How and when valueless information sharing undermines team cooperative performance: an interteam perspective

Purpose Scholars have conducted extensive research on how information sharing affects work performance, but its impact – positive or negative – remains inconclusive, especially in the context of multi-team cooperation. Drawing on social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, this study aims to examine how and when the sharing of valueless information between teams undermines interteam cooperative performance (ICP). Specifically, the authors test whether interteam trust and relationship strength mediate this effect and whether interteam proactive information feedback moderates it. Design/methodology/approach This research comprises two studies: Study 1 is a multi-wave, multi-source survey of 297 team supervisors and 91 team managers, and Study 2 is an experiment. Findings The authors find interteam valueless information sharing (IVIS) exerts detrimental impact on ICP mainly through reducing interteam trust and interteam relationship strength. These negative influences of IVIS on interteam trust and ICP and the indirect effect of IVIS on ICP via interteam trust and interteam relationship strength, however, can be mitigated by interteam proactive information feedback. Originality/value This research challenges the conventional and prevalent conclusion that information sharing greatly facilitates high work performance obtaining through revealing that valueless information sharing is apt to undermine cooperative performance. In addition, this research fixes literature gaps by highlighting IVIS undermines ICP mainly through reducing interteam trust and interteam relationship strength. Meanwhile, this research makes contributions to feedback literature by proposing a new construct and empirically examining its boundary effects.