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Abstract:
Although an emphasis on teams and an emphasis on individuals are often considered mutually exclusive, teams depend upon the skill and effort of individual team members. In addition, teams can support and encourage individuals to perform effectively. Team capability to help individual team members overcome obstacles that are frustrating their performance is theorized to help teams integrate individual's ideas and efforts in order to innovate. This study also suggests that managing conflict cooperatively facilitates effective problem solving for individuals. 200 employees in 100 work teams in China completed measures of their team's cooperative, competitive, and avoiding approach to managing conflict and problem solving for individuals and 100 managers indicated the team's innovation. Results support the theorizing that conflict management can contribute to team problem solving for individuals. Structural equation analysis suggests that cooperative conflict management approach promotes problem solving for individuals that in turn results in team innovation. These findings, coupled with previous research, were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative conflict management approach and problem solving for individuals provide a strong foundation for innovative teams.

Cooperative conflict, Individual problem solving, Team innovation

Abstract:
Considerable research has suggested that because of persistent cognitive biases organizations often lack the ability and discipline to take risks effectively. However, group members who discuss their opposing views openly for mutual benefit (constructive controversy) may be able to manage risks effectively. Members of 107 teams working in Chinese organizations indicated their constructive controversy and risk-taking; their manager provided ratings of the group's innovation and recovery from mistakes. Results of the structural equation analysis supported the reasoning that constructive controversy can facilitate risk-taking that in turn promotes innovation and recovery.

Controversy, Risk-taking, China

Abstract:
Researchers interested in the positive side of power and managers seeking to develop a competent, committed workforce want to understand the conditions when managers use their power to assist and aid employees. The interdependence in which power occurs in organizations was theorized to impact the management and outcomes of power. An experiment conducted in China tested the hypotheses that employee performance and interpersonal relationship with the manager affect the use of power. Results indicate that participants used their power to provide directly relevant information to employees who demonstrated their need by performing ineffectively. In addition, participants with cooperative, compared to competitive and independent, goals assisted, encouraged, supported, and empowered their employees. Results were interpreted as suggesting that demonstrating a need for managerial power and developing cooperative goals are important bases for fostering empowerment.

Cooperation and competition, Power, Performance

Abstract:
Trusting relationships are increasingly considered vital for making teams productive but within organizations team members confront many obstacles and pressures that can interfere. This study proposes, in contrast to traditional theorizing about Chinese values, that the cooperative management of conflict can help Chinese team members deal with incompatibilities so that they become convinced that their teammates are trustworthy. Results also support the theorizing that the how teams manage conflict with each other affects within team conflict management. Specifically, the structural equation analysis supported the reasoning that cooperative conflict between teams helps teams manage their internal conflicts cooperatively that in turns builds trust. Results were interpreted as providing support for the universalistic aspirations of the theory of cooperation and competition and that managing conflict cooperatively is a foundation for strong trusting relationships in China as well as in the West.

Chinese values, competitive conflict, cooperative conflict, relationships, teamwork

Abstract:
Collectivist values have been thought to induce conflict avoidance but the evidence supporting this argument has been correlational. In an experiment with 80 participants in South China, protagonists with opposing views in organizations that valued collectivism, compared to individualism, were found to develop cooperative goals. They were also confident that they could work together and make decisions, sought to understand the opposing position by asking questions, demonstrated that they understood the opposing arguments, accepted these arguments as reasonable, and combined positions to create an integrated decision. The experiment also compared participants who valued harmony as a goal where they sought an agreement compared to those who valued harmony as a technique where they pretended to agree in order not to upset each other. However, these inductions were not successful. Results challenge traditional theorizing that collectivist values lead to conflict avoidance and support recent arguments that strong relationships promote the productive discussion of opposing views in decision-making.

Collectivism and individualism, organizational values, decision making

Abstract:
The open-minded discussion of opposing views may characterize effective inter-departmental relations. Working in diverse organizations in China, CEOs indicated their participation, people, and productivity values and Vice-Presidents indicated the constructive controversy of their departments and their CEO's leader effectiveness. Structural equation analysis suggested that participation and people values affect constructive controversy that in turn results in leader effectiveness. However, productivity values were not predictive. The study's findings and previous research were interpreted as suggesting that participation and people values coupled with constructive controversy provide a foundation for effective CEO leadership.

Abstract:
Findings based on 186 teams involving 689 employees, working in twelve Chinese state-owned factories in three cities, indicated that a cooperative in contrast to a competitive approach was related to perceived team effectiveness, as measured by both team managers and team members. The role of conflict types for team effectiveness, on the other hand, is ambiguous. Furthermore, conflict management approaches affect team perceptions of relational and task conflict. Results suggest that a cooperative conflict management approach may be equally useful for Chinese work teams, as it is for teams in the Western context.

