Exploring the Effects of Positive/Negative Group Affective Tone, and Leader s Network Structures on Team Creativity

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1 Exploring the Effects of Positive/Negative Group Affective Tone, and Leader s Network Structures on Team Creativity Dae Sung Lee 1 and Kun Chang Lee 2* 1 Researcher, SKKU Business School Creativity Science Research Institute Sungkyunkwan University Seoul REPUBLIC OF KOREA leeds1122@gmail.com 2 Professor, SKKU Business School Director, Creativity Science Research Institute Sungkyunkwan University Seoul REPUBLIC OF KOREA *Corresponding author kunchanglee@gmail.com Abstract:- The study explores an unanswered question in literature- analysis of the relationship between team affect, team creativity, and leader s network structures. To add rigor to our results, we introduced team types such as IS development teams, and IS maintenance teams. It is a long-standing question how to deal with the effects of group affective tone on team creativity. Additionally, we considered another exciting factor such as leader s network structures in their teams. For this purpose, we considered leader s centrality and structural holes. The empirical results with 50 teams from IS companies in South Korea revealed that in the IS development teams, negative group affective tone is positively related to team creativity. In contrast, in the IS maintenance teams, negative group affective tone is negatively related to team creativity. In addition, we found that leaders centrality has a negative effect on team creativity, and that leaders structural holes have a positive influence on team creativity. Key-Words:- group affective tone; network structure; team creativity 1 Introduction For the sake of continuous innovation in organizations, creativity is essential. In the context of modern companies, creativity is a result of team work. Although there have been many studies on individual creativity, increasing attention has been paid to factors influencing team creativity (Shalley et al. 2004). Especially, team affective tone (or group affective tone) is an attracting predictor of team creativity. Team members tend to create a certain and unique atmosphere for the team creativity. This kind of interests in team affective tone starts with the question of whether teams with a positive group mood are more creative than teams with a negative group mood. Group affective tone has become a significant area of interest among academics and practitioners (George 2008). As boundary conditions, George and Zhou (2007) found supportive contexts in which negative mood had a positive impact on creativity at the individual level. Recently, Tsai et al. (2011) extended such effects from the individual to the team level, showing the moderating effect of team trust on the negative relationship between positive group affective tone and team creativity. This study aims to contribute to the literature by uncovering boundary conditions of positive and negative group affective tone On the other hand, the social network ties leaders possess in the team have received relatively little attention in literature (Mehra et al. 2006). In this ISBN:

2 sense, this study tries to contribute by considering leaders centrality and structural holes to know how they contribute to the enhancement of team creativity. Leaders may select either the safety of cooperation measure by centrality (Coleman 1988) or the flexibility provided by structural holes (Burt 1992). Within an information system (IS) environment, this study aims to examine what leaders choose in association with group affective tone and team creativity. In sum, we examine group affective tone, team network structure, and their influences on team creativity, in association with leader s network structures in the teams. 2 Theoretical Backgrounds 2.1 Team creativity This study aims to investigate team creativity, emphasizing employees abilities to work together. At individual level, creativity is defined as a distinct kind of outcome by yielding novel, useful, and valued ideas and solutions (Amabile 1988; Zhou & Shalley 2008). On the other hand, team creativity is a team s production of novel and useful ideas, which includes products, services, processes and procedures (Shin & Zhou 2007). Focusing on work environment affecting individual creativity, According to the interactionist model of creativity (Woodman et al. 1989, 1993), individual creativity requires antecedent conditions, including cognitive styles and abilities, personality, motivational factors, and knowledge. These individual factors are influenced by, and influence, social and contextual factors. When individual creativity occurs, the social influences on individual creativity are immediately established in the group, with the two influencing each other (Woodman et al. 1993). Although group creativity is clearly a function of the creativity of the individuals in the group, it is not the simple aggregate of all group members' creativity. Group creativity is also influenced by the factors representing group features, such as group composition, characteristics and processes (e.g., diversity, cohesiveness, group size, problem-solving strategies, social information processes, and contextual influences) (Woodman et al. 1993). Another theory for team creativity is West s (1990) model of team climate for innovation. Just as the concept of organizational climate has been studied in relation to specific reference points, such as the relationship between climate and service quality, team climate has also been studied in reference to team creativity and innovation (Pirola-Merlo & Mann 2004; West 1990). This theory is a four-factor model of work group innovation, and hypothesizes that the four major climate factors - vision, participative safety, task orientation, and support for innovation - are predictive of innovativeness (West 1996). Vision refers to a shared commitment to clear objectives. Participative safety represents feeling accepted by each other. Task orientation refers to a shared concern among team members for achieving a good level of performance (West 1990). Finally, support for innovation refers to the expectation of, and support for, innovation in the team s work (West 1990, 1996). These four factors have been found to predict creative performance in a number of empirical studies (Bain et al. 2001). That is, team climate is modelled as impacting group outcomes, but not necessarily via individuals and individual outcomes (Pirola-Merlo & Mann 2004). 2.2 Group affective tone and team creativity George (1996) used a term group affective tone to refer to: consistent or homogeneous affective reactions within a group. If, for example, members of a group tend to be excited, energetic and enthusiastic, then the group itself can be described as being excited, energetic and enthusiastic. As another example, if members of a group tend to be distressed, mistrustful and nervous, then the group also can be described in these terms. (P. 78) As Sy et al. (2005) defined the term, group affective tone is an aggregate of the moods of the individual members of the group. Namely, it represents mood at the group level of analysis (Positive) group affective tone is related to various organizational outcomes, such as group prosocial behaviour (George 1996; Kelly & Barsade 2001). George (1996) proposed that positive group affective tone in the workplace would lead to employees cognitive flexibility, which might be amplified as a result of social influence and other group processes. According to George and King (2007), positive group affective tone might increase team members information-processing efficiencies, because it would make them draw out relevant ISBN:

