The Impact of the Fit between Leader Tolerance and Team Reflexivity on the Innovation Performance of R&D Teams

Zhang Chao, Luo Jinlian, Wang Xianglu, Zhong Jing

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 46, Issue 09, pp. 106 - 120 (2024)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20231228.301

Summary

The increasingly fierce competition in R&D has made it more necessary and common for R&D teams to have leader tolerance and team reflexivity. Based on the social information processing theory and from the perspective of mistake management, this paper divides “tolerance-reflexivity” matching into four configurations: “high-high” “high-low” “low-high”, and “low-low”, and explores the impact and mechanism of leader tolerance and team reflexivity on the innovation performance of R&D teams. It uses polynomial regression and response surface analysis and hierarchical regression analysis to test the data from 182 valid team questionnaires. The results show that: First, among the four “tolerance-reflexivity” configurations, the teams in the “high-high” configuration have a better learning effect from mistakes; the higher the consistency between leader tolerance and team reflexivity, the better the team learns from its mistakes. Second, team learning from mistakes plays a mediating role in the relationship between “tolerance-reflexivity” matching and team innovation performance. Third, task complexity moderates the relationship between “tolerance-reflexivity” matching and team learning from mistakes, and high task complexity reinforces the positive effect of “tolerance-reflexivity” matching on team learning from mistakes.

Keywords

leader tolerance; team reflexivity; team learning from mistakes; team innovation performance; task complexity