Team psychological ownership, team self-efficacy and employee initiative: unpacking cross-level relationship

Purpose Modern organizations are increasingly adopting team-based work structures to deal with complex and unpredictable work environment fueled by technological advancements. However, limited research has explored how team-level factors influence individual employee initiative. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, this study aims to examine the impact of team job-based psychological ownership (feeling responsible for and invested in the team’s work) and team creative efficacy (shared belief in the team’s ability to generate creative solutions) on team members’ individual initiative at the workplace. Design/methodology/approach The proposed cross-level mediation model is tested using R (lavaan package) with data collected from a sample of 61 teams with 395 team members from the software industry using a time-lagged, self-reported questionnaire survey. The individual measures of job-based psychological ownership and team creative efficacy were aggregated into team-level constructs for analysis. Findings The results of this study provide evidence for the positive association between team job-based psychological ownership and personal initiative. Additionally, the findings support the mediating effect of team creative efficacy between team job-based psychological ownership and personal initiative. Practical implications This study offers insight to managers to understand how the development of psychological ownership and team confidence can lead to individual initiatives that eventually augment innovative performance. Originality/value This study contributes theoretically and methodologically to personal initiative at workplace literature. It goes beyond the individual-level literature and conceptualizes team job-based psychological ownership and team creative efficacy. Further, it enriches the literature by adopting a multi-level perspective that explains how team job-based psychological ownership and team creative efficacy contribute to enhancing personal initiative at work.