Team Reflexivity:Its Forming Mechanism And Effectiveness

In recent years, with the rapid changes in the business environment, organizations are increasingly dependent on the way of team work to deal with complex and flexible tasks. In order to successfully deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, the team will need to pay close attention to the dynamic changes in the environment, and to develop strategies to handle according to these changes of the external environment. Team reflexivity is considered an effective process to handle uncertainty and ambiguity of the external environment, being paid increasingly widespread attention by scholars. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper in the area of team reflexivity is to explore the antecedents of team reflexivity, the mediators and the moderators between team reflexivity and team innovation.A narrative literature review was included in the first part of this dissertation. It consisted of three major parts. Part one outlined the definition, conceptual nature, and measurement of team reflexivity as well as the relevant theoretical perspectives. Part two reviewed the empirical studies about the antecedents of team reflexivity. Part three reviewed the empirical studies about the outcomes of team reflexivity. Based on part one, part two and part three, part three, several theoretical limitations were discussed and the main purposes of this dissertation were also identified.Three empirical studies were conducted to systematically investigate the antecedents of team reflexivity, the mechanisms of the impact of team reflexivity on team innovation and the boundary conditions of the effect of team reflexivity on team innovation. The first study analyzed the effect of socialization charismatic leadership on team reflexivity and explored the moderating role of external environment uncertainty and team regulatory focus orientation. Empirical evidence based on the data from345employees in95teams, found that socialization charismatic leadership had positively affected team reflexivity; external environment uncertainty and team regulatory focus orientation moderated the effect socialization charismatic leadership on team reflexivity, in particular when external environment uncertainty was relatively high, socialization charismatic leadership was relatively strong, and team reflexivity was relatively large; when team promotion-focused orientation was relatively high, socialization charismatic leadership was strong and team reflexivity was relatively large.The second study examined the effect of team reflexivity on team innovation, and tested the mediating roles of team shared mental model and team information resource exchange. Empirical evidence based on the data from303employees in90teams, indicating that team reflexivity positively affected team innovation, team shared mental model and team information resource exchange; both team shared mental model and team information resource exchange positively affected team innovation; both team shared mental model and team information resource exchange fully mediated the relationship between team reflexivity and team innovation.The last study examined the moderating roles of task interdependence and performance appraisal orientation. Empirical evidence based on the data from303employees in90teams, showing that task interdependence and performance appraisal orientation moderated the effect of team reflexivity on team innovation. In particular, when task interdependence was relatively high, team reflexivity was relatively large and team innovation was relatively strong; when development performance appraisal was relatively high, team reflexivity was relatively large and team innovation was relatively strong; when evaluation performance appraisal was relatively low, team reflexivity was relatively large and team innovation was relatively strong.Finally, the main findings of this dissertation were concluded and limitations and future research directions were discussed as well.