Sprinting to the finish: Toward a theory of Human Capital Resource Complementarity.

Abstract

In traditional work contexts, factors such as individuals' general competencies are used to predict indices of their performance such as yearly performance appraisals. Whereas traditional approaches to predicting individuals' performance focus on differences between individuals, a considerable proportion of variability in performance is attributable to within-person sources. However, we submit that within-person variability in performance may also be attributable to the fact that people work in different contexts. Moreover, individual performance is often the result of unrecognized team contributions. Accordingly, we advance a Human Capital Resource Complementarity (HCRC) theory to explain the alignment of human capital resources with dynamic situational features, and to illustrate the influence of team collective competencies on the performance of individual members. We then empirically test HCRC theory-derived hypotheses using a sample of 169 cyclists from 22 teams across 18 stages of the centennial Tour de France. Our results suggest that individuals' specific competencies interact with situational characteristics to predict their performance variability over time, beyond that accounted for by their general competencies. Moreover, these effects are accentuated to the extent that teammates' competencies aligned with individual competencies in a given situation. Implications for future theory building, research, and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceptions of Organizational Politics Research: Past, Present, and Future

“…Consequently, phenomena once viewed as static features (e.g., justice, incivility, and leadership) are now considered dynamic and subject to abrupt change across incidents. In recent years, scholars have argued that “real-world processes and situations unfold dynamically over time” (Wolfson & Mathieu, 2018: 1167), leading employee experiences to differ as they evolve uniquely (Li, Burch, & Lee, 2017). Accordingly, even modest day-to-day changes across tasks, interactions, and contexts may demonstrate a nontrivial impact on employee and organizational outcomes.…”

Multiple jobholding motivations and experiences: A typology and latent profile analysis.

“…Coherence is one explanation for why, namely, that having coherent experiences across various work contexts promotes workers' learning and development (O'Mahony & Bechky, 2006). Complementarity is another notable mechanism; the complementarity of tasks or capabilities also fosters learning (Wolfson & Mathieu, 2018). By extension, simultaneously holding multiple jobs may afford individuals task or skill coherence or complementarity across their jobs, advantaging their learning-related work outcomes.…”

Dynamic team composition: A theoretical framework exploring potential and kinetic dynamism in team capabilities.

“…Research exploring this phenomenon has primarily focused on one type of dynamism, changes to team membership (e.g., Arrow & McGrath, 1995; Li & van Knippenberg, 2021). However, research on disparate topics ranging from traditional approaches to composition (Mathieu, Kukenberger, et al, 2014), development (Bell et al, 2017), situational alignment (Wolfson & Mathieu, 2018), and emergent states (Waller et al, 2016) captures aspects of dynamic team composition even if not explicitly acknowledging so. While this research provides theoretical and practical insights related to dynamic team composition, the information is fragmented.…”

“…There are two key design recommendations for kinetic capabilities related to situational relevance-driven dynamic team composition standpoint. First, it is critical to find settings where variance in situational characteristics can be indexed, allowing for modeling both changes over time generally as well as deviation from the status quo, as situational alignment will be the critical driver of variance (Wolfson & Mathieu, 2018). Second, researchers should consider the timing of developmental feedback and interventions to occur when they may be particularly impactful.…”

“…In terms of kinetic dynamic team composition questions around situational relevance , dynamism can be infused by adapting questions such as “how well do present KSAs relate to the task at hand?” to instead ask “how effective is KSA alignment as tasks change over time?” This approach allows researchers to tackle questions of changing KSA alignment where the KSAs are fixed but situational characteristics are dynamic (e.g., Wolfson & Mathieu, 2018). Additionally, from a more retrospective relevance standpoint, questions such as “how effective is debriefing at improving the team’s task performance?” can be altered to “how can we effectively improve the team’s ability and willingness to engage in subsequent self-guided debriefs?” The latter allows researchers to explore a team’s subsequent ability to engage in debriefs and continue to improve their KSAs or emergent states which introduces dynamism into the team composition.…”