3. Methodology
3.3 Analytical method
According to MacKinnon et al. (2002), the most common method for testing mediation in psychological research was developed by Kenny and Baron (1986). According to this method, there are four steps in testing mediators. The first step is to show that there is a significant relation between the predictor and the outcome. The second step is to show that the predictor is related to the mediator. The third step is to show that the mediator is related to the outcome. The final step is to show that the strength of the relation between the predictor and the outcome is significantly reduced when the mediator is added to the model.
If a variable is a complete mediator, the relation between predictor and outcome will not differ from zero after the variable is included in the model. If a variable is a partial mediator, which is more likely, the relation between predictor and outcome will be significantly smaller when the variable is included but will still be greater than zero. However, situations in which a researcher might want to look for evidence of mediation in the absence of a relation between a predictor and an outcome. In fact, Kenny et al. (1998) stated that this first step is not required (although a significant predictor–outcome relationship is implied if the predictor is related to the mediator and the mediator is related to the outcome). One example is a situation in which a treatment does not appear to be effective (i.e., no effect of predictor on outcome) because there are various mediators producing inconsistent effects (Collins, Graham, & Flaherty, 1998; MacKinnon, 2000; MacKinnon, Krull, & Lockwood,
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2000). Because of the above, we skip the first step, and a set of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to examine the mediators.
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4. Results and Discussion
In our sample, a total of 286 participants are male (51.3%) and a total of 525 participants with a bachelor‟s degree or higher (93%). Besides, there are totally 504 participants working in their current team for a year or more (89.20%). Table 1 lists the characteristics of the sample.
Table1. Sample characteristics (N = 565)
Characteristic Sample Proportion Individual-Level
Gender
Male 51.3%
Female 48.7%
Age
30 years or less 30.5%
31–40 years 42.2%
41–50 years 21.1%
51 years or above 6.2%
Seniority of current company
3 years or less 38.5%
4–6 years 23.3%
7–9 years 15.6%
10–12 years 7.6%
13 years or above 15.0%
Seniority of current team
3 years or less 56.0%
4–6 years 16.5%
7–9 years 13.9%
10–12 years 6.5%
13 years or above 7.1%
Education
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81%~100% 21.8%
Ratio of members‟ difference in age
0%~20% 55.1%
21%~40% 30.5%
41%~60% 9.3%
61%~80% 2.6%
81%~100% 2.5%
Ratio of members with higher education
0%~20% 10.9%
21%~40% 15.2%
41%~60% 15.1%
61%~80% 17.6%
81%~100% 41.2%
Ratio of expatriate members
0%~20% 79.0%
21%~40% 16.0%
41%~60% 1.6%
61%~80% 3.4%
81%~100% 0.0%
Because our data are made on units that are organized into groups, intra-class correlation and Rwg are used to test the homogeneity among individual-level data.
Intra-class correlation is the ratio of the between-subject variation (BSV) to the total variation [i.e., the sum of the BSV and the within-subject variation (WSV)]. Rwg is an assessment of within-group interrater agreement. Rwg = 1 – (Sx2 / σEU2), Sx2 is the observed variance on a single item and σEU2
is the variance on a single item that would be expected if all judgments were due exclusively to random measurement error. Rwg is greater than 0.7 can be considered as an indicator of good within group agreement. The result is provided in table 2. Team-level data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis with promax oblique rotation before the empirical tests are conducted. More specifically, due to our limited team samples and a large number of research factors, we divide our factors into two
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groups and ran exploratory factor analysis for each group. A total of 12 factors emerged from the analysis with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, including four dimensions of empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, impact and self-determination) that contribute to an overall construct of empowerment (Spreitzer, 1996). Reliability analysis found that each of our constructs had a Cronbach‟s alpha of 0.8 or higher, providing reasonable evidence of reliability. Table 3 and 4 present team-level factor matrices. Besides, team-level correlation matrix is provided in Table 5.
Table3. Team-Level Factor Matrix of the Mediators and Outcomes
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor 5 Factor 6 Factor 7 Factor 8
33 Based on principal components technique with promax oblique rotation.
Legend: COO = Cooperation; COM = Competition; EMP = Empowerment; PER = Performance; AGI
= Agility.
Table4. Team-Level Factor Matrix of the Antecedents
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4
Based on principal components technique with promax oblique rotation.
Legend: TSA = Transactional leadership; POL = Team politics; TSF = Transformational leadership; CLV = Collectivism.
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We used multiple regression analysis to reflect our hypotheses at a team-level in Table 6 by simultaneously including our four demographic control variables (i.e., the ratio of members‟ difference in gender, the ratio of members‟ difference in age, the ratio of members with higher education and the ratio of expatriate members). In models 1 and 2, we included four independent variables containing collectivism, team politics, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. The results show that team politics are negatively related to cooperation while collectivism, transformational leadership and transactional leadership are positively related to cooperation. Meanwhile, team politics and transactional leadership are both positively related to competition, whereas collectivism and transformational leadership are not related to competition. In model 3, transformational and transactional leadership are included as independent variables and consequently only the
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transformational leadership is positively and significantly related to team empowerment.
