Bringing Together the Yin and Yang of Social Exchanges in Teams

Over the past half-century, organizations have steadily increased their reliance on interdependent team structures to carry out a variety of critical work tasks, from production to service, management, and innovation (for reviews, see Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008). Early research on team processes (e.g., Hackman & Morris, 1975; McGrath, 1964) noted that for teams to be eective members must minimize “process losses” and maximize “process gains”-that is, identify ways the team can collectively perform at a level that exceeds the average potential of individual members. To do so, teams need to minimize interpersonal disruptions and maximize interpersonal facilitation among its members (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001).