Team work engagement: A model of emergence

This study presents a model for the emergence of team work engagement, proposing team inputs, outputs, and mediators as predictors of team work engagement and highlights their recursive influences over time.

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2014), 87, 414–436
© 2014 The British PsychologicalSociety
www.wileyonlinelibrary.com
Team work engagement: A model of emergence
Patrıcia L. Costa1*, Ana M. Passos1 and Arnold B. Bakker2
1ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
2Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Research has shown that work engagement,both at the individualand team levels,is
relevant to understand employee performance and well-being. Nonetheless, there is no
theoretical model that explains the development of work engagement in teams that takes
into consideration what is already known about team dynamics and processes. This study
addresses this gap in the literature, presenting a model for the emergence of team work
engagement. The model proposes team inputs, outputs, and mediators as predictors of
team work engagementand highlightstheir recursive influencesover time.This
conceptualwork providesa startingpoint for furtherresearch on team work
engagement, allowing for distinguishing individual and team constructs.
Practitioner points
The degree of energy and enthusiasm of teams depends on the way they interact.
The affective and motivationaldynamics ofteams have consequences for their performance and
well-being.
The emergence of team work engagement is better understood within the literature of teamwork
The last decade has established work engagement as an important construct for both
employee performance and well-being (Halbesleben, 2010). Engaged employees display
positive attitude towards work and high energy levels,which leads them to actively
intervene in their work environment.They tend to show high levels ofself-efficacy
(Bakker, 2009) and organizational commitment (Demerouti, Bakker, De Jonge, Janssen, &
Schaufeli, 2001). In addition, engaged workers are inclined to work extra hours (Schaufe
Taris, & Van Rhenen, 2008) and help their colleagues if needed (Halbesleben & Wheeler,
2008); they also manage to stay healthy in stressful environments (Demerouti, Bakker,
Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001).
Parallel to the studies on work engagement at the individual level, some researchers
have also started to explore the construct at the team level(Bakker,van Emmerik,&
Euwema, 2006; Salanova, Llorens, Cifre, Martinez, & Schaufeli, 2003; Torrente, Salanova
Llorens,& Schaufeli,2012a,b).These studies suggestthat,at the team level,work
engagementhas positive relationshipswith task and team performance,collective
positive affect, and efficacy beliefs. Team work engagement is also positively related to
individual work engagement.
Despite the acknowledgement of its relevance in the context of work teams, the vast
majority of studies have not presented a theoreticalmodelframing the construct and
*Correspondence should be addressed to Patrıcia L.Costa,Av.Das Forcßas Armadas,Edifıcio ISCTE,Room 2w8,1649-026
Lisbon, Portugal (email: [e-mail]).
DOI:10.1111/joop.12057
414

explicating the mechanisms responsible for its existence.This is one major gap in the
work engagement literature. The one commendable exception is the work by Torre
et al. (2012b)that proposes team socialresources (supportive team climate,team
work and coordination) as possible antecedents of team work engagement. The lat
idea is tightly linked to the literature on individual work engagement and rooted in
job demands–resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), the conceptual model f
individual work engagement. To our knowledge, there have been no scholars reflec
on whetherand how team work engagementcan be equated within the specific
literature on groups and teams,1 teamwork, and team effectiveness, which would allow
for a betterunderstanding ofteamwork,and create the theoreticalrationale for
studying team work engagement.The goalof this study is to present a modelfor the
emergence of team work engagement, embedded in the literature on teams. It pro
a theoreticalmodelfor the emergence ofthe collective constructthataccounts for
both team inputs and outputsand for team processes,highlighting theirdynamic
interplay overtime.
The dialogue between the two domains of individualwork engagement and team
effectiveness contributes to severalpositive outcomes.First, it will strengthen the
theoretical conceptualization of work engagement at the team level, accounting for
is already known in terms of team functioning and enriching its nomological networ
Second,it will address legitimate concerns related to eventualconstruct proliferation
(Cole, Walter, Bedeian,& O’Boyle, 2012), distinguishing team work engagement from
otherteam-levelconstructs and from individualwork engagement,by presenting a
specific team-level model of engagement. Third, this article will set the stage for fu
research on work engagement in teams, providing a model that may be tested emp
Finally, it will allow for importing the knowledge acquired by team scholars in desig
interventions to foster collective engagement.
Work engagement
Work engagementis a positive,fulfilling state ofwork-related well-being.Following
Shaufeli and Bakker (2010), we define work engagement as an affective–cognitive
characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption. Engaged employees are energ
and enthusiastic about their work, which leads them to perform better than non-en
employees, and to invest more effort in work than is formally expected (Halbeslebe
Wheeler,2008).The most often used framework for studying engagement is the job
demands–resources model (Bakker, 2011; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Studies usin
model have shown that job demands and resources trigger two different psycholog
processes that are the roots of work engagement and burnout:an energy impairment
process caused by excessive job demands and a positive motivationalprocess that is
triggered by job resources.Job resources such as performance feedback,job control/
autonomy, and supervisory support are then conceptualized as the major antecede
work engagement (Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2006; Richardsen, Burke, & Mart
sen, 2006; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004), and they appear to enhance engagement esp
when job demands are high (Bakker, Hakanen, Demerouti, & Xanthopoulou, 2007).
addition to job resources,personalresources have also been found to predictwork
engagement (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007). Examples of th
1Following the work by Guzzo and Dickson (1996), we use the terms groups and teams interchangeably
Team work engagement415