In models 4 and 5, we included cooperation, competition and team empowerment as predictors that affect team agility and team performance. The results show that team agility is positively related to all the three predictors while team performance is only positively related to cooperation and empowerment rather than competition.
To test if cooperation, competition and team empowerment are full or partial mediators, we conducted further tests by adding direct links from our four antecedents to our two team outcomes (i.e., agility and performance). As presented in Table 6, our results indicate that all the significant paths in above-mentioned models remain unchanged. Furthermore, all the direct paths between antecedents and outcomes were insignificant except collectivism (β = 0.25, p < 0.01), suggesting that full mediations of coopetition and team empowerment indeed exist between our antecedents and team outcomes to a large extent. Finally, in model 7, the test results show that the team agility is positively related to team performance.
Based on the above empirical results, we depict all the significant model paths in Figure 2 and then summarize the final results of our hypotheses in Table 7. Of our 8 hypotheses, we have 4 supported, 3 partially supported hypotheses, and 1 not supported hypothesis.
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Table6. Team-level regression analysis
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7
Cooperation Competition Team
empowerment
Team agility Team performance
Team agility Team performance Control variables:
Ratio of members‟ difference in gender 0.01 0.02 -0.03* 0.01 -0.02 0.01 -0.02
Ratio of members‟ difference in age -0.02 0.12** 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.02
Ratio of members with higher education -0.01 -0.02 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Ratio of expatriate members -0.02 -0.06 0.04 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02
Antecedents:
Collectivism 0.47** -0.08 0.06 0.25**
Team politics -0.09* 0.54** -0.04 0.03
Transformational leadership 0.23* 0.04 0.48** 0.06 -0.04
Transactional leadership 0.15* 0.22* 0.02 -0.02 0.09
Mediators:
Cooperation 0.46** 0.39** 0.38** 0.22*
Competition 0.15** -0.08 0.18** -0.11
Team empowerment 0.52** 0.23** 0.47** 0.20*
Team agility 0.30** 0.28**
Adj R2 0.69 0.56 0.41 0.60 0.71 0.60 0.73
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
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Figure2. Significant model paths
Table7. Test results of hypotheses
Hypotheses Results
H1: Cooperation, competition, and empowerment positively relate to team agility.
Supported
H2: Cooperation and empowerment positively relate to team performance, but competition negatively relates to team performance.
Partially Supported
H3: Team agility positively relates to team performance. Supported H4: Collectivism positively relates to cooperation, but team politics negatively
relates to cooperation.
Supported
H5: Collectivism negatively relates to competition, but team politics positively relates to competition.
Partially Supported
H6: Transformational leadership and transactional leadership positively relate to cooperation.
Supported
H7: Transformational leadership and transactional leadership negatively relate to competition.
Not Supported
H8: Transformational leadership and transactional leadership positively relate to empowerment.
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5. Conclusions and Suggestions
5.1 Conclusion and Managerial Implication
This study has contributed to the literature of agility in teams in several ways. First, the focus of this study is to determine if cooperation, competition, and team empowerment are significant mediators that have not been previously studied. Our findings confirm high collectivism will bring high team performance and high team agility by team cooperation.
This is a key finding for team leader whose team seeks a better performance. The effect of team politics on the team performance and team agility is mediated by cooperation and competition. The result is high team politics produces low team performance, but leads to high team agility via competition. Therefore, team leaders should take care of the politics in their team. Collectivism helps to balance the negative impact of team politics on cooperation because collectivism deters team members from unscrupulously achieving their goal. Given that team politics are sometimes inevitable in a team or an organization, it is important for management to make good use of collectivism to lever the suppressed cooperation into a better position. It is important to note that team politics are not always bad to a team. Second, our study suggests transformational leadership has significant influences on team performance and team agility via the mediation of cooperation and team empowerment, while the relationship is positive. In the same way, the findings also indicate transactional leadership has a positive impact on team performance and team agility by cooperation and competition. That is to say, both leaderships are good for the team outcomes. And our study confirms the importance of team empowerment again. We find team empowerment is positively related to team performance and team agility. This suggests the perception of team empowerment has a strong and direct link with team‟s
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outcomes (Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000; Mitchell & Daniels, 2003; Pinder, 1998).
Finally, the significant influence of team agility on both team cooperation and competition in coworkers implies cooperation and competition are not polar ends of one continuum;
instead, within any relationship, competition and cooperation are two separate but interrelated aspects of that relationship. The implication is that within any given relationship, both competition and cooperation can, and often do, coexist and that the combination of the two leads to enhanced agility for the team (Lado, Boyd, & Hanlon, 1997; Gnyawali &
Madhavan, 2001).
