Pacing style diversity and team collaboration: The moderating effects of temporal familiarity and action planning

Abstract

This study addresses the value of both task- and team-focused processes in dealing with temporal diversity in teams. Particularly, we focus on team diversity in pacing styles (i.e., team members’ differences in how to distribute efforts over the available time in working toward deadlines). In a cross-sectional survey study of 38 consultancy teams, we examined the joint moderating effects of action planning and temporal familiarity on the relationship between pacing style diversity and team collaboration. Pacing style diversity tended to be negatively associated with team collaboration under most levels of action planning and temporal familiarity. Pacing style diversity and team collaboration related positively only when both action planning and temporal familiarity were high. This moderating effect was mediated by temporal consensus (i.e., team members’ shared understanding of the temporal aspects of executing collective tasks). Thus, the co-occurrence of action planning and temporal familiarity is particularly important for temporally heterogeneous teams to collaborate effectively by facilitating a shared perspective on the team’s temporal approach to the task.