personal resources are personality traits, such as high extraversion and low neuroticism
(Langelaan,Bakker,Schaufeli,& Van Doornen,2006),and lower-orderpersonality
characteristicsincluding self-efficacy,optimism,hope, and resilience (Sweetman &
Luthans, 2010; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007).
Thus, work engagementis particularlyinfluenced byresourcesin the work
environmentand in the person. These resourceshave the strongestimpact on
engagement when job demands are high.Work engagement,in turn,is an important
predictor of positive attitudes towards the organization and job performance. In other
words, engagement mediates the impact of job and personal resources on organizationa
outcomes (Shaufeli& Bakker,2010),such as organizationalcommitment,personal
initiative, and extra-role behaviour (Bakker, Demerouti, & Verbeke, 2004).
Team work engagement
Teams are ‘a distinguishable setof two or more people who interact,dynamically,
interdependently, and adaptively towards a common and valued goal/objective/mission,
who have been assigned specific roles or functions to perform, and who have a limited
lifespan ofmembership’(Salas,Dickinson,Converse,& Tannenbaum,1992,p. 4).
Working in a team hasspecificitiesthat distinguish itfrom working alone.Team
members need to coordinate and synchronize their actions,and every member has a
critical role for their collective action. Consequently, the success of teams is dependent
on the way team members interact with each other to accomplish the work (Marks,
Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001).
These majordifferences between working alone and working in a team should
account for conceptualizing work engagement and team work engagement differently.
Whereas individualwork engagementis essentially dependenton job resources and
demands,team work engagement,as a collective construct,is dependenton the
individual actions and cycles of interaction responsible for creating a shared pattern of
behaviour (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). Therefore, with the same resources and in an
equally challenging environment, some teams might develop a higher level of engageme
than others,because the affective,cognitive,and motivationaloutcomes ofdifferent
patterns of interaction are likely to be different.Commenting enthusiastically on new
equipment or energetically inciting team members to suggest new marketing strategies
after the entrance ofa new competitor in the marketis significantly differentfrom
neutrally informing team members ofthat same equipmentacquisition and angrily
referring to that new competitor.
Despite these variances, the existing research on team work engagement has failed
to incorporate these team phenomena and processes. Studies either do not account for
the differences between individual and team work engagement, or do not put forward
specific team-level models of engagement. For example, Tyler and Blader (2003) depart
from the engagement definition developed by Kahn (1990) – engaged employees bring
their fullaffective,physical,and cognitive self to the workplace – and propose that a
strong identification with the group will lead members to invest personal energy to aid
group success.This identification,in turn, depends on the respectand pride team
members have for their team.Tyler and Blader’s proposalon group engagementis
heavily based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and does not present any
distinctive features of team work engagement that represent specific team dynamics.
Early studies such as the one by Salanova et al.(2003) and the one by Bakker et al.
416 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

(2006) lack a clear definition of the team-level construct. The first one frames team
engagement as a ‘positive aspect of collective well-being in work groups’(p. 48) and
analyses the results considering the three dimensions of individualwork engagement:
vigour,dedication,and absorption.The second one measures collective engagement
with the individual-levelscale (Schaufeli& Bakker, 2003),and the percentage of
engaged employees per team is used as a representation of collective engagement
absence of a team-specific definition,framed by the knowledge from the literature on
teams, may lead researchers to question whether team work engagement does exi
distinct construct from work engagement.
Nonetheless, work engagement is likely to be relevant at the team level, as a mo
motivational construct that comprises affective and cognitive components. Accoun
for individualtraitdifferences,work events and the work environmentare likely to
influence team members in a similar way, not only in terms of the affective experie
but also in what motivation is concerned.Team membersusually share the same
resources,the same team leader,the same customers,the same events,the same
co-workers, and even the same workspace. According to affective events theory (W
Cropanzano,1996),it is likely that people experiencing the same events have similar
affective experiences. Some evidence has been reported on mood convergence be
people who work together: group affective tone (George, 1996), mood linkage (Trot
Kellett, & Briner, 1998), or emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 199
Norms of emotional expression (Sutton, 1991), that are conveyed to everyone in th
team, may also be considered relevant for the emergence of a common affective st
facilitating (‘everyone should be cheerful and energetic’) or inhibiting (‘we do not ta
aboutour feelings,good or bad’) its development.Finally,severaltheories ofwork
motivation highlight the interaction of person and situation,arguing that some work
characteristics might foster motivation (Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Lawler, 1994). W
sharing working characteristics,it is likely,then,that the levelof motivation of team
members will converge.
Considering these ideas, it is not unlikely that team members develop similar aff
cognitive,and motivationalstates.However,should researchers consider thatwork
engagementat the team levelis qualitatively differentthan the weighted mean of
individual work engagement?
Some authors have already started to consider certain dynamics and variables t
characterize engagement at the team level. Bakker, Albrecht, and Leiter (2011) pro
that collective engagement refers to the engagement of the team/group (team vigo
team dedication, and team absorption), as perceived by individual employees and
might exist due to emotional contagion (Hatfield et al., 1994) among team membe
perspective on team work engagement highlights essentially an affective dimensio
the collective construct, and not so much a cognitive or motivational one. Torrente
(2012a) also state that emotionalcontagion could be the mechanism underlying team
work engagement. They further propose a specific definition of team work engagem
as a positive, fulfilling, work-related, and shared psychological state characterized b
vigour, dedication, and absorption. Through structural equation modelling, and usin
teams from 13 organizations, they reported evidence for a mediation role of team w
engagement between social resources (supportive team climate, coordination, and
work) and team performance, as assessed by the supervisor. This model is the first
accounts for team-level variables in explaining the existence of team work engagem
and for its relationship with team performance. Even so, previous research had alre
linked some social resources with individual work engagement. For example, Hakan
Team work engagement417

