title: Team structure and regulatory focus: the impact of regulatory fit on team dynamic.
abstract: We report a within-teams experiment testing the effects of fit between team structure and regulatory task demands on task performance and satisfaction through average team member positive affect and helping behaviors. We used a completely crossed repeated-observations design in which 21 teams enacted 2 tasks with different regulatory focus characteristics (prevention and promotion) in 2 organizational structures (functional and divisional), resulting in 84 observations. Results suggested that salient regulatory demands inherent in the task interacted with structure to determine objective and subjective team-level outcomes, such that functional structures were best suited to (i.e., had best fit with) tasks with a prevention regulatory focus and divisional structures were best suited to tasks with a promotion regulatory focus. This contingency finding integrates regulatory focus and structural contingency theories, and extends them to the team level with implications for models of performance, satisfaction, and team dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Managerial Sciences, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA. ndimotakis@gsu.edu
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dimotakis
authors.forename: Robert B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Davison
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hollenbeck
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult