BUS603: Managing People

According to the IPO framework, inputs play an important role in the development of team processes. Inputs are conditions or characteristics of team members that exist prior to the team interacting and performing together, including – but not limited to – personality, and other dispositional characteristics. Inputs can therefore be considered as antecedents to emergent states, such as group potency. We selected conscientiousness and extraversion as two input variables (i.e., resources) that will contribute to group potency (i.e., a resource gain). Our rationale for selecting conscientiousness and extraversion is two fold. First, meta-analytic research by Ng and Feldman, structured around COR theory, demonstrated that both conscientiousness, and extraversion contribute to resource gains (e.g., salary attainment). Second, meta-analytic research by Bell found that team-level conscientiousness and extraversion were positively related to team effectiveness (ρ = 0.14 and ρ = 0.10, respectively). Although the latter supports the direct relation between our selected inputs and team effectiveness, there is a dearth of research investigating the full IPO framework and the implied indirect effects of how the inherently dynamic nature of team processes and resources (e.g., group potency) transmit the effects of input resources to outputs. LePine et al. described the issues involved with this piecemeal approach of only assessing the input-output, or process-output relations, for example, rather than a more theoretically aligned model of input → process → output. Further, LePine et al. noted that more advanced research designs and analyses should be forwarded to improve understanding of the complete framework. Finally, Mathieu et al. pointed out that team personality composition might not just be relevant for static teamwork variables but also their change over time.

In the current research, we investigated the full IPO framework by incorporating team-level conscientiousness and extraversion as inputs (i.e., antecedent resources), initial levels and change in group potency as process variables (i.e., team process resources), and team effectiveness as an output. Together, indirect relations are described with group potency's dynamics mediating the relations between team-level personality and team effectiveness.