et al. (2006) report higher levels of work engagement in Finnish teachers with high level
of social resources, such as supportive social climate. Schaufeli, Bakker, and Van Rhenen
(2009) replicated this finding among managers from a Dutch telecom company in a
longitudinalstudy.These findings suggest thatsocialresources are notan exclusive
antecedentof team work engagement.Also,Torrente et al.’s (2012b) modelfails to
integrate whatwe already know aboutteam processes and team effectiveness,and
essentially represents a homologous (Kozlowski& Klein, 2000) transposition ofthe
individual-level model of engagement, therefore overlooking possible important differ-
ences between levels.
Overall, previous research on work engagement in teams has some limitations. Most
studies do not present a clear definition of the construct or a theoretical model for team
work engagement that accounts for variables exclusively relevant in the context of team
Even when considering team-relevant variables and team members’ interaction, researc
on team work engagement has not yet been integrated within the specific literature on
teams. In the next section, we attempt to overcome these limitations, by presenting a
model for team work engagement emergence based on the existing team effectiveness
literature.
Defining team work engagement
Team work engagement is as a shared,positive and fulfilling,motivationalemergent
state of work-related well-being. Just like individual-level work engagement (Schaufeli &
Bakker,2004;Shaufeli& Bakker,2010),team work engagementis proposed as a
multidimensionalconstruct characterized by affective and cognitive dimensions:team
vigour,team dedication,and team absorption.Team vigour stands for high levels of
energy and for an expression of willingness to invest effort in work and persistence in
the face ofdifficulties (e.g.,conflict,bad performance feedback);for example,team
members enthusiastically encourage demoralized colleagues and explicitly express their
desire to continue working.Team dedication is a shared strong involvement in work
and an expression ofa sense of significance,enthusiasm,inspiration,pride, and
challenge while doing so; for example, team members talk to each other and to others
(external to the team) about the importance of their work and about the thrill they feel
concerning theirwork. Team absorption represents a shared focused attention on
work, whereby team members experience and express difficulties detaching them-
selvesfrom work, such as team memberstalk about their work during breaks,
commenting on time passing quickly, and not engaging in non-work-related interactions
when working.
Keeping functional equivalence with the work engagement definition proposed by
Schaufeli and Bakker (2003), this emergent state will lead to team effectiveness. Howev
this definition allows for the conceptualization of a different construct’s structure, based
on the interaction patterns among the team members and reflects two essential constru
rooted in the literature on teams and teamwork: emergent states and shared constructs
Emergent states
Whereas Torrente et al. (2012b) define team work engagement as a shared psychologica
state, we propose that team work engagement is an emergent state, something that is
exclusive to teams and cannot be found in individuals. The idea of an emergent state ha
been explored in theories of chaos,self-organization,and complexity as important to
418 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

understand how individuals contribute to organizational effectiveness (Kozlowski, C
Grand, Braun, & Kuljanin, 2013; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Marks et al. (2001) distin
between team processes and team emergent states, discriminating two different a
of the life of work teams fundamentalfor their understanding.Team processes are
‘member’s interdependentacts thatconvertinputs to outcomes through cognitive,
verbal,and behaviouralactivitiesdirected towardsorganizing taskwork to achieve
collective goals’ (p. 357). Team processes involve the interaction of team members
each other and with their task environment and are used to direct, align, and monit
membersare doing.For example,strategy formulation,coordination,and tracking
resources are team processes. On the other hand, emergent states are properties o
team that are dynamic in nature and that vary as a function of:team context,inputs,
processes, and outcomes. Emergent states describe cognitive, motivational, and aff
states of teams.Constructs such as collective efficacy,cohesion,or team potency are
emergent states (Kozlowski& Chao,2012) because they refer to team qualities that
represent members’attitudes,values,cognitions,and motivations and not interaction
processes.
Team work engagementis considered an emergentstate that‘originates in the
cognition, affect, behaviours, or other characteristics of individuals, is amplified by
interactions, and manifests at a higher level’ (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, p. 55). Its st
depends on team experiences,namely on their members’interactions during team
processes.For example,a certain sales team may have a low levelof team work
engagement (e.g., low motivation to work, low levels of persistence, and low pride
work) in a context of a diminished amount of sales,constant conflicts between team
members, a lack of feedback and orientation, and aggressive and depreciative com
from the leader. The same team’s level of engagement may start to increase when
those elements change: a new leader who is capable of clear goal setting and who
display an energetic mood,a boost of the sales, a better management of the conflicts,
among others. These changes in team work engagement are not directly dependen
objective events, but rather on the changes those events bring to the interaction b
team members.
It is the fact ofbeing an emergent state that departs the construct ofteam work
engagement from individual-level work engagement – it does not depend on job re
but essentially on the complex interplay of team’s inputs, processes, and outputs, a
team members’ interactions. This conceptualization of team work engagement is m
complex than the onespreviously presented in the literature.Yet, it reflectsthe
complexityinherentto human systemsand is embedded in actualmodelsfor
conceptualizing teamwork.
Shared
The second main difference between team and individualwork engagementis the
assumption ofsharedness,already presentin previous definitionsof team work
engagement. The implication of being a shared state is that team members must h
similar perceptions about their collective degree ofwork engagement.According to
Kozlowski and Klein (2000), emergentconstructsmay be the result either of
composition (followingadditiveor averagingcombination rules)or compilation
(following nonlinearcombination rules such asproportion orindices of variance)
processes.The combination rules ofthe lower-levelunits to form the higher-level
emergent state should be consistent with the previous theoretical conceptualizatio
Team work engagement419

emergence.In the case of team work engagement,its conceptualization reflects a
composition process,because it is assumed that every team member is influenced by
what is happening to and within the team in a similar way.
When assessing theircollective energy and involvement,team membersmust
consider the behaviour ofall team members and how they allinteractduring team
processes. Therefore, every member is assessing a common observable experience and
not how they, individually, feel. Team members all base their judgement on the same cu
and,thus,are likely to display a common understanding ofwhat they perceive.For
example,if they attend a meeting where one team member is highly exited when
describing a new product,while many others are absently looking at their phones or
tablets, all are able to perceive that, collectively, their energy and dedication is not very
high. This is what Kozlowskiand Klein (2000)define as ‘convergentemergence’:
Contextualfactors and interaction processes constrain emergence in such a way that
individuals contribute the same type and amount of elemental content (the perception o
their team’s level of engagement). It follows logically that the conceptualization propose
in this study is not an isomorphic transposition of individual work engagement levels to
the team level, but rather from the perceptions of team work engagement from the lowe
units (individuals) to the higher unit (the team).
Using individuallevels of engagement to compute team work engagement (either
through composition or compilation) would be misleading. It would not to represent a
team property and researchers cannot assume its sharedness, because each member co
make a differentcontribution to the collectiveengagementlevel. Instead,the
referent-shift composition model (Chan, 1998) is consistent with the proposed rationale.
This is a composition model that uses within group consensus (the agreement of team
members’ on their team’s level of work engagement) to compose the collective construc
by asking individuals collectively formulated items (e.g., ‘we’).
Proposition1: Team work engagementis a shared motivationalemergentstate
characterized by team vigour, team dedication, and team absorption.
A model for the emergence of team work engagement
Considering team work engagement as a shared emergent state not overlapping with
work engagementallows for proposing a modelof emergence thatconsiders other
variables,differentfrom the job demands–resources model,as its antecedents and
correlates.Our model(cf. Figure 1)is based on the input–mediator–output–input
framework orIMOI (Ilgen, Hollenbeck,Johnson,& Jundt, 2005).This framework
considers team processes and emergent states as mediating mechanisms between team
inputs and team outputs. We depart from the assumption that teams go through a series
IMOI iterative episodes over time where the outputs of one episode may become inputs o
subsequent ones. For example, a decrease in the amount of sales at the end of 1 month,
outcome, may be important input information for planning the next month’s commercial
action.
We do not overlook the fact that individual and contextual variables may influence the
way team members interact and, consequently, team processes. Nonetheless, we argue
that the emergence of team work engagement is essentially linked to team interpersona
processes and less related to individual and contextual variables. In similar environment
with similar tasks and organizational structure, the emergence of team work engagemen
420 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

