How Interdependence in Team Task Structure Impacts Evaluations of Members’ Work Contributions: Examining Resource versus Process Interdependence

ABSTRACT

Evaluations of people’s work value form the cornerstone of several important group processes, but few studies examine how team task structure shapes evaluations of group members’ contributions. This research proposes and tests a theoretical model outlining how two qualitatively different forms of task interdependence influence individual evaluations of the absolute and relative value of team members’ work. Resource and Process interdependence have traditionally been confounded in studies on task interdependence. Resource interdependence refers to the degree to which people hold different expertise, while process interdependence is the degree to which people synchronize and coordinate their work (Courtright et al. 2015). I hypothesize that while high resource and high process interdependence should both enhance perceptions of the absolute importance of one’s own and others’ work contributions, they should exert opposite influence over relative work evaluations. Results from a 4-condition laboratory experiment indicate that resource and process interdependence differentially impact the development of work evaluations, although not in the way predicted.High resource interdependence actually emphasizes needing others more than being needed, while high process interdependence equally promotes perceived mutual dependence.Additional analyses also suggest that task structure and perceived task competence affect perceptions of group members’ work-value through different mechanisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Task complexity
• task interdependence
• performance evaluations
• perceived need
• work value

Notes

1. I hope to loosen this scope condition later. Task design should influence intragroup interaction regardless of whether individuals know its structure. However, this is an important initial assumption because cognitive awareness should cause people to interact in different ways.

2. In the post-activity survey, participants were asked to describe any prior experience with APA formatting. Common responses described exposure to formatting in English classes or citing literature for classwork: “Just in my English class,” or “I’ve used it before for writing essays, but I always use a guide so I don’t have any of the information memorized,” which actually indicate nonfamiliarity with APA formatting as a style specific to psychology. Results did not change when I removed teams where at least one participant indicated being exposed to APA formatting in a psychology class or in a professional setting, or recognized APA as different from other types of formatting. Thus, in order to maximize the number of teams for analysis, I kept all teams regardless of self-perceived exposure to APA formatting.

3. I reran all models with the indexes disaggregated. The impact of resource and process interdependence on perceived work value remains essentially the same for both submeasures. Only in Model 2, high process interdependence loses its marginal impact when the dependent variable is based only on partner’s “value to group success.” However, this does not change Model 2’s main result that the interaction term had no effect.

4. Results stay the same when scores are aggregated for team-level analyses. The only difference was for process interdependence in Models 1 and 2. It still holds a positive relationship with perceptions of partner work value, but its statistical significance drops just below marginal levels (Model 1: β = .35, p = .1045, one-tailed test; Model 2: β = .41, p = .1255, one-tailed test).

5. While all tests presented in the tables are two-tailed, I use one-tailed tests in discussing the results because of the directional nature of the hypotheses.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant [41023];

Notes on contributors

Lynn G. Chin

Lynn G. Chin is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington & Lee University. Her research interests tend to focus around task structure, performance expectations, and feelings of belonging. She has published papers on the relationship between the division of labor and group attachment, gendered stereotypes of organizational task structure, and the impact of minority identity on attachment to nations and the European Union.