Influência da dissimilaridade de valores individuais nos resultados de times em ambiente simulado de jogos de empresas

Abstract

Several studies relate organizational outcomes to the performance of top management teams (TMT), who are accountable for formulating environment-adaptive responses. Defining such responses involves strategic choices in the face of unstructured problems. Studies often suggest that the process of strategic choice is influenced by the cognitive background and values of the executives in those teams. Many of the studies on top management teams have focused on their composition, using demographic variables as proxies for deep-level characteristics to understand team behavior and outcomes. The present investigation aims to verify the influence of deep-level characteristics the dissimilarities in TMT members individual values on the team s outcomes. Individual values, in the context of this study, are desirable, transituational goals with various degrees of importance that function as principles in a person s life, referring both to life in general, as to specific contexts such as work. The research was carried out within a simulated Business Games environment. A group of 186 Business and Accounting undergraduate students filled out Schwartz s QPV and Porto and Tamayo´s EVT value inventories, both validated in Brazil. The students, gathered in 44 management teams, played the role of executives and made strategic choices that determined the outcomes for the simulated organizations they managed. The quantitative descriptiveexploratory research revealed relationships between team members values dissimilarities the independent variables and the teams outcomes - the dependent variables - using bi- and multivariate statistical treatments. Two statistically significant regression models were found, relating, respectively, team outcomes to the dissimilarities in second order general values Openness to Change and Conservation and to the work values Fulfillment at Work and Prestige . The findings suggest that management teams strategic choice in the face of unstructured problems is influenced by the dissimilarities in some types of their members values and not by others. The regression models also point out that this influence on outcomes can be either positive or negative, depending on the motivational type of the value under consideration.