will rely heavily on team interpersonal processes. In the next section, we develop th
ideas in depth.
Inputs
Since Gladstein’s (1984) inputs–processes–outputs model of team effectiveness, th
30 years of research have provided scholars and practitioners with a multiplicity of
models to understand teams and teamwork.However,‘while there exists a general
consensus aboutthe nature ofthe broad categories ofinput variables,the specific
constructs proposed to be encapsulated within these categories varies’(Salas,Stagl,
Burke, & Goodwin, 2007). When integrating the different proposals, four major umb
variables are most commonly put forward: individual characteristics, team characte
task characteristics, and work structure (cf. Figure 1). All of these input variables ca
considered for the emergence of team work engagement,either having a more direct
influence or an indirect one, by their effect on the way team members interact.
According to Salas et al.(2007), individual characteristics include variables such as
team orientation and personality.Team orientation is the propensity to consider the
other’s behaviour when interacting and also the belief in the importance of commo
(team) goals over individual members’ ones (Salas, Sims, & Burke, 2005). Therefore
more team members are high in team orientation, the more likely they are to inves
in their work,and to avoid conflictualinteractions.In what personality is concerned,
extraversion (Costa & McCrae, 1985; Eysenck, 1998) is considered an important pre
of positive feelings (Watson & Clark, 1997). For example, Emmons and Diener (198
found that extraversion significantly correlates with positive affect but not with neg
affect. Additionally, positive affective states and a high activation are positive corre
extraverts (Kuppens,2008).Finally,the individuals’levelof work engagement might
work as an input variable for team work engagement, because individuals will alrea
more predisposed to feel and display vigour, dedication, and absorption towards wo
Team characteristics include team’s culture and climate and the power structure
team. Bakker et al. (2011) proposed that teams with a climate for engagement will
collective engagement.Climate for engagementinvolves the shared perception ofa
Motivational
processes
Affective
processes
TWE
Other emergent states:
collective efficacy, cohesion,
group affect, etc.
Individual
characteristics
Team characteristics
Task characteristics
Work structure
Team effectiveness
Conflict
management
Figure 1. Modelfor the emergence ofteam work engagement.Solid arrows signaldirect effects.
Dotted arrows signal feedback loops. Dashed arrow signals a correlational relationship.
Team work engagement421

challenging, resourceful, and supportive environment and encompasses the six areas of
worklife proposed by Maslach and Leiter (2008):realistic and challenging workload,
control, reward, community and collaboration, fairness, and values.
In what task characteristics are concerned,differenttasks may require different
degreesof interdependencebetween team members,which is consideredthe
touchstone of emergent states.Being involved in team processes requires interaction,
and the more team members interact,the more likely they are to develop shared
cognitive, affective, and motivational states, such as team work engagement. The degre
of interaction between team members has been related to the affective responses of
team members. For example,Van der Vegt,Emans,and van der Vliert (2001) showed
that individual-level task interdependency and job complexity were related to individual
job satisfaction and team satisfaction, and to job and team commitment in a sample of
technicalconsultants.These relationships were moderated by the degree of outcome
interdependence ofthe work group, with high outcome interdependentgroups
showing a higher positive relationship between the variables. Also, Anderson, Keltner,
and John (2003) studied emotionalconvergence in couplesand roommatesand
concluded that their responses on emotional content scales became more similar within
a year, reflecting a longer interaction period.
Finally,the work structure is also considered importantinput.Work structure is
related to work assignment,the formaland informalnorms ofteams,and to their
communication structure. Work structure defines who has access to what information
and when,as wellas the behaviours that are considerate appropriate,and these two
aspects will shape the nature of team members’ interaction.
Proposition 2:Team work engagementwill be a function ofthe followingteam
inputs:individualcharacteristics,team characteristics,task characteris-
tics, and work structure.
Team processes
More than one proposal on what processes are fundamental for team effectiveness can b
found in the literature. For example, Zaccaro, Rittman, and Marks (2001) distinguish four
major groups of processes: cognitive (e.g., shared mental models, Cannon-Bowers, Salas
& Converse, 1990), motivational(e.g.,group cohesion,performance norms),affective
(e.g., affectiveclimate),and coordination (e.g.,orientation,systemsmonitoring)
processes.Marks et al.(2001) divide team processes in three categories,illustrating
different performance phases of teams: transition phase processes (e.g., mission analysi
goal specification), action phase processes (e.g., monitoring progress, systems monitor-
ing),and interpersonalprocesses (motivation and confidence building,affect manage-
ment, and conflict management), that occur throughout the action and transition phases
For the emergence of team work engagement, interpersonal processes, focused on
motivating, affect management, and conflict management, might be pivotal (cf. Figure 1
These processes not only denote interaction but are relatively independent from specific
tasks or performance phases.
Motivationalprocesses
At the individual level, the relevance of some motivational constructs for work engageme
has been established – directly or indirectly – over the years.For example,the work of
422 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

