Team performance goals and team performance: A multiconceptualization approach

Existing research on the relationship between team performance goals and team performance has yielded mixed findings. We argue that these inconsistencies arise in part from the use of two different operationalizations of team performance goals: a collective-based operationalization (averaging team members’ perceptions that their team aims to outperform other teams) and a composition-based one (aggregating team members’ personal aims to outperform other individuals). In this research, we adopted a multiconceptualization approach to examine whether collective and composition performance goals interact in predicting team performance. In Study 1 (98 observations from 73 players across 31 teams), video game teams with higher collective performance goals performed better in a major European tournament when their composition performance goals were lower. In Study 2 (535 observations from 201 players across 22 teams), volleyball teams with higher collective performance goals performed better in the Swiss volleyball championship when their composition in-group performance goals were lower (i.e., fewer members striving to outperform teammates). Because of concerns about statistical power and causality in Studies 1 and 2, we conducted a larger, preregistered experiment. In Study 3 (751 participants from 292 teams), experimentally assembled teams assigned to a collective performance goal condition exhibited less behavioral sabotage during a collaborative task compared to teams instructed to endorse composition performance goals or both goal types simultaneously. This manipulation did not directly affect team performance but indirectly improved it via lower sabotage. Together, our findings suggest that high collective performance goals and low composition performance goals may provide a recipe for fostering team cooperation and performance.