Innovation Performance in New Product Development Teams in China's Technology Ventures: The Role of Behavioral Integration Dimensions and Collective Efficacy

In emerging markets, technology ventures increasingly rely on new product development (NPD) teams to generate creative ideas, and to mold these innovative ideas into streams of new products or services. However, little is known about how behavioral integration (a behavioral team process) and collective efficacy (a motivational team process) jointly facilitate or inhibit team innovation performance in emerging markets — especially in China, the world’s largest emerging-market setting with collectivist and high power-distance cultures. Drawing on social cognitive theory and behavioral integration research, this article elucidates the relationships between behavioral integration dimensions (i.e., collaborative behavior, information exchange, and joint decision making) and innovation performance, and also examines how collective efficacy moderates these relationships in China’s NPD teams. Results from a sample of 96 NPD teams in China’s technology ventures reveal that information exchange is positively associated with innovation performance. Collaborative behavior positively but marginally influences innovation performance, whereas joint decision making doesn’t relate to innovation performance. Moreover, collective efficacy demonstrates an important moderating role. Specifically, both collaborative behavior and joint decision making are more positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. In contrast, information exchange is less positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on team innovation and behavioral integration in emerging markets by offering a better understanding of how behavioral and motivational team processes jointly shape innovation performance in China’s NPD teams. This study also extends social cognitive theory by identifying collective efficacy as a boundary condition for the overall effectiveness of behavioral integration dimensions. In particular, this study highlights the condition under which behavioral integration dimensions facilitate or inhibit NPD team innovation performance in China.

[1]  N. Anderson,et al.  Performance = Motivation × Ability: An integration-theoretical analysis. , 1974 .

[2]  A. Bandura,et al.  Social Cognitive Theory of Organizational Management , 1989 .

[3]  Kwok Leung,et al.  Negotiation and reward allocations across cultures. , 1997 .

[4]  A. Bandura.  Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective. , 1999, Annual review of psychology.

[5]  M. Hoegl,et al.  Organizational knowledge creation and the generation of new product ideas: A behavioral approach , 2008 .

[6]  J. Mueller,et al.  The Cost of Collaboration , 2012, Psychological science.

[7]  D. Hambrick,et al.  FACTIONAL GROUPS: A NEW VANTAGE ON DEMOGRAPHIC FAULTLINES, CONFLICT, AND DISINTEGRATION IN WORK TEAMS , 2005 .

[8]  Joseph A. Cote,et al.  Lack of method variance in self-reported affect and perceptions at work: Reality or artifact? , 1989 .

[9]  I. Janis.  Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes , 1982 .

[10]  J. Sinacore.  Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions , 1993 .

[11]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Culture′s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values , 1980 .

[12]  Hans-Georg Gemünden,et al.  Interteam Coordination, Project Commitment, and Teamwork in Multiteam R&D Projects: A Longitudinal Study , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[13]  Debra L. Shapiro,et al.  Maximizing cross-functional new product teams' innovativeness and constraint adherence: A conflict communications perspective. , 2001 .

[14]  Steve W. J. Kozlowski,et al.  Team learning, development, and adaptation , 2008 .

[15]  Wallace E. Carroll,et al.  Determinants of transnational new product development capability: testing the influence of transferring and deploying tacit overseas knowledge , 2001 .

[16]  Whyte,et al.  Recasting Janis's Groupthink Model: The Key Role of Collective Efficacy in Decision Fiascoes. , 1998, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.

[17]  Simon S. K. Lam,et al.  Participative Decision Making and Employee Performance in Different Cultures: The Moderating Effects of Allocentrism/Idiocentrism and Efficacy , 2002 .

[18]  M. West.  Sparkling Fountains or Stagnant Ponds: An Integrative Model of Creativity and Innovation Implementation in Work Groups , 2002 .

[19]  Mohan Subramaniam,et al.  The Influence of Intellectual Capital on the Types of Innovative Capabilities , 2005 .

[20]  H. P. Sims,et al.  Top Management Team Demography and Process: The Role of Social Integration and Communication , 1994 .

[21]  Chao-chuan Chen,et al.  How can Cooperation be Fostered? The Cultural Effects of Individualism-Collectivism , 1998 .

[22]  Jack A. Goncalo,et al.  Can Confidence Come Too Soon? Collective Efficacy, Conflict and Group Performance over Time. , 2010 .

