Affective diversity and emotional intelligence in cross-functional sourcing teams

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pursup.2016.07.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Diversity in personalities can be a liability for cross-functional sourcing teams.

  • Heterogeneity in sourcing team members’ longer term feelings related to a supplier selection process has a negative effect on team performance.

  • Highly emotionally intelligent sourcing team members can, however, mitigate these negative effects.

  • Managers should account for deep-level diversity when assembling sourcing teams.

Abstract

In cross-functional sourcing teams, differences in goals and personality traits can lead to tensions and reduced effectiveness. Diversity in teams can be conceptualized as surface-level diversity (e.g., gender, nationality) or as deep-level diversity (e.g., personality, attitudes). This study investigates the potentially negative effects of one category of deep-level diversity – namely, affective trait diversity – on sourcing team performance and how such negative effects might be mitigated through team members' emotional intelligence. The study analyzes a sample of 88 sourcing teams (234 team members) using moderated regression analyses. Sourcing team cohesion is found to fully mediate the relationship between affective diversity and team performance, while the collective emotional intelligence of the sourcing team positively moderates the diversity-cohesion relationship (moderated mediation). Thus, this study provides insights into both the mechanics of team diversity and the critical role of collective emotional intelligence in sourcing teams and thereby enables supply managers to better understand cross-functional team setups and effectiveness.

Introduction

Many organizations use cross-functional teams to manage their supply chains (Driedonks et al., 2010, Flynn et al., 2010, Oliva and Watson, 2011, Pohl and Förstl, 2011). Team members come from different departments (e.g., purchasing, logistics, production, research and development (R&D), and information technology) and typically have different goals, expertise, decision-making styles, personalities, and emotions. Their focus, for example, on important supplier selections and risk mitigation strategies (Kaufmann et al., 2014) requires the integration of broad ranges of experiences and various sets of information (Kraljic, 1983).

One practical advantage that cross-functional teams present in their work along supply chains is that they allow for more holistic problem solving using team members’ different backgrounds and perspectives (Driedonks et al., 2014). However, these more diverse teams also can present challenges that cause team stress and low team cohesiveness (Keller, 2001). Organizational research, characterizing diversity as a “double-edged sword”, has developed theoretical explanations for these divergent effects (Milliken and Martins, 1996, van Knippenberg et al., 2004, Williams and O'Reilly, 1998): On the one hand, a broader elaboration of information can result from taking different task-relevant perspectives and using complementary skills of team members; the potential outcome is greater innovation and higher performance. On the other hand, the similarity–attraction paradigm predicts that perceived dissimilarities between team members can lead to communication errors and lower performance (van Knippenberg et al., 2004).

Recent empirical studies (Ellis et al., 2013, Meschnig and Kaufmann, 2015, van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007) and meta-analyses (Bell, 2007, Bowers et al., 2000, Joshi and Roh, 2009, van Dijk et al., 2012) show that research findings are inconsistent and equivocal about the upside and downside effects of team diversity. “For every study describing a positive effect of group or team diversity on outcomes, such as performance, innovation, or cohesion, there is (at least) one suggesting the effect is in the opposite direction, and there are others which find neither effect” (Guillaume et al., 2013, p. 129). One root cause for these inconsistent results might lie in the different conceptualizations and operationalizations of the diversity construct.

Team diversity can be defined as the perceived difference of objective and subjective attributes among team members (van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007, Williams and O'Reilly, 1998). The literature frequently focuses on surface-level diversity (e.g., differences in age, gender, and nationality), while deep-level diversity (e.g., differences in personality traits, attitudes, and emotions) is often neglected (van Dijk et al., 2012, van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). However, deep-level diversity has been found to be a particularly critical factor in team interactions over time because deep-level characteristics, such as values and personality, “are more likely to become the basis of similarity-attraction” than are overt, demographic characteristics (Tekleab and Quigley, 2014, p. 395). Further, acknowledging that human beings are not fully rational in their actions and decisions and that recent Behavioral Operations & Supply Chain Management research underlines the relevance of emotions for operations and SCM (Urda and Loch, 2013), we focus on one specific category of deep-level diversity: affective diversity in sourcing teams.

In this paper we focus on the following two research questions: 1) Is affective diversity in sourcing teams beneficial or not, and 2) which factors influence the affective diversity–outcome relationship. During the supplier selection process, negotiations with the suppliers and discussions among the cross-functional team members lead to emotional responses, such as feeling more or less inspired, excited, and/or enthusiastic. (A more complete array of affective traits is provided in the Appendix A.) Affective events theory is concerned with such responses, predicting that events at the workplace, such as the discussions held in the cross-functional work team, are sources of affect (Lanaj et al., 2016, Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). Over time, the individual team members might develop a general tendency of feeling inspired, excited, and/or enthusiastic when working on the specific supplier selection process at hand. Based on previous psychology research, we therefore use the term affective traits to describe team members' longer term feelings related to a specific supplier selection process (Collins et al., 2013, Watson et al., 1988). Accordingly, we define affective diversity as heterogeneity in the individual affective traits of team members (Barsade and Knight, 2015, Barsade et al., 2000, Chattopadhyay et al., 2010).

