How leaders influence the impact of affective events on team climate and performance in R&D teams

Recently, a variety of leading scholars have issued urgent calls for research into the emotional dimensions of work, arguing that progress in the understanding of organizational behavior is being hampered by a failure to consider the bounded emotionality aspects of human behavior in addition to the bounded rationality aspects. We report on findings from a longitudinal study of research and development (R&D) teams that sheds light on the emotional dimensions of teamwork and knowledge work, with particular attention to the role of team leadership. The paper contributes to the evaluation of the role of emotions and the value of Affective Events Theory (AET) in studies of leadership by (a) identifying the obstacles to innovation and performance in R&D teams, (b) testing the relations between negative events, team affective climate, and team performance, and (c) by identifying the role of team leadership in response to negative events in R&D teams. Practical and scholarly implications for leadership of teams are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.