3 information and develop alternatives through team discussions (George & King 2007). As another dimension of group affective tone, the influence of negative group affective tone is a burning issue. Rhee (2007) suggested that negative group affective tone might be harmful for team creativity, in that it would constrain the constructive social interactions and collapse morale. On the other hand, some studies have argued that negative group affective tone might make members identify present potential problems and might use problem-solving strategies (e.g., George & King 2007; Spoor & Kelly 2004; Tsai et al. 2011). However, considering initial intents introduced by George (1990), negative group affective tone would have a negative effect on team creativity. On the basis of these studies, we propose the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1. Positive group affective tone will positively contribute to team creativity. Hypothesis 2. Negative group affective tone will negatively contribute to team creativity. In the meantime, there is excessive time pressure inherent in most group tasks. Time pressure is generally operationalized as an impending deadline (Herrington & Capella 1995). Employees under time pressure often perceive that they have insufficient time to implement tasks, and they anticipate the potential negative consequences of missing a deadline (Ordonez & Benson 1997). This induces feelings of stress and a negative mood, and the employees need to cope with the limited time constraints (Thomas et al. 2011). Such coping strategies make people try to complete their task goals at acceptable levels (Maule et al. 2000). We arranged 50 teams, consisting of four to six members per each team, all of which belonged to IS companies. The teams were divided into two types (25 for IS development teams; 25 for IS maintenance teams, respectively). In order to examine how different group affective tone influences team creativity between IS development and maintenance teams, we considered team type as a moderator. Accordingly, we raise the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 3. Team type will moderate the relationship between positive group affective tone and team creativity. Hypothesis 4. Team type will moderate the relationship between negative group affective tone and team creativity. 2.3 Network structures There are two opposite views (Coleman vs. Burt) on how networks create social capital. Coleman s (1988) view stresses the importance of a highly cohesive structure (e.g., density; degree centrality), which allows for the effective exchange of information. On the other hand, Burt s view (1992), as a more strategic perspective, stresses structural holes, where one can obtain the informational benefits of access, timing and flow, even when their contacts do not know each other (i.e., there is a lack of ties among an actor s alters). From these two views, we selected leader centrality and structural holes as moderators between group affective tone and team creativity. Balkundi and Harrison (2006) showed that a leader s centrality was associated with the team s task performance. This means that a hub of information allowed for a collective leadership effect that influenced performance. A leader s centrality would not effectively operate under negative group affective tone, because negative group affective tone might constrain the constructive social interactions within the team (Rhee 2007). Thus, a leader s centrality would deteriorate the negative relationship between negative group affective tone and team creativity. On the other hand, a leader may select structural holes within a group and gain the concurrent informational and power benefits from nonredundant ties (Burt 1992). Gargiulo and Benassi (2000) contributed to the social network literature by explaining the relative benefits of leaders structural holes. Leader s structural holes, along with positive group affective tone, might enhance team creativity. However, the effect of leaders structural holes would vary, depending upon some conditions (e.g., leadership itself), under negative group affective tone because structural holes emphasize efficiency (Burt 1992), rather than cooperation. On the basis of previous studies, we propose the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 5. The positive relationship between positive group affective tone and team creativity will increase with high levels of leader centrality, and leader s structural holes. ISBN:

