EXPRESS: Coauthoring collaborative strategy when voices are many and authority is ambiguous

In interorganizational teams, processes are more complex and structures less clear than in intraorganizational settings. Different perspectives come together and authoritative positions are often ambiguous, which makes establishing what to do problematic. We adopt a ventriloquial analytical lens and pose the question: How exactly do interorganizational team members build a collaborative strategy under these conditions, in their situated interactions? Our findings show how many different voices (individual, organizational, team, and other) shape members’ strategy-making and reveal these voices’ performative authoritative effects: Members established their team’s strategy and produced the needed authority to do so through three coauthoring practices, namely the proposition, appropriation, and expropriation of voices. When members switched between the practices and different voices, these voices were either woven together or moved apart. We sketch a conceptualization of strategy as a relational assemblage and develop a process model of strategy coauthoring to illuminate these dynamics.

The Approach of Hierarchical Linear Model to Exploring Individual and Team Creativity: A Perspective of Cultural Intelligence and Team Trust

How to promote the creativity of interorganizational teams has always been the focus among scholars and management practitioners. From the perspective of leadership, this study explores the influence of shared leadership on creativity in interorganizational teams. Specifically, this study integrates leadership perspective with trust perspective and explores the mediating role of team trust between shared leadership and creativity at both team and individual level. In addition, this study examines the moderating effect of the leader’s cultural intelligence between shared leadership and team trust based on the perspective of leadership situation. The data comes from 275 employees within 54 interorganizational teams. The results show that shared leadership will promote team trust and team trust plays a key mediating role between shared leadership and creativity. Moreover, the relationship between shared leadership and team trust is moderated by the cultural intelligence of leader, such that the positive relationship will be stronger with high cultural intelligence and weaker with low cultural intelligence.

Cultural intelligence and employees’ creative performance: The moderating role of team conflict in interorganizational teams

Recently, an increasing number of organizations conduct collaborative innovation by establishing interorganizational teams comprising employees from different organizations. Given that employees face immense challenges because of organizational culture differences in interorganizational teams, this study focused considerably on cultural intelligence in the interorganizational context. This cultural intelligence refers to the ability of individuals to deal effectively with organizational culture differences. Our research particularly explored the effect of employees’ cultural intelligence on their creative performance and the moderating effects of two types of team conflicts through hierarchical linear modeling. The sample was obtained from 54 interorganizational teams that included 275 employees. Results confirmed a positive relationship between employees’ cultural intelligence and their creative performance and the positive relationship will be stronger in higher relationship conflicts and lower task conflicts. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were also discussed.

IT Outsourcing Success: A Psychological Contract Perspective

Information technology (IT) outsourcing success requires careful management of customer-supplier relationships. However, there are few published studies on the ongoing relationships, and most of these adopt a customer perspective, de-emphasizing suppliers. In this study, we look at both customer and supplier perspectives, by means of the psychological contract of customer and supplier project managers. We apply the concept of psychological contract to perceived mutual obligations, and to how such fulfillment of obligations can predict success. Our research questions are (1) What are the critical customer-supplier obligations in an IT outsourcing relationship? and (2) What is the impact of fulfilling these obligations on success? We use a sequential, qualitative-quantitative approach to develop and test our model. In the qualitative study, we probe the nature of customer-supplier obligations using in-depth interviews. Content analysis of interview transcripts show that both customers and suppliers identify six obligations that are critical to success. Customers perceive supplier obligations to be accurate project scoping, clear authority structures, taking charge, effective human capital management, effective knowledge transfer, and effective interorganizational teams. Suppliers perceive customer obligations as clear specifications, prompt payment, close project monitoring, dedicated project staffing, knowledge sharing, and project ownership. In the second quantitative study, we assess the impact of fulfilling these obligations on success through a field study of 370 managers. Results show that fulfilled obligations predict success over and above the effects of contract type, duration, and size.