WORKING AT THE TOP OF THEIR CAPABILITIES: HOW TEAMWORK SUPPORT ATTENUATES LEADER ROLE CONFLICT.

Objective: To understand whether team member support reduces team leader stress. Method: In Phase 1, we used hierarchical linear modeling with survey data and administrative records from 45 Veterans Health Administration teams (73 providers and 228 associated members) to investigate how teamwork support mitigates leader stress. In Phase 2, we adopted a parallel/simultaneous mixed methods design, utilizing open- and closed-ended responses from 267 additional Veterans Health Administration providers. With the mixed methods design we first analyzed open-ended responses using directed content analysis and hypothesis coding. Next, we transformed our codes into counts and compared them with closed-ended responses to understand whether teamwork support allows leaders to engage in work aligned with their qualifications. Results: As predicted, providers' role conflict corresponded with decreased performance under low teamwork support, but this negative relationship was attenuated with high teamwork support as such support allows leaders to focus on tasks they are uniquely qualified to perform. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the facilitative nature of teams in supporting leaders: followers provide teamwork support that helps leaders navigate role conflict by allowing leaders to work on tasks consistent with their qualifications.

Sacrificing heroes or suffering victims? Investigating third parties' reactions to divergent social accounts of essential employees in the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on globally, essential employees are widely recognized as heroes working on the frontlines confronting the virus and serving others. At the same time, stories abound whereby these essential employees are not provided adequate support and protection on their jobs. Nevertheless, they have been portrayed predominantly as heroes rather than as victims, which may inadvertently lead third parties (e.g., the general public) to overlook their suffering. The current research sought to understand the implications of these divergent social accounts of essential employees for third parties. We investigated the effects of third parties being provided with (Study 1) and endorsing (Study 2 and Study 3) heroism and victimization accounts on their cognitions, emotions, and behaviors toward essential employees. Unlike victimization which was associated with higher levels of third parties' injustice perceptions, anger and sympathy toward essential employees' situation, and their intent to take political action to support essential workers, we found that heroism was only significantly related to higher levels of sympathy and had limited effects on other outcomes. Further, victimization was a more important predictor of injustice and anger than heroism. Overall, the sharp contrast between the two accounts points to the caveats of overemphasizing heroism accounts in the COVID-19 pandemic as they may divert third parties' attention away from essential employees' suffering. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

To link or not to link? Multiple team membership and unit performance.

Multiple team membership is common in today's team-based organizations, but little is known about its relationship with collective effectiveness across teams. We adopted a microfoundations framework utilizing existing individual- and team-level research to develop a higher-level perspective on multiple team membership's relationship with performance of entire units of teams. We tested our predictions with data collected from 849 primary care units of the Veterans Health Administration serving over 4.2 million patients. In this context, we found multiple team membership is negatively associated with unit performance, and this negative relationship is exacerbated by task complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).