition does not (van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert, 2001). Not focusing on competition within a team with a reward system, thus results in higher team performance than focusing on competition in rewarding employees, according to van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert (2001). This can be placed in connection with the assumption that intra-team competition reduces team
performance even though we are not only focusing on reward systems.
The first hypothesis being tested is therefore:
H1: High intra-team competition leads to reduced team performance.
Task interdependency and it’s Moderating effect
Previous research suggests that reciprocal task interdependence has a positive relation to individual’s felt responsibility for work(Shaw, Duffy & Stark, 2000). There is also a positive relationship between task interdependence and how often employees asked for help for problems which are performance related. Both individuals degree of feeling responsible and asking for performance-related problems are likely to increase individuals performance in groups (Shaw, Duffy & Stark, 2000). Moreover, there is also been disovered that task interdependence has a relationship with group performance and group satisfaction. From the result of this study of Shaw, Duffy & Stark(2000) it follows that high levels of task
interdependence will be positively related to performance and satisfaction of group members.
When there is interdependence among tasks in the same job or between jobs there is a
relationship with increased motivation. The assumption in the study of Campion, Medsker &
Higgs (1993) is that task interdependency would increase group effectiveness. When a group is effective this tells something positive about the groups’ performance. When there is a high group effectiveness it increases the feeling of responsibility for each other (Campion,
Medsker & Higgs, 1993) So in this example, the assumption is that high task interdependency leads to, increased feeling of responsibility for each other (Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993), thus to more team performance.
Therefore the second hypothesis being tested is:
H2. High task interdependency leads to increased team performance
The following literature will explain something about the relation between intra-team
competition and team competition including the moderator, task interdependency. One study stresses that when people participate in high initiated interdependence teams they experience a feeling of responsibility because other people within the team depended on their task (Horsfall & Arensburg, 1966). Through the effects of responsibility for each other’s work outcome, task interdependence is positively related to employees work outcomes, satisfaction and the quality performance of the team (Horsfall & Arensburg, 1966). When employees are responsible for each other’s work outcome, not competing, because then there would be competition between the outcomes of work. From earlier mentioned literature can be assumed that it would negatively influences team performance. In the article of Barrick, Bradley and Colbert (2007) they confirm that team cohesion, had a more positive impact on team
performance when tasks are highly interdependent than when they were less interdependent. I imply that cohesion cannot be compared with competition because in the same article they explain the definition of cohesion which is an indicator of the bonding of team members which results in subsequent team work processes and outcomes. While intra-team
competition, which is already explained in this research, is not about bonding at all but at winning from one another.
This results in the last hypothesis where task interdependency moderates the relation between intra-team competition and team performance:
H3. Intra-team competition is negatively related with team performance when task interdependency is high.
The corresponding conceptual model is displayed in Figure 1:
Figure 1.
Method
Sample and Procedure
308 participants nested in 54 teams took part in this survey. The data was collected via an online link by 13 students from a pre-master program at the University of Groningen. The respondents were employees working in a variety of settings, ranging from companies in the commercial service to the industrial sector. Each work team consisted of at least five team members (M= 5.7, SD= 1.63), excluding the team leader. In total we approached 54 leaders and 371 employees and there was a response of 53 leaders and 308 employees. This means an
Intra-team Competition
Task
Interdependency
Team Performance
98.1 percent of leader respondents and an 96.3 percent of employee respondents. The age of the employee respondents have a mean of M=39.65 and a standard deviation of SD=12.281 with a maximum of 66 and a minimum of 15 years old , besides that, 43.2 % of the
respondents are male and 54.9 % are female with a 1.9 percent as a missing value. 0.6 % of the employee respondents had a compulsory education, 10.1% elementary education and 33.1% an intermediate vocational training degree. 32.1% had a higher vocational training education and 17,5% a bachelor’s degree. 0.6% a master’s degree or higher and 4.9% are missing values. The nationality of 86% of these respondents is Dutch and 12% have another nationality. The mean age of the leader respondents is M= 43.02 with a standard deviation of SD=11.34. The maximum age is 65 and a minimum of 23 years old. 49.1% of the leaders were male and there were also 49 % females who filled in the questionnaire, with 1.9%
missing. The nationality of 86.8% of the leader respondents are Dutch and 11.3% have another nationality.
Organizations were personally approached to fill in a questionnaire. This questionnaire was a combination of questions concerning the different research subjects of the 13 students.
Before participation all respondents signed an informed consent. There was a possibility for the respondents to fill in the questionnaires online via Qualtrics .
Two different questionnaires were used, one leader questionnaire and one employee
questionnaire. The leader questionnaire is used to measure the leaders view of hierarchy and concerning this research, his/her view on team performance. The employee questionnaire was also of importance for this research, because the questions concerned; task interdependency and intra-team competition. Both questionnaires were thus important to answer this research model.
