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The fundamental role of corporate boards is to monitor and advise top management on strategic issues. It is therefore of the utmost importance that corporate directors are effective as a decision-making group to ensure corporate performance (Zattoni et al., 2015; Minichilli et al., 2012). But, what do we know about what is really going on inside the boardroom? This study aims to shed light on this important question.

The authors undertake a targeted review of the literature to take account of all publications regarding board dynamics in relation to board effectiveness.

This study shows that we know very little about what is going on inside the “black box” of board dynamics and its relation to how effective directors are at doing their job, namely, monitoring and advising top management and establishing and expanding the firm’s network, to gain access to the resources it needs. The authors propose several avenues of research to better understand board dynamics.

In this study, the authors show how and why the present body of knowledge on team effectiveness should be harnessed to better understand corporate board dynamics in relation to board effectiveness.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between team psychological capital (PsyCap) and team process improvement (TPI) by focusing on the mediating role of team self-managing behaviors (TSMBs) and the moderating effect of the team reward system.

Data were collected from 514 members and their immediate superiors nested in 135 action teams working for a Canadian public safety organization. Hypotheses were tested using a path analytic procedure.

Team PsyCap was positively related to TPI, and this relationship was mediated by TSMBs. In addition, the team reward system positively moderated the first stage of this relationship.

This study highlights the important role that motivational factors play in the effectiveness of action teams. Specifically, the present study reveals that the psychological resources of action teams interact with the level of recognition and reward they receive to predict members’ engagement in self-managing behaviors and in improvement processes.

Findings suggest that to promote the capacity for process improvement of actions teams, managers should focus on their positive psychological resources, their capacity to self-manage and on the level of recognition and reward they receive.

Considering the dynamic and complex environments within which action teams operate, the finding that team PsyCap promotes their optimal functioning is particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, this study clarifies why and when team PsyCap enhances TPI.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize and test a model concerning the role of complaining behaviors in work teams. Despite the prevalence of workplace complaining, there is no consensus in the literature regarding the consequences of those behaviors and the extent to which they are harmful.

Using a multisource approach and a team-level design, the authors collected data from 82 teams (i.e. 394 members and their 82 immediate superiors) working in a Canadian public safety organization.

The results show that complaining behaviors are negatively related to two effectiveness outcomes (i.e. team performance and team process improvement) and that meaningfulness mediates these relationships. The results also reveal that task interdependence moderates the relationship between complaining behaviors and meaningfulness. More specifically, complaining behaviors have a stronger relationship with meaningfulness when the level of task interdependence is high.

The present study contributes to the literature on counterproductive behaviors by deepening the understanding of emergent states and outcomes stemming from workplace complaining, particularly in work teams. The findings of this study highlight the negative consequences that complaining behaviors may have in a team setting, the underlying mechanism involved in these relationships, and the moderating role of task interdependence.

The purpose of this paper, building on the work of Aubé et al. (2009, 2011) who developed a four-dimension model of counterproductive behaviors in team settings, is to examine the team-level consequences of these behaviors. More specifically, the authors investigate the mediating role of collaboration, a key component of teamwork, in the counterproductive behaviors–team performance relationships.

Using a multisource approach and a team-level design, data were gathered from 101 work teams (381 members and 101 immediate supervisors). The study was conducted within a Canadian public safety organization.

Results show that the four dimensions of counterproductive behaviors are negatively related to team performance. Moreover, results indicate that each of these relationships is completely mediated by a decrease of collaboration among members. Taken together, the results of this study show that the presence of counterproductive behaviors within teams constitutes a collective phenomenon which affects not only team members, but also the functioning and effectiveness of the team as a whole.

This study differs from previous studies mainly by adopting a multidimensional conception of counterproductive behaviors and focusing on consequences of these behaviors on the team as a system. In practical terms, the results suggest that the presence of counterproductive behaviors may require team-level interventions (e.g. team building) in addition to individual interventions with individuals involved.

This study aims to examine the role of team coaching in regard to team innovation by considering motivational and behavioral intervening mechanisms.

Based on a multisource approach, data was gathered from 97 work teams (341 members and 97 immediate supervisors) in a public safety organization.

Results of structural equation modeling analyses indicate that the relationship between team coaching and team innovation is mediated by team goal commitment and support for innovation. Specifically, team coaching has a direct effect on support for innovation and an indirect effect on this behavioral team process through team goal commitment. In turn, support for innovation may improve the implementation of successful team innovation.

