Aula 1037, Edifici 690

This study aims to further unveil how transformational leadership and team cohesion foster effective team performance, studying the interactive role of three contextual variables: previous performance, consensus on leadership and consensus on cohesion. We computed a moderated-mediation model based on a sample of 690 professional players on 59 top professional interactive sports league teams (hockey, indoor football/soccer, handball and basketball) in Spain. Our findings suggest that transformational leadership indirectly influences objective team performance through the mediation role of team cohesion and that this indirect effect is more prominent when the level of previous performance is higher. We also found that the indirect effect of transformational leadership on team performance via cohesion is stronger in teams with higher consensus regarding their coaches’ leadership but weaker in teams with higher consensus on team cohesion. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of integrating contextual variables into research models, in particular, previous performance and consensus.

Merce Mach obtained her PhD in Psychology from Ramon Llull University. She is currently Associate professor and research fellow at University of Barcelona (Faculty of Economics and Business). She has developed her career in education and consultancy. Her research interests revolve around trust in leadership, organizational trust, group process, effectiveness, as well as the emergent issues of HRM and organizational performance: presenteeism and absenteeism, the evolving nature of careers and cross-cultural management. She was recipient of several competitive research grants. She participated in various research projects and published peer review papers on strategic HRM and organizational effectiveness, attendance at work, as well as trust in leadership, work in teams and peers’ feedback.

This research (*) submitted to the Academy of Management 2019 Annual meeting was selected for inclusion in the 2019-Proceedings as one of that year’s Best Papers (Top 10%)
(*) Mach, M. (2019). The leadership contextual model:​ The role of past performance and team consensus.​ In Guclu Atinc (Ed.). Proceedings of the Seventy-ninth​ Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.​ Online: ISSN:2151-6561.