Testing the Influence of Team Ability on the Relationship between a Team Member's Self-Efficacy and Effort.

摘要

A greater understanding of the influence of teams on team members will allow organizations to select and develop teams in a way that maximizes the motivation of employees. The current study seeks to explain self-efficacy's inconsistent effects on effort, by examining the top down influence team characteristics may have on this relationship, thus enhancing what is known about self-efficacy's motivational benefits and limitations. This applied field study investigated 928 individuals grouped into 61 action teams. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to test the influence of team characteristics, specifically the team levels of teamwork and task-related abilities, on the relationship between self-efficacy and the amount of effort individuals dedicate towards a team task. Results indicate there is not significant variability in the relationship between self-efficacy and effort for individuals on different teams, and there is no significant influence of the team-level abilities on this relationship. However, this study demonstrated that there are differences in the level of effort an individual is willing to dedicate to a task, and these varying levels of effort can be attributed to both characteristics of individuals and the team. Self-efficacy was an individual difference that explained some of the variance in levels of effort among individuals, and task-based ability was a characteristic of the team that explained variation in levels of effort.