Research

Teams innovate by brokering knowledge between other teams — but when a team competes with many of its peers, those knowledge pipelines dry up exactly when the team needs them most.

• In a field study of 73 knowledge-intensive engineering teams and a 162-team network experiment, teams occupying information-broker positions innovated more
• High overall competition with peer teams reduced a team’s ability to acquire and integrate diverse knowledge from other teams, hindering innovation
• Teams that brokered information exchange between other teams buffered this competitive squeeze and kept innovating even under high competition
• The mechanism: broker teams struck side deals with other teams and blocked rivals from cutting into their information channels (dealmaking and network obstruction behaviors)

Abstract: Organizations are increasingly using teams to stimulate innovation. Often, these teams share knowledge and information with each other to help achieve their goals, while also competing for resources and striving to outperform each other. Importantly, based on their industry, the nature of work, or prior history, some teams may face more competition from peer teams than others. Our research examines how teams’ competitive relations with other teams in the organization operate in tandem with their collaborative inter-team information exchange relations in impacting their innovation. Using two studies—a field study of 73 knowledge-intensive teams in high-tech engineering firms and a team-based network experimental study of 162 teams—we find that a high degree of overall competition with many peer teams reduces a focal team’s ability to acquire and utilize diverse knowledge from these teams (i.e., inter-team knowledge integration), thereby hindering team innovation. However, applying insights from network structural hole theory, we find that when a focal team occupies a brokerage position in the inter-team information exchange network, this can help buffer the effects of competition in getting access to knowledge resources from other teams, thus enabling their innovation. Additionally, we find that focal broker teams’ dealmaking and network obstruction behaviors explain these effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Winning doesn’t just result from a team’s pecking order — it reshapes it, concentrating influence in whoever gets credit for the win.

• Tests the idea with an online judgment-task experiment and archival NBA data: 34 seasons of field-goal attempts (1985–86 to 2018–19) and five seasons of passing networks (2014–15 to 2018–19)
• After a win, teams concentrate influence in whoever gets credit for the result, widening the gap between high- and low-status members
• This credit-and-concentrate pattern is stronger in teams that were already hierarchical before the win, because a clear pecking order makes it easier to point to who mattered
• Hierarchy is not just a cause of performance — success itself reshapes a team’s hierarchy after the fact

Abstract: Hierarchies emerge as collectives attempt to organize themselves toward successful performance. Consequently, research has focused on how team hierarchies affect performance. We extend existing models of the hierarchy-performance relationship by adopting an alternative: Performance is not only an output of hierarchy but also a critical input, as teams’ hierarchical differentiation may vary based on whether they are succeeding. Integrating research on exploitation and exploration with work on group attributions, we argue that teams engage in exploitation by committing to what they attribute as the cause of their performance success. Specifically, collectives tend to attribute their success to individuals who wielded greater influence within the team; these individuals are consequently granted relatively higher levels of influence, leading to a higher degree of hierarchy. We additionally suggest that the tendency to attribute, and therefore grant more influence, to members believed to be the cause of success is stronger for teams previously higher (versus lower) in hierarchy, as a higher degree of hierarchical differentiation provides clarity as to which members had a greater impact on the team outcome. We test our hypotheses experimentally with teams engaging in an online judgement task and observationally with teams from the National Basketball Association. Our work makes two primary contributions: (a) altering existing hierarchy-performance models by highlighting performance as both an input and output to hierarchy and (b) extending research on the dynamics of hierarchy beyond individual rank changes toward examining what factors increase or decrease hierarchical differentiation of the team as a whole.

Employees build the confidence to speak up largely by watching their leaders do it — and women build that confidence faster watching women.

• Draws on social cognitive theory: employees develop "voice self-efficacy" — confidence in raising ideas and concerns — partly by observing their leaders model that behavior
• Tests this with a field study of 368 employees and their leaders across industries in India and an experiment with 546 US-based workers
• Women who watched female leaders speak up developed more voice self-efficacy, and spoke up more themselves, than women who watched male leaders do it
• The scarcity of women in visible leadership roles removes a role-model effect that specifically builds women’s confidence to voice — a barrier distinct from women simply being less willing to speak up

Abstract: Voice—or the expression of ideas, concerns, or opinions on work issues by employees—can help organizations thrive. However, we highlight that men and women differ in their voice self-efficacy, or the personal confidence in formulating and articulating work-related viewpoints. Such differences, we argue, can impede women’s voice from emerging at work. Drawing on social cognitive theory (SCT), we propose that women tend to develop greater voice self-efficacy and thereby speak up more when they have the opportunity to observe female rather than male leaders speak up. Hence, we point to the potential absence of women leaders who can role model speaking up at work as a likely inhibiter of women’s voice. Using data from a correlational field study involving 368 employees and their leaders from a variety of industries in India and an experimental study in an online panel of 546 US-based workers, we found support for our hypotheses. We discuss the implications of our research for theory and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Men still emerge as leaders more often than women, but the gap has narrowed over three decades — and it’s mostly personality traits, not ability, driving what’s left of it.