[23]  Chee W. Chow,et al.  Cultural influences on informal information sharing in Chinese and Anglo-American organizations , 1999 .

[24]  Yan Ling,et al.  Transformational Leadership's Role in Promoting Corporate Entrepreneurship: Examining the CEO-TMT Interface , 2008 .

[25]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[26]  R. Landis,et al.  Moderated Multiple Regression Tests are Criterion Specific , 2000 .

[27]  K. M. Bartol,et al.  Empowering Leadership in Management Teams: Effects on Knowledge Sharing, Efficacy, And Performance , 2006 .

[28]  R. Scheines,et al.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 1977 .

[29]  Holger Ernst,et al.  Success Factors of New Product Development for Emerging Markets , 2013 .

[30]  Christopher O. L. H. Porter,et al.  Goal orientation: effects on backing up behavior, performance, efficacy, and commitment in teams. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[31]  Maw Der Foo,et al.  Effects of team inputs and intrateam processes on perceptions of team viability and member satisfaction in nascent ventures , 2006 .

[32]  Ute R. Hülsheger,et al.  Team-level predictors of innovation at work: a comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. , 2009, The Journal of applied psychology.

[33]  Christopher M. Barnes,et al.  Harmful help: the costs of backing-up behavior in teams. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[34]  M. Weldon,et al.  Group remembering: does social loafing underlie collaborative inhibition? , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[35]  D. Tjosvold,et al.  Reflexivity for Team Innovation in China , 2004 .

[36]  H. Ernst.  Success Factors of New Product Development: A Review of the Empirical Literature , 2002 .

[37]  Daniel R. Ilgen,et al.  Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams , 2006, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[38]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  On the evaluation of structural equation models , 1988 .

[39]  Felix C. Brodbeck,et al.  Group Decision Making Under Conditions of Distributed Knowledge: The Information Asymmetries Model. , 2007 .

[40]  Haiyang Li,et al.  Product Innovation Strategy and the Performance of New Technology Ventures in China , 2001 .

[41]  Christopher O. L. H. Porter,et al.  When Does Teamwork Translate Into Improved Team Performance? A Resource Allocation Perspective , 2010 .

[42]  B. Cheng,et al.  Does Value Congruence Lead to Voice? Cooperative Voice and Cooperative Silence under Team and Differentiated Transformational Leadership , 2012, Management and Organization Review.

[43]  M. Riggs,et al.  The impact of perceived group success-failure on motivational beliefs and attitudes: a causal model. , 1994, The Journal of applied psychology.

[44]  Christophe Boone,et al.  Top Management Team Diversity and Firm Performance: Moderators of Functional-Background and Locus-of-Control Diversity , 2009, Manag. Sci..

[45]  Dean Tjosvold,et al.  Openness among Chinese in conflict : effects of direct discussion and warmth on integrative decision making , 2003 .

[46]  Edwin A. Locke,et al.  The motivation sequence, the motivation hub, and the motivation core. , 1991 .

[47]  H. Ernst,et al.  How Teamwork Matters More as Team Member Dispersion Increases , 2007 .

[48]  Michael S. Cole,et al.  Within-group agreement: On the use (and misuse) of rWG and rWG(J) in leadership research and some best practice guidelines. , 2012 .

[49]  Aidan Kelly,et al.  Decision Comprehensiveness and Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Moderating Role of Managerial Uncertainty Preferences and Environmental Dynamism , 2009 .

[50]  A. Bandura.  Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy.

[51]  L. James,et al.  Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. , 1984 .

[52]  Donald C. Hambrick,et al.  Corporate coherence and the TOP management team , 1997 .

[53]  Zeki Simsek,et al.  Modeling the Multilevel Determinants of Top Management Team Behavioral Integration , 2005 .

[54]  Steve H. Barr,et al.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes the Impact of Perceived Loafing and Collective Efficacy on Group Goal Processes and Group Performance , 2022 .

[55]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[56]  R. Brislin.  The wording and translation of research instruments. , 1986 .

[57]  Kara A. Incalcaterra,et al.  A meta-analysis of team-efficacy, potency, and performance: interdependence and level of analysis as moderators of observed relationships. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[58]  A. Sagie,et al.  A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Participative Decision-Making in Organizations , 2003 .

[59]  C. Lengnick-Hall,et al.  Effective participative decision making: A joint responsibility for success , 1992 .