Author(s): Mrs. Devaki S., Dr. Richa Das
Teamwork has emerged as an important predictor of performance in knowledge-intensive sectors, but the behavior chain by which individual interpersonal skills determine effective team functioning is not well comprehended within the Indian IT sector. The present exploratory research attempts to investigate the hypothesis that interpersonal effectiveness predicts teamwork effectiveness through a chain where group dynamics, or the quality of team interactions, generates an affective-relational emergent state: interpersonal trust based on the team emergent states theory (Marks et al., 2001) and the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964). The primary data for the study were collected among 150 IT workers in Bengaluru by means of a structured and validated questionnaire with Likert-type questions (1-5 rating scale), and analyzed by using reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and bootstrapped mediation models. All measurement scales have shown excellent internal consistency (α = 0.90-0.96) and very high adequacy of sampling (KMO = 0.903). Interpersonal effectiveness has positively predicted group dynamics; group dynamics has positively predicted interpersonal trust; and trust is the most proximal predictor of teamwork effectiveness. The serial indirect path (interpersonal effectiveness → group dynamics → trust → teamwork effectiveness) was found significant (indirect effect = 0.285, 95% bootstrap CI [0.165, 0.437]), whereas the direct effect turned out to be non-significant, suggesting full sequential mediation. Such results support emergent states approach, showing that interpersonal trust represents an affective emergent state in which team interaction process is transformed into team outcome, and social exchange serves as a mechanism through which the relationship between group dynamics and trust is formed. This way, IT organizations obtain a tangible handle on how to increase teamwork effectiveness: enhance interpersonal skills and create appropriate group environment for trust development.