Nothing endures but change : how and when regulatory focus convergence influences team performance

Abstract

Despite growing research on team regulatory focus, there remains a limited understanding of regulatory focus convergence among team members. As organizations increasingly rely on teams for complex tasks in dynamic environments, it is crucial to identify the factors that drive the convergence of team members’ motivations, and the mechanisms and conditions through which this convergence influences team performance. Drawing on the multilevel theory of emergence, I propose that individual voice, relational energy, and team resources facilitate regulatory focus convergence within teams. By integrating this theory with regulatory focus theory, I hypothesize that convergence in promotion focus enhances the team’s promotion focus level, thereby increasing exploratory behaviors and improving performance. In contrast, convergence in prevention focus decreases the team’s prevention focus level, which boosts exploitative behaviors and team performance. Moreover, convergence in ambidextrous focus reduces the team’s overall level of ambidextrous focus, which in turn enhances ambidextrous behaviors and team performance. I further extend the sequential mediation model by incorporating event system theory, which characterizes event strength via novelty, criticality, and disruption. I accordingly develop a context-sensitive model that illustrates how team regulatory focus convergence influences team performance through the level of converged regulatory focus and team behaviors under conditions of high versus low event strength. To test this model, I conducted three studies: an agent-based modeling study, a longitudinal study among employees, and a longitudinal study among students. The implications of the regulatory focus convergence model for both theoretical and practical applications were discussed.