How team averages in authentic living and perspective-taking personalities relate to team information elaboration and team performance: Authenticity, perspective taking, team information elaboration, and team performance

Hannes Leroy*, Inga Hoever, Kathleen Vangronsvelt, Anja Van den Broeck

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
291 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Is it wise to be authentic, that is, to express your inner thoughts and feelings, in a team context? Although authenticity can be argued to benefit teamwork as authentic team members contribute their unique perspectives, it can also hinder teamwork if those unique perspectives are not heard and integrated. Using theory on groups as information processors, we propose that when team members both contribute their own unique perspectives (team mean authentic living), and try to understand each other's contributions (team mean perspective taking), a process of information elaboration occurs at the team level, which in turn leads to team performance. Study 1 tested these assumptions in 67 teams of students (N = 247), whereas Study 2 used 37 teams of employees (N = 194). Results support the hypothesized interaction between team mean authentic living and team mean perspective taking on team information elaboration such that the effects were positive when perspective taking was high but negative when it was low. In terms of team performance, although team information elaboration consistently predicted team performance in both studies, Study 1 could not confirm the hypothesized indirect effects, whereas Study 2 confirmed only the hypothesized positive indirect effect.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)364-376
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Applied Psychology
Volume106
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Psychological Association

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