Measures
Intra-team competition. This variable was measured with three items ‘is there a lot of
competition between the members of the team you work in’, ‘the members in my team try to
‘win’ from each other’ and ‘within my team there is a constant battle about who is the best’
ranging from 1 (fully disagree) to 7 (fully agree). No items were recoded. The Cronbach’s Alpha was α= .89, thus the scale was highly reliable.
Task interdependency. The variable task interdependency is also measured by stating different statements, measured in the employee questionnaire. In the following, I present 4 statements from the scale ; ‘The division of labor between me and my team is such, that i depend on them by doing my work’, ‘The other team members and I are depending on each other for information and resources which we need to perform our tasks in a good way’, ‘I have a solistic function and barely have to work together with other team members to perform my tasks in a good way’, ‘My tasks are in that way that I am forced to deliberate with the other team members and work together to perform well’ on the scale of 1 (fully disagree) to 7 (fully agree). In this measure the statement about having a solistic function had to be recoded because by filling in the statement about the solistic function 7 means low task
interdependency, while in filling in the other statements 7 means high task interdependency.
The Cronbach’s Alpha was α= .76, which also means this scale is reliable.
Team performance. In the leader questionnaire the team performance is measured also on a 1
to 7 scale (1= very bad performance, 7=very good performance). With six statements, for example; ‘how does the team score on reaching team goals’, ‘How does the team score on reaching deadlines’, ‘how does the team score on working speed’ or ‘how does the team score on productivity’. These statements are measured from the leaders perspective. The Cronbach’s Alpha was α= .89, thus the scale was highly reliable.
Data Analysis
First step in the analysis was to perform a descriptive analysis and the correlations between
the variables of interest (intra-team competition, team performance and perceived task interdependency). Secondly the variables were aggregated to team level, so that there was a value per team for each of these measurements. The conceptual model used in this research is a moderation model which can be tested in a regression analysis. I used the regression
analysis via PROCESS for SPSS developed by Andrew F. Hayes.1 I have investigated the main effect of the independent variable (intra-team competition) on the dependent variable (team performance) and the main effect of the moderator (task interdependency) on the dependent variable (team performance).The most relevant outcome is the interaction effect of the independent variable (intra-team competition) x (moderator) task interdependency on the dependent variable (team performance). Moreover, the model also shows the effects of a low, medium and high moderator on the relation between the independent variable (intra-team competition) and the dependent variable (team performance).
Results
Descriptive Statistics
The means, standard deviations and Pearson zero-order correlations between variables are presented in Table 1. The correlations in this table provides us with information about the association between variables. As can be seen, there is a negative correlation between task interdependency and intra-team competition which is not significant. The correlations between team performance and intra-team competition, team performance and task
interdependency are both positive, but non-significant. Looking at the normal distribution of the variables with a N= 54 for intra-team competition and task interdependence and a N=52 for team performance. The variable intra-team competition is not fully normally distributed with a M=2.33 and an SD=.84. The variable task-interdependence and team performance are also both approximately normally distributed with a M= 4.68 and SD=.75 and M= 5.24 and
1 http://www.afhayes.com/introduction-to-mediation-moderation-and-conditional-process-analysis.html
SD= .848. Given the large sample size and the procedure used for the moderation analysis (Process; Hayes, 2013) having small deviation from normality does not impair the results. The histograms are to be seen in Appendix A.
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics and Study Variable Intercorrelations
Hypothesis Tests: Team performance
The regression results for the model with Team performance as the dependent variable are summarized in Table 2. It was expected that intra-team competition would reduce team performance, however following from the regression analysis there is a positive but not significant linear dependence of intra-team competition on team performance. It was also predicted in the second hypothesis that task interdependence positively influences team performance. As can be seen in the table there is a positive linear dependence of task
Variables Mean S.D. 1 2
1. Intra-team competition 2.55 0.84
2. Task interdependency 4.68 0.75 -.22
3. Team performance 5.24 0.85 .088 .086
Note. N = 54
*p < .05, **p < .01
interdependency on team performance but again these results are non-significant. Therefore hypothesis 1 and 2 could not be supported.
TABLE 2
Regression Analyses Results
Team performance
Predictor
B SE
Main effect: Intra-team competition .09 0.15
Main effect: Task interdependency .11 0.17
Intra-team competition x Task
interdependency 0.12 0.20
R2 .03
Δ R2 .01
Note. N = 52 Standardized regression coefficients are presented.
