Team norms are one of the most frequently used explanations of how teams as a collective entity can influence individual member’s behaviors (Hackman & Walton, 1986; Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991; Feldman, 1984). Despite such importance, current theoretical and empirical development of team norms is relatively inadequate. In this dissertation, I view norm strength and norm enforcement as two central pillars of team norms, and specifically examine team norm enforcement from a social network perspective. I first develop a typology based on the existing literature and specify the behavior content of three types of norm enforcement mechanisms: sanction, recognition and learning. Second, I examine the impact of the structural and configural properties on team performance. This model was tested on 799 employees nested in 101 work teams from China. Results from the data analysis have offered partial support that the structural characteristics of norm enforcement network had impacts on team performance above and beyond norm strength.
Dissertation
Social network perspective of team norm enforcement
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2017
DOI: 10.17077/etd.6jn2-768q
Abstract
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Social network perspective of team norm enforcement
- Creators
- Jia (Joya) Yu - University of Iowa
- Contributors
- Ning Li (Advisor)Scott E. Seibert (Advisor)Maria L. Kraimer (Committee Member)Ernest H. O'Boyle (Committee Member)Kenneth G. Brown (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Business Administration
- Date degree season
- Spring 2017
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.6jn2-768q
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- viii, 114 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2017 Jia (Joya) Yu
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 95-107).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Team norms are the most frequently argued mechanism of how teams as a system can regulate and influence individual member’s behaviors. Previous research has focused exclusively on team norms as a shared understanding of some informal rules, but issues related to how norms are enforced have received few attentions. Team norm enforcement refers to the processes through which individual behaviors are modified according to a set of actions informally specified as proper or improper by team members. My dissertation looks at team norm enforcement from a social network perspective by treating the enforcement activities as a type of social interactions between two individuals. First, I identified three main norm enforcement mechanisms: sanction, recognition, and learning. Secondly, I examined how the different structural characteristics of norm enforcement networks, such as the number of enforcement ties or the extent to which those ties are centralized on a few individuals, can impact on team performance. I collected data from 799 members from 101 work teams in China to empirically test this model. Results showed that the behavioral process of enforcing norms through feedback seeking and behavioral modeling is more important to team success than having a shared understanding of norms.
- Academic Unit
- Tippie College of Business
- Record Identifier
- 9983777077102771
Metrics
211 File views/ downloads
267 Record Views