Information elaboration and team performance: Examining the psychological origins and environmental contingencies

• Published in: Organizational behavior and human decision processes 2014-07, Vol.124 (2), p.165-176
• Main Authors: Resick, Christian J., Murase, Toshio, Randall, Kenneth R., DeChurch, Leslie A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cognitive abilities; Cognitive models; Collective leadership; Elaboration; Employees; Environmental turbulence; Group behaviour; Group dynamics; Group performance; Human behaviour; Individual performance; Information elaboration; Information exchange; Information processing; Information sharing; Information theory; Leadership; Mental models; Mental stress; Motivation; Organizational analysis; Organizational behaviour; Studies; Team composition; Teams
• ISSN: 0749-5978; 1095-9920
• DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.03.005

•We examine boundaries on information elaboration in functionally diverse teams.•We examine ability and social motivation origins of information elaboration.•Elaboration processes aided team success in turbulent but not stable environments.•Shared strategy mental models mediated ability composition to elaboration processes.•Collective leadership mediated self-reliance beliefs composition to elaboration. Information elaboration enables functionally diverse teams to transform their breadth of knowledge resources into actionable solutions to complex problems. The current study advances information elaboration theory and research in two ways. First, we identify how team ability and social motivation composition characteristics provide the psychological origins of complex information processing efforts. Second, we identify environmental turbulence as an important boundary condition, clarifying when information elaboration benefits team performance and when it does not. These ideas were tested in a sample of 4-person self-managed teams (N=68) which were functionally diverse and performed a cooperative strategic decision-making task. Results indicate that cognitive ability equips teams with the “can do” ability for complex elaboration efforts through emergent team mental models, whereas low preferences for self-reliance provide the “will do” motivation for in-depth information exchange through collective leadership. In turn, teams benefited from information elaboration in turbulent but not stable environments.