均衡还是失衡?信息型子团队均衡对团队创造力的作用机理研究——亲社会动机的调节作用

Balance or Unbalance? The Functional Mechanism Study of How the Balance of Information-based Subgroups Affect Team Creativity: The Moderating Role of Prosocial Motivation

基于分类加工模型,探讨了亲社会动机情境因素下,建设性争辩作为中介的信息型子团队均衡与团队创造力之间影响机制研究。运用96个研发团队、533名团队成员的样本数据分析,对所提出的假设进行了实证检验,结果表明:高团队亲社会动机下,信息型子团队均衡能够促进建设性争辩;建设性争辩正向促进团队创造力;高团队亲社会动机下,信息型子团队均衡会通过促进建设性争辩提升团队创造力。

The survival and growth of organizations depend on the creativity generated by the collision of knowledge and information from diverse R&D teams. However, in a diverse team composed of team members with different knowledge structures, educational backgrounds and years of service, team members will form information-based faultlines due to their similarity of task attributes, and then divide the team into subgroups of different sizes. Different sizes of information-based subgroups not only bring diversified knowledge and information, but also generate the phenomena of"balance of power "or"the words of the lowly carry little weight", which may lead to conflicts or collective thinking within the team. Therefore, it has become a pressing issue for the team to resolve the antagonistic conflicts within the team, to take full advantage of the diversity of knowledge, to generate positive and constructive controversy behaviors within the team, and to ultimately enhance team creativity.Based on the categorization-elaboration model, the present study explored the mechanism between the balance of information-based subgroups and team creativity, which verified the mediation role of constructive controversy and the moderation role of prosocial motivation.The categorization-elaboration model states that a diverse subgroups structure triggers elaboration processes and social categorization processes that bring diverse knowledge to the team, while also generating social categorization due to the differences among members. The existence of information-based subgroups brings diverse knowledge to the team, but at the same time, the size status of subgroups affects the relationship status within the team. The unbalanced state of information-based subgroups makes the team prone to collective thinking, while the balanced state of information-based subgroups leads team members antagonistic conflict and intergroup bias. The prosocial motivation makes members identify more with the team and are willing to self-reflect and think about others’ views. At this time, subgroups conflict and subgroups bias are alleviated. Team members focus on task-related knowledge and opinion discussions, which enhances constructive controversy. The diverse knowledge and information are more processed and integrated to form team creativity.The current study used the questionnaire survey methods to analyze data from a sample of 96 R&D teams with 533 team members to empirically test the proposed hypotheses. Empirical results show that: First, team prosocial motivation positively moderates the relationship between the balance of information-based subgroups and team creativity, which means when a team with high prosocial motivation, the more balance of information-based subgroups, the better team creativity will be. Second, constructive controversy had a positive effect on team creativity. Third, team prosocial motivation moderated the indirect effect of constructive controversy between the balance of information-based subgroups and team creativity. Empirical results offer critical theoretical implications and practice advices for the management of the balance of information-based subgroups and team creativity in diverse work teams.The current research extended the study of the relationship between the balance of information-based subgroups andteam creativity. Found the role of team prosocial motivation in the boundary mechanism between the balance of information-based subgroups and team process and team output. Explored the study of the mediation mechanism of constructive controversy. As the key role in the team, the team leader should set an example of prosocial behavior for his employees to convey the prosocial motivation of the team. Team leader also should strengthen team cohesion construction, enhance team members’ sense of belonging and identity to the team in order to enhance prosocial motivation. From team perspective, in the early stage of team building, it is necessary to consider the premise of diversified team members and focus on the balance of the same professional and functional members. Teams need rewards to motivate members to actively contribute their knowledge and ideas, thereby promoting constructive controversy. This will enable the team to generate new ideas related to the team’s mission goals and enhance team creativity.This research focused on R&D teams, and in the future research can increase the diversity of the sample to enhance the persuasiveness of the findings. Secondly, the data were selected as cross-section data, and longitudinal studies could be considered in the future. Finally, team creativity is reflected by the leader’s rating of the team, and a combination of primary and secondary data can be used in the future to provide a more objective response to team creativity data.