Dyadic Viability in Project Teams: the Impact of Liking, Competence, and Task Interdependence

• Published in: Journal of business and psychology 2020-10, Vol.35 (5), p.573-591
• Main Authors: Thomas, Jane Shumski, Loignon, Andrew C., Woehr, David J., Loughry, Misty L., Ohland, Matthew W.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Business and Management; Community and Environmental Psychology; Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Interdependence; ORIGINAL PAPER; Personality and Social Psychology; Psychology; Regression analysis; Social exchange theory; Social Sciences; Teams
• ISSN: 0889-3268; 1573-353X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10869-019-09647-6

Drawing from social exchange theory and the relational approach to social exchange relationships, we examine liking and competence judgments as predictors of dyadic viability, a new, complementary, operationalization of team viability. We also consider team-level task interdependence as a moderator of these dyadic relationships. Based on data from dyads nested within project teams, we found that both liking and competence significantly relate to teammates’ dyadic viability. Additionally, task interdependence at the team level significantly moderates the dyadic-level effects of liking and competence on dyadic viability, such that the effect of liking judgments is stronger when team task interdependence is high, and the effect of competence judgments is stronger when team task interdependence is low. We also show that aggregated (across team members) measures of dyadic viability are highly similar to proxies that have been classified as team viability in the past—team satisfaction and cohesion. However, the moderating effect of task interdependence was not found with these team-level measures.