Leader information seeking, team performance and team innovation: Examining the roles of team reflexivity and cooperative outcome interdependence

Abstract

This study tested how and when leaders’ information seeking from team members influenced team performance and innovation. We developed and examined a model by considering team reflexivity as a mediator and cooperative outcome interdependence as a moderator. The sample comprised 83 work teams and 253 team members from a pharmaceutical firm in China. Multiple-source, time-lagged data were used to test our hypotheses. Based on the social information processing theory, the current study demonstrated that leader information seeking is positively linked to team performance and team innovation. These relationships were mediated by team reflexivity. Further, the positive relationship between leader information seeking and team reflexivity was enhanced when team cooperative outcome interdependence was higher. The indirect effect of leader information seeking on team performance and innovation via team reflexivity was stronger when team cooperative outcome interdependence was higher. We provide empirical and practical implications for information seeking in the workplace.

Introduction

Previous studies have shown that individual proactivity benefits organizations (Fuller & Marler, 2009; Jiang, Gu & Tang, 2019; Seibert, Kraimer & Crant, 2001; Thomas, Whitman & Viswesvaran, 2010). As one type of proactive behavior (Anseel, Lievens & Levy, 2007; Miller & Jablin, 1991), information seeking is critical in the workplace, where people “rely extensively on information for their competent performance” (Hertzum & Simonsen, 2019, p. 624). Information seeking in the workplace is defined as actively gathering information related to individuals’ work behavior and performance (Ashford & Tsui, 1991; Case & Given, 2016; Russell-Rose, Chamberlain & Azzopardi, 2018). Moreover, leaders are role models for team members (Boies, Fiset & Gill, 2015), and their behavior has a significant effect on team outcomes (e.g., Jiang, Wang, Chu & Zheng, 2019; Neil, Wagstaff, Weller & Lewis, 2016). A considerable portion of the leadership literature has recognized the significance of leading by example for effective leadership (Cui & Jiao, 2019; Manz & Sims, 1980). Previous studies reported that leaders might be more inclined to proactively seek information than employees (Ashford & Tsui, 1991; Ashford, Blatt & VandeWalle, 2003; Gupta, Govindarajan & Malhotra, 1999). Team leader information seeking means that leaders actively collect information related to their own behaviors or team performance from colleagues or subordinates. This may affect team members’ behaviors and team outcomes. Although information seeking can be instrumental for leadership development and career advancement (Chun, Lee & Sosik, 2018), studies on information seeking in the workplace have mainly focused on individual or team information seeking (e.g., Al-Samarraie, Eldenfria & Dawoud, 2017; Hertzum, 2017; Hertzum & Simonsen, 2019; Johnson, 2014; Sarkar, Mitsui, Liu & Shah, 2019; Shah, 2014). Relatively little research has examined leaders’ information seeking from their subordinates (Ashford et al., 2003; Stoker, Grutterink & Kolk, 2012).

As many teams in the workplace perform intellectual and cognitive tasks, it is vital to identify factors that influence team outcomes (Wang, Jiang, Liu & Ma, 2017). Given the importance of leader information seeking for the effective functioning of teams, this study examines the relationship between leader information seeking and team outcomes. Team performance and team innovation are key types of team outcomes because they tap into the different dimensions of team outcomes (Somech, 2006). “Team performance” refers to the extent to which the team accomplishes its purpose and produces the expected or desired result (Chatman & Flynn, 2001). “Team innovation” is the introduction or application of new and useful ideas, procedures, processes, or products within a team (West & Farr, 1990). Team performance and team innovation are two dimensions of team outcomes, and represent the tension that a team experiences when managing in-role duties while trying to engage in innovative thinking (Somech, 2006). Therefore, this study intends to investigate how and when leader information seeking influences team performance and innovation.

“Team reflexivity” is the extent to which members of the team publicly reflect on the goals, processes, and decisions of the team and implement changes accordingly (West, Garrod & Carletta, 1997); this has been identified as a key factor in the effectiveness of work teams (Pieterse, Knippenberg & Ginkel, 2011; Schippers, Den Hartog, Koopman & van Knippenberg, 2008). Prior studies on team reflexivity found that it had positive effects on team performance and innovation (e.g., Pieterse et al., 2011; Schippers, West & Dawson, 2015; Widmer, Schippers & West, 2009). Drawing from the social information processing perspective (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), team leaders’ information seeking may motivate team members to become more reflexive. Specifically, team members may be likely to imitate leader information seeking and request information from each other, and publicly reflect the team's goals, decisions, and processes. Hence, we propose that team leader information seeking is positively related to team performance and innovation, and that this relationship is mediated by team reflexivity.

The leadership contingency perspective posits that “an adequate analysis of leadership involves not only a study of leaders, but also of situations” (Stogdill, 1948, p. 64). As leader effectiveness depends on the environment in which leadership is performed (Liu et al., 2019; Waldman, Ramirez, House & Puranam, 2001), it is important to determine the situational factors that influence the effectiveness of leader behaviors on team outcomes (Ling, Simsek, Lubatkin & Veiga, 2008). Drawing on theories of structuration (Burns & Stalker, 1961), team structure can affect dependencies among team members, making some members operate largely independently, while others remain highly interdependent. “Cooperative outcome interdependence” refers to the degree to which team outcomes hinge on each team member's performance or the team's collective performance (e.g., De Dreu, 2007; Schelling, 1960). In an outcome-interdependent team, team outcomes are closely related to each member and can depend on their individual or joint performance (e.g., Tjosvold, 1998). Meanwhile, individual benefits and rewards are based on the performance of the team as a whole (Brownlee & Motowidlo, 2011). The current study proposes that cooperative outcome interdependence may moderate the relationship between leader information seeking and team reflexivity. To fully understand the relationship between leader information seeking and team outcomes, this study seeks to establish a moderated mediation model that examines how leader information seeking affects team performance and innovation. Specifically, leader information seeking indirectly affects team performance and innovation via team reflexivity, while cooperative outcome interdependence moderates the relationship between leader information seeking and team reflexivity (see Fig. 1 for the conceptual model). This study employs time-lagged and multisource data to test all hypotheses.

This study provides several major contributions to the literature. First, to answer the call for a greater focus on information seeking at the higher level (Ashford et al., 2003), the current study investigates how and when leader information seeking influences team performance and innovation. This deepens our understanding of information seeking by linking leader information seeking and team outcomes. Second, based on the social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), the current study shows that team reflexivity is a mediator between leader information seeking and team outcomes, which contributes to the literature on team reflexivity and team outcomes. Finally, drawing on theories of structuration (Burns & Stalker, 1961), our study finds that cooperative outcome interdependence moderates the relationship between leader information seeking and team reflexivity, which contributes to the team interdependence literature.