Communicating for success: A quantitative analysis of the mediating effect of enacted complexity on the relationship between communication and team performance

Abstract

Building on recent theoretical and methodological developments in organizational studies focusing on organizational routines (Hærem, Pentland and Miller, 2015; Hansson, 2018), this thesis aim to explore how three aspects of team communication; Frequency, distribution of communication and use of achievement-oriented language, influence team performance, and if enacted complexity mediates this relationship. The study relies on data gathered from 106 teams, solving a team task in the crisis simulator MindLab. The results of our analysis indicate a positive relationship between the frequency of communication and team performance, and that this relationship is fully mediated by enacted complexity. Further, achievement-oriented language was found to positively correlate with team performance, but this relationship was not mediated by enacted complexity. These findings suggest that we have identified two separate mechanisms governing the relationship between communicative aspects and team performance as we find support for the mediating role of enacted complexity between communication frequency and performance, while achievement oriented language and performance are correlated, but seems uncorrelated with enacted complexity. We found no statistical support for a relationship between team members’ distribution of communication, enacted complexity and team performance. Due to the findings, this study extends the organizational routines literature by supporting earlier findings of a positive link between enacted complexity and team performance, in uncertain task environments. Further, this research identifies enacted complexity as a mediator of the relationship between communication frequency and performance, and strengthens the argument for routines as a potential source of flexibility and advantage when performing tasks in uncertain environments.