4 Hypothesis 6. The negative relationship between negative group affective tone and team creativity will increase with high levels of leader centrality, and leader s structural holes 3 Methodologies 3.1 Data collection We recruited 50 teams from IS companies in South Korea. Each team conducts either IS development or maintenance tasks. At individual level, total number of participants is 256 workers. During data collection, we paid careful attention to acquiring social networks data- all the team members were obliged to participate in this survey. In order to secure unbiased and self-motivated participation, we gave sufficient financial incentives to all the participants in this survey. Table 1 reports the sample characteristics. Table 1. Sample Characteristics Characteristics Frequency Percent Characteristics Frequency Percent Gender Tenure Male Less than 1 year Female years Age 3-5 years years years years Education 20 years and over 2.8 High school diploma 2.8 Position Sociate degree Assistant Bachelor degree Senior Assistant Master Degree Manager Doctoral degree 1.4 Senior Manager Total Total Table 1. Demographic Characteristics 3.2 Data analysis Confirmatory Factor Analysis Because positive mood, negative mood and team creativity each have several items, we conducted a set of confirmatory factor analyses to acquire the constructs distinctiveness by using SmartPLS 2.0. We assessed the content, discriminant, and convergent validities in order to validate a measurement model including three factors (positive mood, negative mood and team creativity). As shown in Table 2, our composite reliability values ranged from.903 to.961, and our variance extracted by the measures ranged from.612 to.892. All of the figures are above previously defined acceptable levels (>.7 for composite reliability; >.5 for AVE) (Chin 1998; Fornell & Lacker 1981). The discriminant validity was also obtained (Fornell & Lacker 1981). ISBN:

5 Constructs Items Factor loading Cronbach's Alpha Composite Reliability AVE Discriminant validity POM NEM TCR Positive Mood (POM) Negative Mood (NEM) Team Creativity (TCR) POM POM POM POM POM POM NEM NEM NEM NEM NEM NEM TCR TCR TCR Note: 1. The boldface number on the diagonal denotes the square root of average variance extracted (AVE). 2. For adequate discriminant validity, the diagonal elements should be greater than the corresponding off-diagonal elements. Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Correlations As shown in the Table 3, means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables are presented. Inconsistent with our argument that NGAT (negative group affective tone) has negative effects on team creativity, we did not find any significant relationships. On the other hand, we found that a leader s degree of centrality was positively related to that leader s structural holes, but it was negatively related to core/periphery (Inequity) (r=.31, p<.05; r=-.50, p<.01, respectively). Time size was positively related to leaders structural holes (r=.33, p<.05). Team type was negatively related to PGAT (positive group affective tone) and leaders structural holes (r=.30, p<.05; r=-.23, p<.05, respectively). Variables Mean s.d. S PGAT NGAT T DC SH CP TCR Team size (S) Positive group affective tone (PGAT) Negative group affective tone (NGAT) Team type (T) Leader's degree of centrality (LDC) Leader's structural holes (Reverse) (LSH) Team Core/periphery (TCP) Team Creativity (TCR) Note: 1. Correlations with absolute values above.30 are statistically significant at p<.05 (Two-tailed). 2. Structural holes (SH) (Reverse) represents structural constraints. Therefore, their figures are reversely interpreted in order to judge the effect of structural holes. Table 3. Correlations and Descriptive Statistics ISBN:

6 4 Results We performed hierarchical regression analyses because it was inappropriate for our sample size (n=50) (Breckler 1990). Table 4 presents the results of the hierarchical regression analysis with team creativity as the dependent variable. Model 1 (Main effects) tested Hypothesis 1, which predicted that PGAT would positively contribute to team creativity. Hypothesis 2, which predicted that NGAT would negatively contribute to team creativity, was also tested by Model 1. PGAT had a significant positive association with team creativity (beta =.39, p <.01). The negative relationship between NGAT and team creativity was non-significant. We tested the impact of network structures in Model 2. Interestingly, leader centrality had a negative effect on team creativity. Leaders structural holes had a positive influence on team creativity. Model 3 examined the moderating effect of team type (IS development teams or IS maintenance teams) on the relationship between group affective tone and team creativity. Team type did not moderate the relationship between PGAT and team creativity. On the other hand, we found a significant interactive effect of NGAT and team type on team creativity (beta = -1.59, p <.1; twotailed). We plotted this interaction in Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, when team type is IS development, there is a positive relationship between NGAT and team creativity (simple slope estimate =.53, p <.05). When team type is IS maintenance, there is a negative relationship between NGAT and team creativity (simple slope estimate = -.23, p <.01: one-tailed). Independent variables Predicting Team Creativity Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Controls Team size (S) ** * -.13 Main effects Positive group affective tone (PGAT).39 **.40 ** *.58 * Negative group affective tone (NGAT) * * Moderators Team type (T) Leader's degree of centrality (LDC) * Leader's structural holes(lsh) (Reverse) Core-periphery structure (TCP) Interactions PGAT x T NGAT x T *( ) PGAT x LDC 2.14 NGAT x LDC.73 PGAT x LSH (Reverse) NGAT x LSH (Reverse) PGAT x TCP NGAT x TCP R-squared F-value 3.19 (*) 2.03 ( ) 2.56 (*) 2.27 ( ) 2.41 (*) 1.95 ( ) Note: 1. Significance levels: **p <.01, *p <.05, p < Entries are standardized regression coefficients. One-tailed tests were used for effects predicted in directional hypotheses. 3. Two-tailed tests were used for PGAT x T, NGAT x T and F-value, denoted in parentheses. Table 4. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Results (n=50) ISBN:

