TEAM GOAL COMMITMENT IN INNOVATIVE PROJECTS

In this paper, we investigate a relatively neglected but important aspect of team research, namely team goal commitment or the team member's attachment to the team goal. Specifically, we examine whether the performance effect of team goal commitment is contingent on the level of innovativeness of the team task. Furthermore, we also examine five controllable team-level antecedent factors to team goal commitment. Results provide support for the hypothesis that team goal commitment is related to performance only in teams with highly innovative tasks. Moreover, we find three factors (i.e., constructive task feedback, participative decision-making and small team size) related to team goal commitment. Surprisingly, outcome interdependence and team-external obligations are not related to team goal commitment. Implications for practice and research are discussed.