Bandura(1997)highlightsthe importance ofboth self and collective efficacyfor
performance: believing in one’s capacity for the successfulaccomplishment of a certain
task leads to increased effort and persistence, both characteristics of engagement.
proposes that two of the ways by which efficacy is developed are experiencing succ
and/or receiving positive feedback.These ideas are in line with Amabile and Kramer’s
(2011) proposal of the progress principle. Accordingly, experiencing progress is the
important booster ofmotivation and creativity.Therefore,smalldaily ‘wins’should be
promoted among employees to facilitate engagementand positive emotions atwork.
Luthans,Avolio,Avey,and Norman (2007) discuss psychologicalcapital,an individual
motivationalpropensity thataccruesfrom efficacy,hope, optimism,and resilience.
Psychological capital has also been proposed as a predictor of individual work enga
(Sweetman & Luthans,2010),either directly or through positive emotions.Finally,the
existence of specific, challenging and attainable goals has a motivational effect on
resulting in better performance, a consequence of an increase in efficacy beliefs (Lo
Latham, 1984, 2002). The work of Wegge and Haslam (2004) and Wegge, Schmidt,
(2009) supports the adequacy of goal-setting theory in a group context.These authors’
empirical research supports the argument that specific and difficult group goals lea
group performance because such group goals encourage communication during gr
processes,foster intrinsic motivation,and prevent the use of inefficient task strategies.
Group goals also facilitate the emergence of positive states such as collective effica
cohesion. Therefore, it is likely that team motivational processes, focused on gener
preserving collective confidence, motivation, and task-based cohesion (Marks et al
are represented by interactions promoting those motivational responses.
Different types of interactions are accounted for under the designation of ‘motiv
processes’.A sense of collective efficacy can be facilitated by referring to what team
members have accomplished so far (‘We have already done x and y, well done! No
move on to the next phase!’), or by validating members’ competences (‘We have P
who is a great programmer and Christine who is the best graphic designer, we will
this a greatwebsite!’).The kind of interactionscan also resultin shared positive
attributions aboutthe future and in perseverance and therefore in increased shared
energy and involvementwith work.Positive feedback (e.g.,‘Great job,we made an
outstanding proposal!’) and constructive criticism are also examples ofmotivational
interactions that may increase the salience of meaningful small progress made by t
Team members may stress the advantages of goal achievement (‘Just some extra e
then we will gain this customer’s loyalty over our competitors!’), as well as stress t
attainability of their goals, despite its degree of challenge (‘We don’t have much tim
this project, but if we follow our initial plan we will be able to deliver it by Monday !’
Finally,exhorting members to work hard,either informally (‘Come on,today we will
finish this project!’) or formally, by the existence of performance norms and conseq
mutual monitoring may also account as a motivational interaction aimed at increas
teams’ energy and involvement.
Affective processes
Affective processes include regulating members’ emotions (Marks et al.,2001).Affect
regulation is‘the processof initiating,maintaining,modulating,or changing the
occurrence, intensity, or duration of internal feeling states’ (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guth
& Reiser, 2000, p. 137). Team work engagement is a shared positive emergent stat
work-related well-being and, thus, implies the existence of a positive affective tone
Team work engagement423

the team.Managing affect and promoting a positive affective tone may occur through
three (not mutually exclusive) processes.
First, team members might use controlled interpersonal affect regulation strategies of
affect improving (Niven, Totterdell, & Holman, 2009) such as positive engagement and
acceptance. Positive engagement is related to involving the other with his or hers situati
or affect in order to improve his or hers affect. When presented with a difficult task, team
members may try to change the way others think about that situation, suggesting that t
will be able to succeed and giving advice on possible courses of action; they may point o
the positive characteristics ofthe team orof specific members,following negative
feedback; faced with irritated co-workers, team members can make themselves availabl
to listen to what is bothering him or her, allowing him or her to vent his or her emotions.
Acceptance is a relationship-oriented strategy that implies communicating validation to
the other person. Team members express their caring for the team and its members and
try to make them feel special (e.g., by celebrating individual and team accomplishments
spending their off-work time doing activities with the other team members).Within
acceptance strategies, using humour and jokes may also foster an improvement in the
team members’ affect.
Affectregulation within teams can also representa controlled attemptto exert
interpersonalinfluence over attitudes and behaviours of team members,and not over
their affective experience per se.For example,teams develop a set of implicit and/or
explicit norms about which emotions should be displayed in the context of work and
abouthow those norms should be displayed (Rafaeli& Sutton,1987).For example,
Sutton (1991) found thatbill collectors were selected,socialized,and rewarded for
following the norm ofconveying high arousaland slightirritation to customers (a
sense of urgency).Focusing on the construct of team work engagement, display rules
will impact its emergence in two ways.When team members express their emotions
in a very explicit way,it will facilitate an accurate evaluation oftheir affective state
by others.Consequently,it will more likely result in a shared perception,because it
will be less contaminated by personalinterpretations,because itwill be based on
explicitinformation.At the same time,if display rules focus on the expression of
positive emotions,the emergence ofteam work engagementmay be facilitated –
more team memberswill expresspositiveaffect and act congruentlywith the
definition of team work engagement,displaying enthusiasm and energy.This display
will, in turn, reinforceteam members’perception of the teams’high level of
engagement.
Finally, the affective climate of the group may be due to emotional contagion (Bakker
et al., 2006; Torrente et al., 2012b). This is based on the transmission of non-verbal sign
of emotion (tone ofvoice,facialexpressiveness,and tempo ofdiscourse)that are
automatically and subconsciously reproduced by the other, which ends by experiencing
similar emotionalstates (Hatfield et al.,1994).Expressing emotions using non-verbal
information leads team members to become more similar in terms of affect (Barsade,
2002). When that expression is focused on positive emotions, it will enhance the teams’
level of team work engagement.
Conflict management is related to the handling of conflict situations either before or
after they have arisen (Marks et al., 2001).Interpersonalconflict may directly worsen
team members’affect,because individuals are rude to each other,accuse others of
inappropriate behaviour,or reject each other’sfeelings,and motivation,because
individuals are unable to give constructive criticism and become more self-centred and
less concerned with the teams’ collective goal accomplishment (DeWit, Greer, & Jehn,
424 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