• Meta-analysis coding 1,632 effect sizes tests why men emerge as leaders more often than women, updating a review last conducted in 1991
• The gender gap in leader emergence has shrunk over time but has not closed
• Agentic traits (dominance, assertiveness) and communal traits (warmth, nurturance) — and how much each gender participates in group discussion as a result — account for most of the remaining gap
• Several of these effects depend on context: the study setting, how gender-egalitarian the culture is, how long the group interacts, and how socially complex the task is all change the size of the gap

Abstract: Research has shown that men tend to emerge as leaders more frequently than women. However, societal role expectations for both women and leaders have changed in the decades since the last empirical review of the gender gap in leader emergence (Eagly & Karau, 1991). We leverage meta-analytic evidence to demonstrate that the gender gap has decreased over time, but a contemporary gap remains. To understand why this gap in leader emergence occurs, we draw on social role theory to develop a Gender-Agency/Communion-Participation (GAP) Model—an integrative theoretical model that includes both trait and behavioral mechanisms. Specifically, we examine a sequence of effects: from gender to agentic and communal personality traits, from these traits to behavioral participation in group activities, and ultimately from participation to leader emergence. The model is tested using original meta-analyses of the personality and behavioral mechanisms (coding 1,632 effect sizes total). Gender differences in leadership emergence are predominately explained by agentic traits (positive) and communal traits (negative), both directly and through the mechanism of participation in group discussions. In addition, several paths in the theoretical model are moderated by situational contingencies. Our study enhances knowledge of the mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying the gender gap in leader emergence.

Men score higher than women on narcissism overall, but the gap almost disappears for grandiose self-promotion and vanishes entirely for the vulnerable, insecure form of narcissism.

• Meta-analysis of 355 studies and 470,846 people tests the popular belief that men are more narcissistic than women, and finds a small-to-moderate gap (d = .26) that has held steady since 1990
• The gap is driven by two facets — Exploitative/Entitlement (d = .29) and Leadership/Authority (d = .20) — while Grandiose/Exhibitionism shows almost no difference (d = .04)
• Men and women do not differ on vulnerable narcissism, the less-studied form marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion
• A second study using item response theory rules out measurement bias, meaning the gender gap reflects a true difference rather than a flawed measure

Abstract: Despite the widely held belief that men are more narcissistic than women, there has been no systematic review to establish the magnitude, variability across measures and settings, and stability over time of this gender difference. Drawing on the biosocial approach to social role theory, a meta-analysis performed for Study 1 found that men tended to be more narcissistic than women (d = .26; k = 355 studies; N = 470,846). This gender difference remained stable in U.S. college student cohorts over time (from 1990 to 2013) and across different age groups. Study 1 also investigated gender differences in three facets of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to reveal that the narcissism gender difference is driven by the Exploitative/Entitlement facet (d = .29; k = 44 studies; N = 44,108) and Leadership/Authority facet (d = .20; k = 40 studies; N = 44,739); whereas the gender difference in Grandiose/Exhibitionism (d = .04; k = 39 studies; N = 42,460) was much smaller. We further investigated a less-studied form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism—which is marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion—to find that (in contrast to the more commonly studied form of narcissism found in the DSM and the NPI) men and women did not differ on vulnerable narcissism (d = -.04; k = 42 studies; N = 46,735). Study 2 used item response theory to rule out the possibility that measurement bias accounts for observed gender differences in the three facets of the NPI (N = 19,001). Results revealed that observed gender differences were not explained by measurement bias and thus can be interpreted as true sex differences. Discussion focuses on the implications for the biosocial construction model of gender differences, for the etiology of narcissism, for clinical applications, and for the role of narcissism in helping to explain gender differences in leadership and aggressive behavior. Readers are warned against overapplying small effect sizes to perpetuate gender stereotypes.