The unsupported hypothesis is surprising. Particularly, this study hypothesizes that the transactional leadership is supposed to be negatively related to competition, but the test result actually show that the influence of transactional leadership on competition is positively significant. Such contradictory phenomenon may occur perhaps due to organizational climate, team punitive systems or other factors, which are not controlled herein. For example, transactional leaders may focus on employee mistakes to meet the standards or wait until a problem becomes severe before they intervene that contribute to the behaviors such as questioning, clarifications, and assessment of each member‟s contribution and cause the team competition. Nevertheless, the unexpected results for the unsupported hypothesis may warrant further study so that the insights behind the hypothesis can be interpreted accurately.
A majority of previous studies have mostly focused on either cooperation or competition. Some of the studies revealed mixed results regarding competition. For example, while Hammond and Goldman (1961) concluded that competition may not motivate performance and can be detrimental to team processes, Stanne et al. (1999) stressed some positive outcomes of competition on performance. Another research with
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mixed results concluded that competition facilitates motivation, productivity, and quality (Julian & Perry, 1967). These mixed results imply that some critical mediators associated with competition and team performance (e.g., team empowerment and team agility) should be carefully examined so that our understanding about coopetition can be greatly improved.
Indeed. The empirical results show that competition has a direct and negative effect on team performance and an indirect and positive effect on the team performance via the mediation of team agility. These findings provide a very strong explanation about why the effects of competition on team performance in previous studies are sometimes positive and sometimes negative, depending on their various viewpoints. The findings of this study strongly suggest that competition can have the pros and cons for teams, striking management to plan out balanced measures to maintain certain competition under the rules of the team. It would be very much mistaken for management that any competition should be eliminated. Instead, having cooperation with acceptable competition is good for the team, because the cooperation becomes more important and valued by employees when competition increases to a certain extent. The degree to which organizations should emphasize cooperation or competition among the members of work teams is an age-old controversy, and many studies have debated whether activities should be structured in a cooperative or competitive manner to promote motivation and performance (e.g., Deutsch, 1949; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1990; Slavin, 1996), but our research believe that the answer may lie in a combination of these two contexts. For that reason, this study examining two critical team outcomes (e.g., performance and agility) from a perspective of coopetition can substantially complement previous research with similar issues.
Organizations now face an unstable and turbulent environment. The marketplace for products and services is dominated by rapid changes in customer needs, fierce competition, globalization and technical innovations. At the same time, organizations are increasingly
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using work teams to streamline processes, enhance employee participation, and improve performance. This lets us start with the issues concerning team agility and there are two implications from this study for team and team leader.
A practical implication is that, both team cooperation and competition are helpful to team agility. This implies a team leader can enhance team agility through increase the mediators of team cooperation and competition. For example, teams may seek to shape collectivistic culture that support team agility through team cooperation. Team members who observe, learn and imitate the culture of collectivism from team, based on the norm of cooperation, can enhance team agility. On the opposite, team members who work in political environments develop an emotional alienation from work as a result of inequity and unfair team climate. Such a psychological state may lead team members to suffer high levels of stress, strain, tension, which may eventually translate into aggressive behaviors and team competition. Thus, produce high team agility. But one should be careful is team competition may also harm team performance. Some previous studies have shown that intrateam competition is destructive (Deutsch, 1973; Johnson & Johnson, 1989; Johnson et al., 1981). In competing, individuals or subgroups place their own benefits first, and the gains achieved by one are often obtained at the expense of another. Therefore, when a manager wants to promote team agility must think about the benefits and damages of competition.
Another implication of this study is that both leaderships are good for team performance and agility via the mediating roles of cooperation, competition and team empowerment. When a leader is a transformational leader, he should pay more attention on team cooperation and empowerment. For example, a transformational leader should respect every team members, emphasizes team work and mission. In contrast, a transactional leader
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should take notice of team cooperation and competition. For instance, a transactional leader should let team members know about it when they perform poorly or give them reward when they exceed the standard. Just like the literature has shown before, leaderships are often viewed as situational. Our research findings also indicate that management should learn and transfer various and flexible leadership styles to balance team coopetition and team empowerment.
5.2 Limitations of the study
There are three limitations in this study. First, the design of the study was the use of a one-time, cross-sectional measure. The cross-sectional nature of it limits our ability to achieve causal inferences from the data. Longitudinal studies are needed in this area of research which supports stronger inferences. Therefore, future studies can try to improve such shortcomings by directly observing the subjects‟ actual behaviors over time. Second, this study was conducted in a single country setting – the high-tech industry in Taiwan. As a result, the generalization of the findings might be limited. Additional research across different countries and industries will be required in order to generalize the findings. There is also a potential limitation that is the teams in our study were convenience sampling, not a random sample. Third, the design of this study was limited by its dependence on self-report measures. Although using self-report is common in social science studies, it does not provide a wider view of the variables. However, future researchers are advised to explore other potential mediators or other team‟s characteristics beyond the scope of cooperation and competition theory and compare their explanatory ability to the variables examined in this study.
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