Individualism/Collectivism, Perceived Task Interdependence and Teamwork Attitudes among Irish Blue-Collar Employees: a Test of the Main and Moderating Effects?

Abstract

Two-hundred and four blue-collar employees participated in a study in which we tested for the effects of individualism/collectivism (I/C) orientations (solitary work preference, supremacy of individual goals, competitiveness, and self-reliance dimensions) and perceived task interdependence on two employee attitudes: team loyalty and prosocial behavior. We found support for the hypothesis that perceived task interdependence had positive effects on team loyalty and prosocial behavior. Further, solitary work preference, supremacy of individual goals, and self-reliance dimensions of I/C had main effects on loyalty to the team. The supremacy of individual goals dimension of I/C also had a main effect on pro-social behavior. We also found that task interdependence moderated the relationships between solitary work preference and pro-social behavior. The implications of our findings are discussed.

When and Why People Engage in Different Forms of Proactive Behavior: Interactive Effects of Self-construals and Work Characteristics

“…Man and Lam (2003) report a null association between collectivism/individualism and job autonomy. Ramamoorthy and Flood (2004) report inconsistent associations between facets of a collectivism/individualism measure and job interdependence. These inconsistencies may arise because people lack a dominant self-construal, such that their self-construals are not strongly independent or strongly interdependent.…”

Quality management and innovation: new insights on a structural contingency framework

“…A commonly held critical success factor of both JIT and design for manufacturability is teamwork [54]. Task interdependence helps build an environment conducive for teamwork [55] leading to effective quality management practices employment and consequently enhancing product, process and administrative innovation.…”

Design, Perception and Behavior in the Innovation Era: Revisiting the Concept of Interdependence

“…Albeit a simple thought, the literature does not extensively report on asymmetries between task and social interdependence. We next turn to a brief summary of selected studies on task interdependence which include mismatches between task and social interdependence (Kumar et al 1995;Ramamoorthy and Flood 2004). Sherman and Keller (2011) for example show how actual team behavior does not meet expected behavior when managers do not correctly assess the task interdependence between teams, leading to coordination problems.…”

“…Task interdependence is defined as the extent to which the organization's tasks require its members to work with one another because of interdependent workflows (Thompson 1967). A subtle but important point made in other studies is that the task interdependence that is designed and the interdependence that is actually perceived or experienced by teams are not necessarily equal (Kumar et al 1995;Nickerson and Zenger 2002;Ramamoorthy and Flood 2004;Sherman and Keller 2011). The actual or social experience of interdependence between teams is referred to as "social interdependence" (Johnson et al 2006).…”