Common incentives for teamwork – the unspoken contract's significance

A longitudinal and comparative analysis of competitive balance in five European football leagues

Purpose

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on competitive balance in the “big five” European football leagues, namely, the English Premier League, French Ligue 1, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and Spanish La Liga.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses recognised measures of competitive balance to measure levels of concentration (within-season competitive balance) and dominance (between-season competitive balance) in the selected leagues over 22 seasons between 1995/96 and 2016/17.

Findings

French Ligue 1 emerged as the most balanced league in terms of both concentration and dominance measures. The analysis also points to a statistically significant decline in competitive balance in all leagues apart from Serie A (Italy).

Originality/value

The findings of this study are of concern for the league organisers. Competition intensity is a key component of a sport league, and a league that is dominated by one or a select few clubs is less attractive within the marketplace. This paper presents challenges at the league governance level for the five leagues examined.

Collective work motivation in knowledge based organizations

Purpose

– Collective work motivation (CWM) has been construed as humans’ innate predispositions to effectively undertake team-oriented work activities under ideal conditions (Lindenberg and Foss, 2011). However, management research aimed at explicating its etiology in knowledge-based organizations (KBOs) has been largely ignored. Given that these organizations strive to gain market competitiveness by motivating employees to cooperatively share knowledge, as well as protect organizational specific knowledge from being externally expropriated, it becomes expedient to understand how they can mobilize and sustain CWM that is geared towards the normative goal of knowledge sharing and knowledge protection.

Design/methodology/approach

– Conceptual insights from the social identity theory were deployed by the study.

Findings

– Three hypothetical principles derived from the processes of social categorization, social comparison and social identification tentatively mobilize and sustain CWM in KBOs.

Originality/value

– This paper adopts the social identity perspective to CWM. In so doing, it sees CWM as a team-based intrinsically derived process rather than an extrinsic means of eliciting the motivation of people in KBOs to engage in the normative goal of knowledge sharing and protection.

Doctors’ functional leadership in psychiatric healthcare teams – a reversible leadership logic

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to study how psychiatric doctors practise leadership in multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The paper seeks to answer the question: How do psychiatric doctors lead multidisciplinary teams during treatment conferences?

Design/methodology/approach

– Six psychiatric teams were studied at a university hospital. Each team was observed over a period of 18 months, and data were collected during four years (2008-2011). Data were collected through interviews with doctors (n = 19) and observations (n = 30) of doctors’ work in multidisciplinary psychiatric teams.

Findings

– Doctors in a multidisciplinary team use either self-imposed or involuntary leadership style. Oscillating between these two extremes was a strategy for handling the internal tensions of the team.

Research limitations/implications

– The study was a case study, performed during treatment conferences at psychiatric wards in a university hospital. This limitation means that there is cause for some caution in generalising the results.

Practical implications

– The results are useful for understanding leadership in multidisciplinary medical teams. By understanding the reversible logic of leadership, cooperation and knowledge sharing can be gained, which means that a situation of mere peaceful coexistence can be avoided. Understanding the importance of the informal contract makes it possible to switch leadership among team members. A reversible leadership with an informal contract makes the team less vulnerable. The team’s professionals can thus easily handle difficult situations and internal tensions, facilitating leadership and management of multidisciplinary teams.

Originality/value

– Doctors in multidisciplinary psychiatric teams use reversible leadership logic.