A Multilevel Study Of Team Boundary Spanning

Because of the fierce competition in the market,the team only relying on internal knowledge and resources is not enough to cope with the challenges caused by outside environmental changes.How to effectively promote the team to contact with and cooperate with external organizations or teams to obtain new external knowledge and resources to meet the challenges has been a major concern of managers.Given this,the role of team cross-border behavior has become increasingly prominent.However,there is still lacking of theoretical researches on addressing the issues of how to promote team bondary-spanning behaviors and when team bondary-spanning behaviors benefit for team effectiveness.This present study focusing on team boundary-spaning behaviors,aimes at revealing a kind of important antecedents of team boundary-sapanning behaviors and identify the effectiveness of team boundary-sapaning on employee creativity and team creativity.In addition,the mechanisms behind thoese relationgships and some potential boundary conditions have also been examined and discussed.In this study,we first give a review of the concept,dimension,measurement,antecedents and consequences of team boundary-spanning behaviors.This section mainly includes five parts,In the first part,we review and summarize the conception dimensions,and measurement of team boundary-sapanning behaviors.In the second part,we review and summarize the theoretical basis and some related research perspectives of team boundary-spanning behaviors.In the third part,we give a review of the antecedents and consequences of employee boundar-spaning behaviors.In the fourth part,we give a review of the antecedents and consequences of team boundar-spanning behaviors.In the fifthe part,based on the literature review of team boundary spanning,we conclude some gaps in the literature and point out the importance and necessity of conducting this research.Aiming at revealing how team boundary-spanning behaviors form and,when and why team boundary spaning behaviors work effectively and benefit for team and employee creativity,we conduct three sub-sudies.In the first sub-study,we focus on the formation mechanism of team boundary-spanning behaviors.From the perspective of compound process,we investigate the impacts of different achievement goal orientations on team and employee boundary-spanning behaviors at team and individual level perspectively.The results indicate that,no matter team or individual level,both learning orientation and performance orientation are positively related to boundary-spanning behaviors,whereas avoidance orientation is negatively related to boundary-spanning behaviors.In addition,the relationship between different achievement orientations and boundary-spanning behaviors are moderated by perceived organizational valuing of creativity.Specifically,if employees perceive high organizational valuing of creativity,the negative relationship between employees'avoidance orientation and employee boundary-spanning behaviors will be much stronger.However,in the team level,teams' high perceived organizational valuing of creativity will make the positive relationship between team learning orientation and team boundary-spanning behaviors much stronger.The second sub-sudy focuses on the effect of team boundary-spanning behaviors on team effectiveness.As prior studies indicate that the relationship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and team innovation or creativity is mixed,we try to examine the nonlinear relationship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and team creativity.Using 433 employee-leader matched survey data,our analyses find that the relationship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and team creativity is presented as an inversed "U" shape.And also,the relationship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and team knowledge sharing is presented as an inversed"U" shape,and team boundary-spanning behaviors influence team creativity via team knowledge sharing.In other words,team knowledge sharing mediates the relathionship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and team creativity.The third sub-sudy focuses on the cross-level effects of team boundary-spanning behaviors on employee performance and behaviors.Drawing on the theory of social capital,this sub-sudy reveals why,when and how team boundary-spanning behaviors have impact on employee creativity.The mediating role of creative self-efficay and the moderating role of supervisor support on the realationship between team boundary-spanning have been examined.Using 190 employee-leader matched survey data,our analyses find that team boundary-spanning behaviors are positively related to employee creativity via employees' creative self-efficay.In addition,supervisor support mediates the relationship between team boundary-spanning behaviors and employee creativity.And also,the interation effects of team boundary-spanning behaviors and supervisor support influence employee creativity via employees'creative self-efficay.As last,we summarize the main research conlusions of this study,and point out some limitations in the study.Besides,some future research directions have also been proposed and discussed.