7 Fig.1. The Interaction effects of NGAT and Team Type From Model 4 in Table 4, we found a significant interactive effect between PGAT and leader centrality (beta = 2.14, p <.1). We plotted this interaction in Figure 2. As shown in Figure 2, when leader centrality is high, there is a positive relationship between PGAT and team creativity (simple slope estimate =.76, p <.01). On the other hand, when leader s centrality is low, this relationship weakens to an insignificant level (simple slope estimate =.20, p >.1). These results indicate that the positive effect of PGAT is dependent on the coexistence of high level of leader centrality. On the other hand, we did not find a significant interactive effect between NGAT and leader centrality. Fig.2. The Interaction effects of PGAT and Leader s Centrality From Model 5 in Table 4, we see a significant interactive effect between positive group affective tone and leaders structural holes (beta = 1.83, p <.1). When leaders' structural hole values were high, there was a positive relationship between PGAT and team creativity (simple slope estimate =.57, p < ISBN:

8 .05). On the other hand, when leaders structural hole values were low, this relationship weakened to an insignificant level (simple slope estimate =.24, p >.1). 5 Discussion and Conclusion As expected, positive group affective tone had a positive impact on team creativity. This applied to both IS development and maintenance teams. Most research into group creativity has been conducted using college students. There have been few studies examining group creativity in the workplace, which reflects even more complex and diversely social interactions (Zhou & Shalley 2008). Although the effect of positive group affective tone is virtually the same as in previous studies, our study is significant in that we investigated real IS organizational settings. Existing studies have tried to find boundary conditions of group affective tone through the results of discrete moods at an individual level. For instance, George and Zhou (2007) found supportive contexts (such as feedback, justice and trust) would lead to both positive and negative mood being associated with individual creativity. Moreover, George and Zhou (2002) showed that perceived reward for creativity and clarity of feelings could promote the positive effect of a negative mood. Based on these results, Tsai et al. (2011) proposed that positive group affective tone might have a negative relationship with team creativity at a high level of trust, although their results did not show that positive group affective tone would directly influence team creativity. We turned our interest in another direction of IS context in order to uncover boundary conditions. Our results found that, for IS development teams, negative affective tone was positively related to team creativity. On the other hand, for IS maintenance teams, negative affective tone was negatively related to team creativity. This outcome may be attributed to the task dissimilarities between IS development and maintenance teams. Namely, there are significant differences between IS development and maintenance in task characteristics. IS development teams have relatively large numbers of stakeholders and problem-solving assignments, and they must overcome a high-level of uncertainty caused by deadlines, user demand, costs, and so on (Lia et al. 2011). According to Cattani and Ferriani (2008), IS professionals undergo a lot of stress which influences organizational consequences such as burnout, job dissatisfaction and intention-to-quit. Under an IS development context, team members undergo a lot more stress and overload. These situations might cause a negative variance in mood (Bolger et al. 1989). Even if not a main effect, leader centrality negatively affected team creativity. On the contrary, leaders structural holes positively influenced team creativity. This indicates that leaders in IS organizations would choose the flexibility provided by structural holes, rather than the safety of cooperation within cohesive networks. Centrality might be lead to more stress and knowledge overload, which could prohibit creativity (Zhou & Shalley 2008). As mentioned above, IS professionals suffer from stress and overload; thus, leaders' structural holes, focusing on efficiency (Burt 1992), may be conducive to team creativity. From the results of the interactive effects of group affective tone and network structures for team creativity, we found that leaders centrality and structural holes were related to positive group affective tone, but not to negative group affective tone. Although the two structures have opposite views, the effect of positive group affective tone on team creativity was enhanced when the two network structures were at their highest levels as social capitals. On the basis of our findings, we suggest that managers must enhance positive group affective tone in order to produce team creativity. If unavoidable contexts are adding stress and are overloading the group with negative affective tone, leaders should select structural holes in order to confront the situation and yield team creativity. However, if teams show positive group affective tone, managers must actively choose centrality or structural holes as network strategies. Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2014S1A3A ). References: [1] Amabile, T. M., A Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.). Research in ISBN:

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