2012) and therefore, undermine the emergence of team work engagement. Preven
reducing interpersonal conflict may facilitate the emergence of team work engagem
For example,teams can develop norms for cooperation,promote proceduraljustice
(Naumann & Bennett, 2000), or a priori establish the rules about how to handle con
When it is not possible to prevent relational conflict, teams who are able to compro
accept different opinions, and try new solutions will be in a better position to develo
team work engagement.
According to Marks et al.(2001),emergentstates can be considered both team
inputs and proximal outcomes. Therefore, team work engagement can itself work b
as output and input of team processes.For example,an increase in team work
engagement may lead to an increased investment in strategic planning and energe
interactions, because team members feel more vigorous and dedicated which, in tu
may lead to better outcomes.Better outcomes,in turn,will foster future team work
engagement.At the same time,a decrease in team work engagement may lead to a
decrease in motivating behaviours from team members, because the lack of energy
lack of involvement with work may reduce the teams’ confidence in their capabilitie
(dashed arrows in Figure 1).
Proposition 3: Team work engagement will be a function of interpersonal team
(affect management, conflict management, and motivational proces
Proposition 4: The level of team work engagement at a given moment will lead
in prior inputs, outputs, processes, and other emergent states.
Emergent states
The same interpersonal processes (affect management, motivation building, and co
management) may also be responsible for the development of other emergent stat
Team work engagementis linked to those other emergentstates in a dynamic and
recursive way (dotted arrow in Figure 1). A team with a high level of collective effic
for example, is likely to display high levels of vigour, dedication, and absorption bec
they believe their team has the necessary competences to be successful. Simultan
energetic and enthusiastic teams may behave in a way that fosters efficacy beliefsIt
follows that a team’s level of engagement is not a static ‘trait’ but is instead a dyna
property. This dynamic property changes continuously, reflecting the equally dynam
changes on inputs, and on individual interactions and associated attitudes (Breevaa
al., 2014; Cronin, Weingart, & Todorova, 2011). Considering that these emergent st
and team work engagement are positively related, it is relevant to theoretically des
their mutualinfluences and also to distinguish them.We will focus on four particular
emergent states that may co-occur with team work engagement: collective efficacy
potency, cohesion, and group affect.
Collective efficacy and group potency
Motivating team members and building their confidence may lead to a sense of col
efficacy and of group potency. Collective efficacy is a group’s shared belief that the
execute theirtasks successfully (Bandura,1997).Whereas collective efficacy has a
specific temporal focus and is sensitive to specific situations, team potency genera
Team work engagement425

belief to ‘any task or demand a group may confront’ and has an enduring temporal focus
and broad outcome emphasis (Stajkovic, Lee, & Nyberg, 2009). Collective efficacy has a
history of being linked both to performance and to positive affective states. For example
recent study by Salanova, Rodrıguez, Cifre, and Schaufeli (in press) reports a reciprocal
positive relationship between collective efficacy and collective flow,defined as‘a
collective state that occurs when a group is performing at the peak of its abilities’ (Sawy
2003, p. 167). In what work engagement is concerned, a study by Salanova, Llorens, and
Schaufeli (2011), at the individual level, reports that efficacy beliefs reciprocally influenc
engagement through positive affect. At the team level, both collective efficacy and grou
potency enhance the likelihood that team members will persist, approach, and succeed i
their tasks;they enhance the likelihood of finding vigorous,dedicated,and absorbed
teams. Simultaneously, having a high level of team work engagement can contribute to
the teams’ perception of collective efficacy because team members display willingness t
work and to persist even when difficulties arise.However,having collective efficacy
beliefs and being collectively engaged are different states. One is essentially cognitive (a
belief) and may both lead to an increased focus on work or be influenced by that increas
focus and energy; the other has a motivational nature and is that increased energy and
involvement.
Cohesion
Cohesion relates to ‘a group property with individualmanifestations offeelings of
belongingness or attraction to the group’ (Lieberman, Yalom, & Miles, 1973, p. 337). The
more group members are attracted to the group, the more they will be willing to invest i
pursuing the group’s goals. Although members of high teamwork engaged teams are like
to feel attracted to the group and to want to stay in the team, team work engagement
goes beyond the simple attraction to the group – it encompasses a positive affective sta
a desire to work and be productive, and a high focus on tasks.
Task-based cohesion (Festinger,Schacter,& Back, 1950)representsthe shared
commitment of team members with reaching valuable goals, because the success of the
group is a precondition for the attainment of collective and individual goals. The existenc
of an attraction to the group and of task-based cohesion may lead individuals to be more
dedicated to their work and to display higher levels of vigour. Simultaneously, when team
are engaged and dedicated to work, its members will be more inclined to help each othe
(Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008). However, team members may work hard together in the
pursuitof importantgoals,withoutfeeling positively or fulfilled by their work.For
example, teams can be highly committed to meeting a client’s deadline (an important an
valuable goal),but may simultaneously experience negative affective states such as
distress, guilt, and hostility.
Group affect
When performing similar tasks and receiving the same kinds of outcomes, work teams
may share a common affective state. One of the first definitions for this common affectiv
state is the one proposed by George (1996):‘consistentor homogeneous affective
reactions within a group’(p. 77).Trottedelet al.(1998) and Totterdell(2000) found
evidence for the existence of a shared affective state between team members. Specifica
they found significant associations between the reported moods of members of two kind
of work groups (nurses and accountants). Totterdell et al.also found that professional
426 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

sport players’ moods were more strongly correlated with the current aggregate mo
their own team than with the currentaggregate mood ofother teams,or with the
aggregate of their own team’s moods at other times. Bartel and Saavedra (2000) a
members of work groups experience ‘group moods’ when their individual moods ca
detected by other members, and their study with 70 work groups confirmed the ex
of mood convergence.Finally,Barsade (2002)showed thatgroups having a happy
confederate reported more pleasant moods than groups with an unhappy confeder
that the former groups showed greater cooperation and reduced conflict. The exist
of positive group affect will correlate highly with team work engagement, because
emergent state has a positive affective nature: teams with positive group affect are
likely to exhibit team work engagement than teams with negative group affect bec
the nature of team work engagement and of a positive affective state converges. A
same time, engaged teams will tend to collectively display positive emotions such a
and pride while working.
However,the two constructscan be differentiated.In addition to its positive
affective nature, team work engagement has also a strong motivational componen
the construct is inseparable from taskwork. This means that whereas group affect c
have no real application towards work, team work engagement is a collective posit
affective state at work that drives team members to focus energetically and enthus
astically in their tasks. Therefore, having a positive group affect is not enough to de
team work engagement: a team may experience collective positive affect that does
translate into increased effort in work but, instead, is reflected in longer, fun, and p
breaks.
Proposition 5:Team work engagement is positively related to the following emerg
states: collective efficacy, group potency, cohesion, and group affec
Outputs
Team effectiveness after a performance episode will, by the cyclical feedback notio
episodic performance episodes, become the input to subsequent episodes, influenc
team processes and emergent states in later time (Beal,Weiss,Barros,& MacDermid,
2005).
According to Hackman (1987),team effectiveness is a threefold construct encom-
passing three criteria: team performance, satisfaction, and viability. The first criteri
to do with the productive output of the group. It depends on whether the team is ab
meet or exceed the performance standards defined for their tasks. The second crite
relates to the balanced degree of satisfaction or frustration of personalneeds that the
group members experience. The third criterion, team viability, refers to the capabil
team members to work together on subsequent tasks.
Overall,succeeding in a given work task can spark feelings ofjoy, elation,and
enthusiasm (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Hence, a good performance
feelings ofsatisfaction and desire to keep on work togetherwill facilitate motiva-
tion-focused interactions, as well as interactions with a positive affective valence.
Proposition 6:The levelof team work engagement in a given time moment willbe
a function of previous team effectiveness.
Team work engagement427

