Antecedents and Consequences of Collectivistic Group Norms

Abstract

<p> Collectivism refers to a tendency to value group membership and collective responsibility. Much of what we know about how collectivism influences team effectiveness is drawn from research that has assumed collectivism to be determined by either cultural contexts (e.g., Hofstede, 1980), or individual differences (e.g., Triandis, Leung, Villareal, & Clack, 1985). Based largely in social psychology, another perspective is emerging in which collectivism is viewed as a group norm within a team. The issue of collectivistic group norms within teams has yet to be examined in relation to team effectiveness outcomes, and may help to explain phenomena that have yet to be fully explained by cultural contexts or individual differences. In a longitudinal study of 60 self-managing teams performing a human resources management simulation, collectivistic group norms was positively associated with collective efficacy and team performance after controlling for the individual difference measure of psychological collectivism. Although psychological collectivism was positively associated with collectivistic group norms, only the two psychological collectivism sub-dimensions of concern and norm acceptance were positively associated with collectivistic group norms while no associations were found between collectivistic group norms and the remaining three sub-dimensions of preference, reliance, and goal priority. Collective efficacy fully mediated the association between collectivistic group norms and team performance. Collectivistic group norm sharedness moderated the associations between collectivistic group norms and collective efficacy, and collectivistic group norms and team performance. This study is among the first to introduce collectivistic group norms to the organizational behaviour literature and to use collectivistic group norm sharedness to account for unique variance in collective efficacy and team performance.</p>