* p < .05, ** p <.01
Hypothesis Tests: Moderating effect of Task interdependency
Regression results for the model with team performance as the dependent variable are summarized in Table 2. It was expected in hypothesis 3 that with high task interdependency
intra-team competition would reduce team performance. However because there are no significant dependences to be found in the results as to be found in the table, both of these hypotheses can be rejected. This means that task interdependency non-significantly moderates the relationship between intra-team competition and team performance. And because what is mentioned in the previous paragraph, that there is a positive but non-significant relationship between intra-team competition and team performance, the interaction effect would also be different than expected by forehand. A 3 % of the R-square proves that the variation was explained by the regression line and the ∆ R-square tells us that only 1% of team performance is explained by intra-team competition. This also brings no support for what was found in the literature mentioned in the theoretical background. Therefore hypothesis 3 could not be supported.
Discussion
Findings & Theoretical implications
The goal of this research paper was to discover whether task interdependency had a moderating effect on the negative relation between intra-team competition and team performance.
Looking at the results and the first hypothesis, the first hypothesis says that the negative relationship between intra-team competition and team performance cannot be supported, because of the non-significant dependence. A possible reason for this is that the teams answered the questions about competition within their team in a socially desirable way.
When the competition is proven to be low it can never result in an negative relationship.
Besides that this dependence was not significant, there was a non-significant positive
relationship while in my model this relationship was negative. As for example in the article of
van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert (2001) is explained, is that with high task
interdependence, a system with equally distributed payoffs will result in more cooperation, and so in higher performance. While a reward system that was differential on payment, will result in more competition and in lower performance. (van der Vegt, Emans & van de Vliert, 2001). The number of articles about this relationship was not extensive, but most of them state a negative relationship which could not be found in the results of this research.
The second hypothesis, which stated that high task interdependency leads to increased team performance can also not be supported because of the non-significant effect, following from the output. Meanwhile, the relationship is not significant, it is positive, which I also found in the literature and this is true according to my hypothesis. The reason why this relation is not significant is maybe because task interdependency is something where employees are not aware of. A lot of working patterns have become automatism. So the answers they gave can be distorted because of this. A lot of literature also confirms this hypothesis. For example; Barrick, Bradley & Colbert (2007) are stating that commitment and pride which is shared among the team and high cohesion with high team interdependence should have a great impact on the performance of the team.
There is also no significant moderation of task interdependence on this negative relation. In hypothesises 3 it was expected that the moderator, task interdependency, would reinforce the negative relation between intra-team competition and team performance. The article of Horsfall & Arensburg (1966) (Horsfall & Arensburg, 1966) tells us that cooperation positively influences team performance through the effects of responsibility for each other’s workoutcomes (task interdependence), that is why the model implied that competition would give the opposite effect.
Because of the non-significant results of the regression analysis, I cannot give new insides as concerned the already existing literature. This study does not contribute to the literature in a way that it confirms things that are already written about the relation between intra-team competition and team performance and the moderating effect of task
interdependency. But it does give an overview of the existing literature about these variables and is viewed in the light of the hypotheses I have stated.
Practical implications
This paper doesn’t offer a solution for organisations in how to enhance team performance because the results of this paper are not significant. However from the literature it can be stated that cooperation in teams is preferable against competition in teams. It can also be stated that from a lot of literature it is proven that task interdependency enhances team performance. The moderating role of task interdependency in the relation between intra-team competition and team performance is unfortunately not proven by any of the hypotheses.
Strong and weak points
Referring to the results section all variables are not fully normally distributed, which makes our regression model a bit weaker. However, the sample is big so this would not harm the reliability that much. The reasons why the outcome of the analysis is not significant can be caused by missing control variables which are not taking into account in this research.
However all the Cronbach’s alphas’ of the variables are high enough. Therefore the
questionnaires used are tested as valid to use. Intra-team competition is also a variable which can be based on how people in the organisation define competition. People can have
unconscious feelings of competitiveness or trying to be better than other people in their team while they don’t take these assumptions in account when filling in the questionnaire.
Moreover, another reason why the outcomes are not significant is because I aggregated the variables to team level, there might be a loss of variance because of this.
Despite of the fact that all team members did fill in the questionnaire, the outcomes are taken together while a lot of individuals did fill in the questionnaire. The outcome is therefore maybe less valid.
Future research
Further research should look at the positive relation between task interdependency in team performance, because lots of literature acknowledged this and then try to find out if intra-team competition does influences this effect. In this research there is less to find about the relation between the predictor and outcome and therefore the moderator effect is hard to conclude.
When you see intra-team competition as a moderator, the focus will be more on the influence of intra-team competition on a positive relation which is confirmed in a lot more literature than the predictor-outcome relations which I used in this research. Namely the positive relation between task interdependency and team performance. From this point of view you can expand the research by using the moderator intra-team competition a lot easier.
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Appendix A