Time dynamics and team work engagement
If teamwork should be considered within temporal cycles, team processes and emergent
states necessarily change over time. According to Kozlowski and Chao (2012), emergenc
is dynamic and changes in form overtime. The change is not only due to the nature of th
phase of taskwork (action or transition), but also to changes in inputs and outputs. These
changeswill inevitablybring upon changeson team members’interaction and,
consequently,on the interpersonalprocesses.For example,following a great perfor-
mance team evaluation,team members are likely to express happiness and positive
feelings and to express their confidence regarding the team’s ability and skills.As a
consequence,the levelof team work engagement might go up.In contrast,negative
feedback by the team leader could lead to an increase in interpersonalconflict, in the
form of the expression of hostility and blaming each other. As a result, the level of energ
and dedication mightdrop. Team work engagementis, then,a dynamic state that
fluctuates between performance episodes and taskwork phases.
At the individual-level,recentresearch validated the conceptualization ofwork
engagement as a fleeting state, with oscillations over time (Breevaart, Bakker, Demerou
& Hetland, 2012; Sonnentag, Dormann, & Demerouti, 2010). It changes over days and
even within a day.Also, affective statesare, by definition,transientpsychological
experiences (Frijda,1993).Therefore,affective processes are necessarily notstatic,
because they are influenced by the affective states of individuals and groups.
Proposition 7: Team work engagement fluctuates over time as a function of team in
outputs,team processes,and other emergent states,rather than being a
static state.
Another fundamental assumption of the study of teams is that teams perform in a ser
of recursive performance episodes (Marks et al., 2001), where time plays a central role.
Each episode refers to a cycle ofgoal-directed activity (e.g.,designing a marketing
campaign, auditing a company), at the end of which it is possible to obtain an evaluation
team’s performance and feedback.During a performance episode,teams may have to
engage in two differenttypes of taskwork:acts that directly contribute to goal
accomplishment, such as extinguishing a fire by firemen (action phases) and planning
and/or evaluating activities, such as deciding on a surgical procedure by a medical team
(transition phases). During each performance episode, and depending on their specific
nature, different processes may have different importance. For example, goal specifica-
tion is more relevant in transition phases, whereas monitoring progress is fundamental in
action phases.
Considering this framework, team work engagement’s role is likely to be different ove
these two stages of team performance. Considering that engagement is simultaneously
positive and high-activation state (Bakker et al.,2011),it is expected that team work
engagement is globally more relevant during action phases. A high level of team work
engagement willgenerate action readiness to work hard towards the goals of a team
(Russell, 2003). More specifically, it is expected that the vigour dimension of team work
engagement is the one that will contribute the most to the success of the team during
action phases, when teams need sufficient energy to carry on their concrete tasks. Durin
transition phases, nonetheless, the dedication component is expected to play a relevant
role. Expressing a shared involvement in work will help team members’ focus on what
can be improved and considering alternative courses of action. Simultaneously, a state
428 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

defined by positive feelings and by high-activation facilitates the generation, promo
and realization ofnovelideas in the workplace (e.g.,workplace innovation;Madrid,
Patterson, Birdi, Leiva, & Kausel, 2013). More specifically, generating novel ideas de
on the broadening ofcognition when feeling positive affect(Fredrickson,2001)
associated with the increased action tendencies thathigh-activation stated promote.
Therefore, a high level of work engagement will facilitate teams’ creativity when pl
future action or when evaluating past achievements.
Proposition 8: The effects of team work engagement on team performance wil
salient during action phases.
Discussion
The presentpaper introducesthe constructof team work engagementwithin a
theoreticalmodelof emergence.Theoretically,this paperrepresents an underlying
discussion on multilevelconstructs:studying a higher-levelconstructis not just a
methodological or data analysis question, but is essentially a theoretical one. Collec
constructs that are derived from individual-level ones often lack a solid theoretical
that supports their existence. Considering engagement as a team variable necessa
to the proposal of other antecedents different from the traditional job demands –res
model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The team level also implies the consideration o
dynamics and ofteam members’individualbehaviours as importantantecedents.It
follows logically that the conceptualization proposed in this paper is not an isomorp
transposition of work engagement from a lower to an upper level. It should be clear
we are proposing a constructthat is differentfrom individualwork engagement.
Following Morgeson and Hofmann (1999), when developing a construct at the colle
level,we can distinguish between its structure and its function.The structure ofa
collective construct has to do with how the construct emerges within a group of pe
the individual actions, and cycles of interaction responsible for creating a shared pa
of behaviour. On the other hand, the function of a construct is about its outcome th
thought to remain the same across levels. We propose that work engagement and
work engagement are functionally equivalent but not structurally equivalent: they h
similar functions (fostering individuals’ and teams’ performance and effectiveness)
different structure.
This should make researchers question the way collective constructs such as tea
work engagementshould be measured.According to Hofmann and Jones(2004),
determining the level of the entities from which data are derived depends on the an
the question ‘is the researcher interested in describing a collection of individuals or
describing a collective phenomenon?’(p. 308).The answer depends on the research
question and is not either right or wrong on its own. We add that it is also a conseq
the theory leveland of the constructdefinition made,namely aboutthe predicted
homogeneity or heterogeneity ofthe collective construct(Klein, Dansereau,& Hall,
1994).Because our theoreticalconceptualization ofteam-levelwork engagementis
homogeneous (i.e., group members have a shared perception of their team’s level
engagement), the focus should be placed on the variation between groups. Moreov
refers to an emergent state of a team, which is different than an individual work-re
state of well-being: what is central to the construct is not how one individual feels a
his or her work in terms of energy, affect, and motivation but how individuals perce
Team work engagement429