Abstract:
This study proposes that when top management team members are convinced that their leader is committed to people and productivity, they conclude that their leader is effective and contribute to making their organization innovative. Cooperative goals among top management team members may be credible evidence that their leader has people and production values. Executives from over 100 organizations in China completed measures of their cooperative, competitive, and independent goals, their leader's people and production values, and their leader's effectiveness. CEOs from these firms rated their organization's innovativeness. Structural equation analysis suggested that cooperative goals among top management teams convince them that their leader values people and production and that these values in turn result in leader effectiveness and organizational innovation. Results, coupled with previous research, were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative goals and leader people and production values are foundations for leader and top management team effectiveness in China.

Abstract:
Developing participative leadership may be particularly challenging when managers are working cross-culturally and in China. One hundred and sixty-three Chinese employees from various industries in mainland China were surveyed about their relationships and the effectiveness of their participation with American and Chinese managers. Results, including structural equation analyses, support the hypotheses that cooperative, but not competitive or independent, goals helped Chinese employees and their foreign and Chinese managers strengthen their quality relationships as measured by supervisorsubordinate guanxi and leadermembership exchange; quality relationships in turn enhanced effective participative leadership as measured by the opportunity for joint decision-making and the open-minded discussion of opposing views (constructive controversy). Results suggest that cooperative goals and the Chinese value of guanxi may be important for overcoming obstacles and developing participative leadership within and across cultural boundaries.

Abstract:
Top management teams may be critical for developing organizations that can keep abreast of marketplace changes and innovate. Several streams of strategy research have argued that conflict and diversity promote top management team effectiveness. This study proposes that how top management teams manage conflict can greatly contribute to their effective leadership of organizational innovation. A total of 378 executives from 105 organizations in China completed measures of conflict management (cooperative, competitive, and avoiding) and productive conflict (an outcome of conflict). Separately, 105 CEOs from these firms indicated their team's effectiveness and their organization's innovativeness. Results support the theory that conflict management can contribute to making top management teams effective. Structural equation analysis suggests that cooperative conflict management promotes productive conflict and top management team effectiveness that in turn result in organizational innovation. These results, coupled with previous research, were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative conflict management is an important contributor to effective top management teams even in the collectivist culture of China.

Abstract:
Although mistakes may have considerable potential for learning, previous research has emphasized that organizational members are often defensive when their mistakes are pointed out and will even continue with their present course of action despite growing costs. Recent research has shown that team-level variables, such as psychological safety and shared mental model, can help overcome barriers to learning from mistakes. Structural equation analyses on teams working in a sample of organizations in Shanghai, China, suggested that teams were able to learn from their mistakes to the extent that they took a problem solving orientation. This orientation in turn was based on developing cooperative but not competitive goals within the team. Although competitive and independent goals induce blaming, blaming itself was not significantly related to learning. Blaming, especially when conducted openly, may hold individual team members accountable as well as provoke defensiveness. Findings empirically link the theory of cooperation and competition with the organizational learning literature. Results suggest that cooperative goals and problem solving promote learning from mistakes.

Abstract:
Organizations increasingly ask teams to stimulate innovation but research is needed to identify the conditions when teams have the confidence and persistence to innovate successfully. Using the concepts of cooperation, competition, group potency and initiative, this study proposes that relationships where team members believe that their goals are cooperative in that one person's goal attainment helps others reach their goals lay the foundation for innovation. Specifically, cooperative goals convince team members that they have the group potency to complete a range of tasks and the initiative to persist to overcome obstacles and innovate. In contrast, competitive, negatively related goals and independent, unrelated goals are hypothesized to undermine confidence, persistence and innovation. Group members from 101 teams from various organizations in Shanghai, China, completed a survey with measures of cooperative, competitive and independent goals, group potency, and initiative; their project leader completed the measure of innovation. Structural equation analysis supports the theoretical framework that cooperative goals help group members develop the confidence of group potency and the initiative to persist to accomplish tasks and innovate. These results suggest that cooperative goals and group potency and initiative are important conditions that help teams innovate for organizations and thereby specify conditions that can help groups realize their potential to achieve innovation for organizations.

Abstract:
The extensive literature on participative budgeting has paid little attention to the interaction among managers as they discuss and resolve budget-related issues. This study employs goal interdependence theory to explore the impact of team dynamics on budgeting. How managers believe their goals are related affects the dynamics and outcomes of participation. In a large utility in Hong Kong, 64 managers were interviewed on specific budget participation incidents. Results of structural equation analyses found support for the study's three main hypotheses. Budget team members who had cooperative goals were found to engage in more open-minded discussion in conflict situations. This resulted in improved group productivity and strengthened relationships which, in turn, led to higher-quality budgets. Results were interpreted as suggesting that the benefits of budget participation depends upon establishing strongly cooperative goals among team members and developing the skills to discuss opposing views open-mindedly. The antecedents of goal interdependence are also explored.