In a global competitive context, innovation represents a key leverage to generate a competitive advantage. Team leaders who engage in coaching behaviors toward their subordinates are likely to foster innovation within their work team. Thus, organizations may benefit by designing and implementing interventions aimed at developing team leaders’ coaching skills and encouraging them to consider coaching as a core managerial responsibility.

On the whole, this study highlights the role of team coaching as a key leverage to stimulate successful innovation in work teams and the motivational and behavioral mechanisms that intervene in this relationship.

The aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of the relationships between perceived organizational support (POS) and the dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e. affective, normative and continuance commitment), and to test the moderating effect of locus of control and work autonomy.

This study, based on a cross‐sectional research design, was conducted in an organizational setting. The sample includes 249 prison employees. The data were collected through questionnaires.

The results show that POS is positively and significantly correlated with affective and normative commitment. In addition, the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses support the moderating effect of locus of control and work autonomy with regard to the relationship between POS and affective commitment.

This study highlights the importance of providing support to employees in order to foster their affective and normative commitment to the organization. Moreover, the results provide evidence in favour of managerial interventions aimed at enhancing perceived control and, consequently, minimizing the negative effects of a lack of organizational support on employees' affective commitment.

In addition to taking into account three dimensions of organizational commitment, this study underlines personality and job design factors that can modulate the relationship between POS and organizational commitment.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

An ability to innovate holds the key to sustained growth for many companies. And in a rapidly-evolving business world characterized by ever more intense global competition, its importance becomes even greater. Innovation is a demanding process and obviously requires talent. Effective teamwork is a vital part of the equation too. Indeed, it can be reasonably argued that adopting a team-oriented focus offers the most ideal means of generating and bringing creative suggestions to fruition. Furthermore, the innovation bug can certainly be infectious. When one team makes a crucial breakthrough, others in the organization want to follow suit and emulate the success. But such competition is healthy and can subsequently make the entire firm better positioned to tackle future challenges.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the effect of psychosocial safety climate (PSC – a climate for psychological health) on managerial quality and the mediating processes explaining that association. It is posited that the alignment between what is said (espoused PSC) and what is done (enacted PSC via managerial quality) is important for successful organizational interventions. Managers’ own psychosocial work factors act as resources to facilitate the enactment of managerial quality.

Two waves of survey were administered over a three-month period (n at Time 1=144, n at Time 2=166, overall n=115) in a study of four organizations involved in implementing the Quebec Healthy Enterprise Standard (QHES). A cross-lagged panel analysis was used to determine the temporal direction of the PSC–managerial quality relationship. A longitudinal mediation model of PSC as a determinant of managerial quality was tested using job demands, job control, social support and quality of relationships with subordinates as mediators.

The cross-lagged panel analysis showed that PSC is temporally prior to managerial quality in that the relationship between PSC at T1 and managerial quality at T2 was stronger than the relationship between managerial quality at T1 and PSC at T2. A two-wave mediation analysis showed that PSC was positively associated with managerial quality, and that job control partially mediated this relationship. Contrary to expectations, managers’ workload, their social support and the quality of their relationships with subordinates did not mediate the PSC–managerial quality relationship.

Despite the small sample size and short timeframe of this study, it contributes to knowledge on the resources facilitating managerial quality, which is important for employees’ psychological health. Little is known regarding the mediating processes that explain how managers’ own context and psychosocial work factors affect their management practices during organizational health interventions.

From a practical view point, this study contributes to the literature showing that managers need to be supported during the implementation of health interventions, and need the leeway to pursue the organization’s prevention objectives.

Whereas previous studies have focused on describing the impact of leadership behaviors on employee health outcomes, the study offers insights into the resources that help managers translate PSC into action in the implementation of a national standard, the QHES.

This study seeks to show that children are not passive consumers, rather that they have a reflexive attitude towards their eating practice and the ability to override food‐use rules invented by the manufacturers.

Drawing on an ethnographic survey conducted among families with children aged from six to 12, the paper will seek to show, from the child's point of view, why fun products, which at first sight are so beguiling, are not in fact much fun when used. From the observations made of the children's eating practices with regard to specific fun foods, and from interviews with the children on these, it emerges that these foods give the child little scope for deciding how to eat them.

Over the years, there has appeared on the market a range of fun food products for which clear instructions are given on how children should eat and play with them. Despite copy, produced with the young consumer in mind, and carefully defined product affordance, consumer practice is far removed from what the product designers expect. For children, however, deviating from prescribed use and re‐appropriating products with their own “art of doing” or food‐use techniques are key elements of their eating practice.

Most of the studies on that topic are centred on fun food manufacturers and industry. The most original aspect of this study is to focus on the children's representations, discourses and practices. Thus it provides a new aspect on fun food consumption.