their team’s levelof work engagementas a whole entity.Therefore,data should be
collected from numerous groups, obtaining a single score representing the group as a
whole and maximizing between-group variability.
The main decision in constructing a scale, or in adapting the individual-level one is,
then, to select the subject of the sentence. There are three main hypotheses: (1) to use
first-person singular (‘I’), where the subject is the respondent him or herself (e.g., ‘At [my
work, [I think that] my team is/we are bursting with energy’); (2) to use the first-person
plural(‘we’),where the subject is the collection of individuals composing the team,
including the ‘I’ (‘At [our] work, we are bursting with energy’); (3) to use the third-person
singular (‘the team’), where the subject is the team as an entity (‘At [our] work, the team
bursting with energy’). The first hypothesis is easily excluded, because we are not lookin
for an individualpropositional attitude about the enunciation but for a collective one.
Choosing between the other two hypotheses is less clear, although because in both the
referent is collective. Nonetheless, and reflecting the referent-shift composition model
(Chan, 1998), we suggest that the second hypothesis (first-person plural) should be used
According to linguistics (Cintra & Cunha,1984),it is assumed thatwhen using the
first-person plural (‘we’), the speaker includes him or herself in the group that is being
described more strongly than when using a more neutral formulation such as ‘the team’.
Hence, as the ‘groupness’ of a group can be defined, among other conditions, by whethe
the people involved consider themselves as part of a group and whether they recognize
one another and distinguish members from non-members (Arrow, McGrath, & Berdahl,
2000), we believe that using the first-person plural best describes this reality.
In what future work is concerned, researchers should aim at empirically validating this
construct.We need more research that operationalizes team work engagement,that
investigatesits convergentand discriminantvalidity,and that exploresits factor
structure, within a theoretical base. This has already been attempted by Torrente et al.
(2012a,b), but with the referent ‘my team’ and outside a specific conceptualization of
team work engagement. Secondly, the nomological network of the construct should be
analysed.Therefore,we suggestthat researchersvalidate the modelby showing
significant relationships with variables such as team orientation (as predictor) or team
performance (as output). Thirdly, it urges us to look into the black box of team processes
particularly the interpersonalones.This implies thatresearch designs gain an extra
complexity that allows for observing the interaction of team members over time: not onl
longitudinaldesignsbut probably a more qualitative approach thatwill help to
characterize systematically the way team members interact. In 1950, Bales proposed a
method called interaction process analysis,aimed atcoding each actof behaviour
occurring in face-to-face groups. This method proposed two main broad categories (task
area and social-emotional area) and 12 subcategories reflecting six types of ‘problems’:
orientation, evaluation, control, decision, tension-management, and integration. This is
likely to be an interesting starting point for studying team processes. Fourth, work on the
facial expression of emotion (Ekman & Davidson, 1993) could also be an exciting avenue
for research on the emergence of team work engagement: Are expressive teams more
likely to develop a high level of team work engagement than low expressive ones? Fifth,
and considering thatthere are many teamswho interactmainly virtually (email,
conference call, etc.), it would be interesting to investigate whether interacting virtually
impacts affective and motivational processes and, consequently, the emergence of team
work engagement. Finally, efforts should be directed at understanding how team work
engagementdevelopsover time. Researchersshould develop longitudinaldesigns
430 Patrıcia L. Costa et al.

encompassing the notion of cycles of interaction and performance to best describe
fluctuations of team work engagement and its relations with team-relevant events.
From a practicalpoint of view, our team work engagementmodel (Figure 1)
emphasizes the need to considerspecific questions when leading a team.If team
managers rely only on what is known at the individual level, they may overlook imp
variables that exert influence within teams. Therefore, the model points out the me
that should be considered when working with teams and highlights their interaction
nature. For high levels of team work engagement, team leaders must be attentive t
team members interact and guarantee that team members are able to motivate ea
while maintaining a positive affective state.
We have, so far, emphasized the strengths of the proposed model. However, it m
have some limitations. The model may not be generalized entirely to teams who in
exclusively virtually,particularly when video is notavailable.Face-to-face and com-
puter-mediated communication differ in many ways (Okdie & Guadagno,2008).For
example, in computer-mediated communication, social visual cues (voice inflection
gazing,etc.) are absent,and the latency of the response may be longer (when using
asynchronous methods such as the email), allowing the parts to have a greater con
over the pace of the communication. Taken together, these differences might impa
socialinfluence processes involved in interaction and,as a consequence,hinder the
development of a shared motivational state.
Finally,culturaldifferences may also play a role in team work engagement.At the
individual level, Shimazu, Schaufeli, Miyanaka, and Iwata (2010) reported a signific
lower level of work engagement in a sample of Japanese workers, when compared t
fifteen other countries. These lower values, according to the authors, may be due t
tendency of the Japanese to suppress the expression of positive affect (Iwata, Robe
Kawakami,1995),and notnecessarily to a reallow levelof vigour,dedication,and
absorption with work.At the team leveltherefore,the emergence ofteam work
engagement may be compromised in cultures where expressing positive affect is n
commendable. At the same time, however, teams could be considered more impor
collectivistic rather individualistic cultures.Hence,team members mightas well be
invested in working towards collective goals therefore being willing to work hard, b
proud of their job and being immersed in their work – being work engaged.In these
cultures, different mechanisms than the ones presented in this paper may underlie
emergence of team work engagement.
Conclusion
This paper opens a motivating avenue for research. We proposed a model of team
engagement including where team interpersonal processes play a fundamental role
proximalantecedentsof team work engagement.The modelpresented should be
considered not only as a theoreticaloutput but also as an input for a fruitfulresearch
agenda on the promising concept of team work engagement.
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