Speaking up in ad hoc multiteam systems: Individual-level effects of psychological safety, status, and leadership within and across teams

Abstract

Speaking up in high-risk organizations plays a pivotal role in the mitigation of errors and can make the difference between life and death. To date, speaking up has been studied mostly within teams. However, many high-risk organizations rely on the effective collaboration across teams in ad hoc multiteam systems (MTS). This study widens the scope of research from teams to MTS and empirically compares the mechanisms involved in speaking up within versus across teams in ad hoc MTS-aircrews. In a sample of 1490 aircrew members of a European airline, we found that crewmembers' individual level perceptions of psychological safety mediated both the relationship between status and speaking up and between perceived leader inclusiveness and speaking up within teams. Across teams, however, psychological safety and leader inclusiveness-as perceived by pursers in their role as boundary spanners-showed no effect. Instead, it was pursers' within-team perceptions of psychological safety that mediated between status and speaking up across teams. Teams in ad hoc MTS may thus serve as safe harbours supporting their members also in interactions across team boundaries. Implications of findings for research on MTS and practical recommendations to improve speaking up within and across teams in ad hoc MTS are discussed.

Effects of Inclusive Leadership on Employee Voice Behavior and Team Performance: The Mediating Role of Caring Ethical Climate

“…While few studies investigated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behavior. The style of team leadership has an important role in the voice behavior of the team members (Bienefeld and Grote, 2014). We found evidence for the effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice behavior.…”

How does the social context fuel the proactive fire? A multilevel review and theoretical synthesis

“…One exception is that in Sample 3,Bienefeld and Grote (2014) reported the correlation between leader inclusiveness and employee speaking up behavior to be −0.11, which is not significant.4 In this paper, r is the correlation between the social context factor and proactive behavior in the corresponding study.…”

“…These correlations with individual proactivity range from 0.11 to 0.46. Psychological safety (“can do”; Bienefeld & Grote, ), perceived status (“other”; Janssen & Gao, ), and perceived influence (“other”; Tangirala & Ramanujam, ) were found to be the mediators. Note that perceived status and influence were argued to prompt individual proactive behavior because they make individuals feel they have the capacity (“can do”) and responsibility (“reason to”) to do so.…”

“…Leaders can increase employee proactive behavior by directly encouraging change, including providing a clear vision (Griffin, Parker, & Mason, 2010), signaling that they welcome and are interested in employees' ideas (Bienefeld & Grote, 2014), asking employees for suggestions (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2012), and actively responding to employees' innovative inputs (Janssen & Gao, 2015). These correlations with individual proactivity range from 0.11 to 0.46.…”

24-Karat or fool’s gold? Consequences of real team and co-acting group membership in healthcare organizations

“…Furthermore, in real life organizational contexts, characterized by complex multi-team systems (Marks et al, 2005), varying team life cycles (Hackman, 2012), and multiple team membership (O'Leary et al, 2011), as well as the methodological limitations imposed by the design of the NHS NSS, nesting individuals into teams was not possible in the current study. Thus we followed an approach adopted by others in the recent literature, analyzing and measuring team characteristics at the individual level (e.g., Bienefeld & Grote, 2013, Klein, Ziegert, Knight, & Xiao, 2006Lyndon et al, 2011). However, as noted below, future research should endeavor to overcome these operational challenges, building on the handful of existing studies that have examined the real team construct at the group level (Hackman & O'Conner, 2005;Wageman, 2001), to further explore ideas about real team and co-acting group membership.…”