The contribution of our paper is threefold. First, we expand the research stream investigating cross-functional sourcing teams (Driedonks et al., 2010, Kaufmann et al., 2014, Moses and Åhlström, 2008, Stanczyk et al., 2015). We do so by concentrating on deep-level factors that might affect team cohesion and performance and by examining real-life supplier selection decisions rather than (quasi-) experimental settings. Second, we contribute to theory by connecting the literatures on emotions and sourcing team decision making. More specifically, we build on and extend the research streams on emotions at the workplace (Toegel et al., 2013, Urda and Loch, 2013), emotional intelligence (Joseph et al., 2015, Ybarra et al., 2014), and diversity (Nederveen Pieterse et al., 2013, Shin et al., 2012). Contributing to affective events theory, we focus on consequences that arise from work event-driven emotions (Cropanzano and Dasborough, 2015, Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). Specifically, we investigate the effect on team attitudes when team members differ in their affective traits. We extend the research based on the similarity-attraction paradigm, investigating deep-level rather than surface-level diversity factors. Our results show that diversity in deep-level factors does lead to lower levels of attraction toward heterogeneous team members. Third, based on our results we provide suggestions to practitioners in the field of purchasing and supply management (PSM) for implementing specific emotional competence training that enables team members to recognize and manage their own and others’ emotions successfully; such training ultimately can help to reduce conflicts, delays, and quality or financial costs.

In the following sections, we develop the theory, describe the study, and then present and discuss our results. We conclude by outlining practical implications and providing suggestions for future research.

Section snippets

Theory

The dynamism and complexity characterizing the PSM context – with its variety of tasks and decisions, and the external customers, suppliers, and internal stakeholders operating in it – make cross-functional sourcing teams a necessity (Driedonks et al., 2014, Lambert et al., 2008). Cross-functional sourcing teams are typically implemented for important decisions or item categories that come with significant annual expenses, offer opportunities for huge cost savings, or pose important risks (

Hypotheses

In line with affective events theory, we assume that through the complexity of sourcing categories and personality differences team members differ in feeling interested, inspired, and enthusiastic for the specific selection process at hand. These situation-based emotions stabilize to a specific mood or affective trait over time. Further, based on the similarity-attraction paradigm (Byrne, 1971), we posit that homogeneity in positive affects in sourcing teams is accompanied by positive

Research design and data collection

We chose the supplier selection process as the unit of analysis involving sequential events, such as profiling the item category, evaluating several suppliers based on predefined criteria, and contracting (Ellram and Tate, 2015, Selviaridis et al., 2011). Further, we investigated cross-functional sourcing teams consisting of employees from different functions (e.g., purchasing, logistics, R&D, and production) who were deeply involved in sourcing projects and made a joint supplier selection

Bias evaluation

To control for unit non-response bias (Armstrong and Overton, 1977), we divided the data set into two groups, early and late respondents, based on whether participation began before or after the first reminder (Wagner and Kemmerling, 2010). The results of an ANOVA including the variables of our research model showed no significant differences. To control for recalling bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we further calculated the average elapsed time between finalizing the supplier selection process

Discussion

Our findings suggest that aggregated emotional intelligence of team members is a critical factor in cross-functional sourcing teams in that it positively moderates the link between affective diversity and team cohesion and subsequently has a positive influence on sourcing team performance. Especially in cross-functional sourcing teams – where members from different functions with different knowledge and functional goals need to make joint decisions for or against a supplier – diversity research

Theoretical implications

Our results contribute to theory by combining research on cross-functional teams, diversity, and emotions and emotional intelligence.

First, cross-functional teams increasingly have emerged as a research unit in the PSM discipline (Driedonks et al., 2014, Kaufmann et al., 2014, Pohl and Förstl, 2011, Stanczyk et al., 2015, Zheng et al., 2007). These teams typically are composed of members from purchasing, logistics, R&D, and other functions, depending on the item for which a supplier must be

Practical implications

In cross-functional sourcing teams, different personalities with differing values and beliefs meet each other, creating a diverse team environment. In this team environment, debate can be fruitful, but tensions also are likely to arise, and the different opinions and backgrounds can lead to team conflicts. Studies about diversity training effectiveness present equivocal findings, including positive, ineffective, or even negative outcomes; in this light, training investments sometimes seem

Limitations and further research

This study has its limitations. From a methodological perspective, most studies that investigate emotions at work use experiments or vignettes to discover relationships between environmental antecedents and emotional reactions (Eckerd et al., 2013). One advantage of this approach is that the setting can be highly controlled, thus strengthening internal validity (Mentzer and Flint, 1997). A disadvantage of this approach is the potential lack of realism and a questionable link to ultimate outcome

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