Effects of Teamwork Climate on Cooperation in Crossfunctional Temporary Multi-Organization Workgroups

Abstract

In this study, the formative roles of common goals, equal status, integrative interactions, and authority support as the optimal factors for engendering individuals’ cooperation with their proximal crossfunctional project workgroups are examined. The four factors are properties of the workgroup environment and each have been highlighted as being important in previous conceptual and critical success factors (CSFs) studies of project effectiveness. However, until now, there has been no systematic empirical test of the interactive effects of all four factors in a construction temporary multiorganization (TMO) workgroup setting. The four factors are conceptualized in this study as the reflective dimensions of a superordinate multidimensional latent construct, teamwork climate. An integrative test was undertaken of the construct validity of this multidimensional construct, its substantive utility relative to its dimensions, and of specific hypotheses connecting the multidimensional construct and its dimensions to individual’s in-role, extrarole, compliance, and deference behavior; the test was performed using two cross-cultural samples of built environment professional managers (U.K.,