Differential treatment within sports teams,leader–member (coach–player) exchange quality,team atmosphere,and team performance

Using the leader–member exchange (LMX) theory as a theoretical framework, the present study focused on the occurrence of differential treatment by leaders on social and task‐related issues within teams. It was investigated whether team members' perceptions of the frequency and degree of social and task‐related differential treatment by the leader were associated with their evaluation of team atmosphere and team performance, in addition to the effects of the quality of their own working relationship with the leader (LMX quality). The context of this study consisted of interdependent sports teams. The participants were 605 players belonging to 69 amateur sports teams playing various team sports such as soccer, hockey, and basketball. Social differential treatment was negatively associated with team atmosphere and unrelated to team performance. In addition, it was found that the two forms of task‐related differential treatment included in this study were unrelated to team atmosphere and were differently associated with team performance. The results are discussed with reference to the existing leadership literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

We're all in this together…except for you: The effects of workload,performance feedback,and racial distance on helping behavior in teams

We draw from social categorization theory and the actor–observer hypothesis to extend previous research regarding receiving high levels of help from team members. Specifically, we explore how a team member's performance feedback on how they handled a disproportionately heavy share of the team's workload and how their racial distance from the rest of their teammates affect the amount of helping that person receives from their teammates. Results from a laboratory study in which 79 teams worked on a computerized, decision‐making task demonstrated a three‐way interaction between workload, performance feedback, and the racial distance between the feedback recipient and the rest of their teammates. Racially distant negative feedback recipients who had a disproportionately heavy share of their team's workload received less help from teammates than their racially similar counterparts. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.