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Article

How Team Voice Contributes to Construction Project Performance: The Mediating Role of Project Learning and Project Reflexivity

by
Ding Wang
,
Jianyao Jia
,
Shan Jiang
,
Tianyi Liu
and
Guofeng Ma
*
School of Economy and Management, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Buildings 2023, 13(7), 1599; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071599
Submission received: 29 May 2023 / Revised: 19 June 2023 / Accepted: 21 June 2023 / Published: 24 June 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Project Management in Construction)
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Abstract

:
Voice behavior has been widely recognized as having various benefits for organizations, while researchers seldom notice its consequences in construction projects. Against this context, this study empirically explores the impact path of team voice on project performance in construction projects from a multi-team system (MTS) perspective. Considering the essence of voice behavior is to provide information, this study introduces the input–process–outcome (IPO) framework to verify how team voice can affect project performance by influencing project learning and project reflexivity. The online survey method, monetary incentive method, and chain-referral sampling method are adopted to distribute the designed questionnaire. A total of 184 data points from completed construction projects in China supported the research conclusion by adopting the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. Project learning and project reflexivity positively mediate the relationship between team voice and project performance in construction projects. Specifically, team voice can first positively influence project learning and project reflexivity, which both have a positive relationship with project performance. For theory, this study opens the black box between team voice and project performance in the context of construction projects by unveiling the mediating path of project learning and project reflexivity, which also enriches the literature on voice behavior and expands its application. Furthermore, this study provides one new perspective for MTS knowledge by adopting the IPO framework to explore the underlying mechanism between the focal team and the overall team performance of the MTS. For practice, this study has a directive function for construction project management and MTS management, while providing reminders for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners about the significance of project learning and project reflexivity on project performance.

1. Introduction

In the construction industry, the project is the most common organizational form, which is mainly composed of teams from various organizations and disciplines, such as the owner, designer, contractor, sub-contractor, consultant, and supervisor [1,2]. Although participants of a construction project may come from divergent enterprises with different performance expectations and coordination mechanisms, all involved teams share the same objective of promoting project success; thus, the project can also be referred to as a multi-team system (MTS) [2,3]. In an MTS, due to the interdependence among teams, teams must interact with each other to achieve their goals; this process is referred to as team boundary spanning. Team boundary spanning is defined as the actions of gathering significant resources and support conducted by a team [4]. As all involved teams have an embedded relationship with the whole MTS, when a single team intends to obtain resources from other teams, it is necessary to seek support from the whole MTS to meet their needs. This boundary spanning originating from a single team can ripple through to the entire project team, enabling the construction project to function as a whole [3]. In order to distinguish the observed single team from other involved teams in one MTS, this study named the interviewed team as the “focal team”. In the domain of the MTS issue, “focal team” is a common word without a fixed definition. Some previous studies use “focal team” to represent the team with core positions or prominent roles in an MTS [5,6]. Meanwhile, some existing research use “focal team” to distinguish a specific single team from another team in the MTS under the role perspective [7,8,9].
Compared with the relatively stable and simple structure inside a single organization, it is more complex to manage a temporary and multi-team project, as the participating teams may have varying capacities to influence the whole outcome [10,11,12]. To increase efficiency, scholars have conducted lots of research, including communication, conflict, motivation, and so on, wherein voice behavior refers to the discussion and communications between team members within the work territory [13]. As a kind of altruistic organizational behavior, voice behavior frequently occurs in organizations, and it has been proven to have various benefits, which drive it to become one of the research hotspots [14,15,16]. The essential premise of all the prior discussions of voice behavior is based on the nonnegligible advantages of speaking up, where silence brings adverse effects [13]. In view of this, the subsequent impacts of voice play a decisive role in voice research. With regard to all kinds of projects, project performance is the most intuitive expression of outcome for the entire project team and a common goal of both academia and the industry; it is significant to empirically demonstrate the impact of voice behavior on project performance.
It is not new to discuss voice behavior in the construction management field, but most of the previous research studies on voice stand from the individual perspective [17,18,19]. However, for the MTS, the behavior or viewpoint from the team level is more concerned and influential than that from the individual level [20]. So, the existing evidence of individual voice is insufficient to understand the principles of team voice within an MTS. Compared to the individual voice, team voice in construction projects refers to the focal team’s behavior of raising issues or making recommendations for the whole project team [9]. Although the literature in other fields suggests the positive impact of team voice on team performance [13], the research on whether and how team voice will impact project performance in the construction field is still blank. Considering the particularity of the construction project context, this study aims to clarify the impact of team voice on project performance in construction projects and the underlying mechanism.
Essentially, voice is an act of providing information. According to Liang et al. [21], voice can be categorized into two types, which are promotive voice (i.e., the expression of new ideas or suggestions for improvements) and prohibitive voice (i.e., the expression of concerns or complaints for potential problems). No matter which kind of voice it is, the emergence of a voice or team voice generates dissatisfaction with the current situation and the inclination to change the status quo. Therefore, in a construction project team, when a team voice occurs, in order to manage this information that is aimed to cause changes, a series of subsequent team processes will be generated. Marks et al. [22] defined the team process as “members’ interdependent acts that convert inputs to outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioral activities directed toward organizing task work to achieve collective goals”. According to this definition, the independent and spontaneous act of the team voice is the “inputs”, while project performance is the “outcomes”. All team processes ultimately flow towards serving project performance. In summary, the follow-up of team voice in construction projects is crucial for investigating the relationship between team voice and project performance, while its impact path conforms to the running mode of the input–process–outcome (IPO) framework [22].
The IPO framework is a theoretical model of team effectiveness first proposed by McGrath [23], which has been modified and extended by many scholars [24]. It displays the mechanism of team operation, demonstrating how teams can transform team actions and information into team productivity. The IPO model of team performance has been widely accepted by scholars for discussing, explaining, and exploring team issues [3,24,25,26]. Considering the inherent multilevel nature of teams, which means that “individuals are nested within team, which in turn are nested in organizations, which exist in environments”, Cohen and Bailey believe that environmental factors, including team and compositional inputs, are also driving factors [24,27]. Therefore, according to the operating mechanism presented in the IPO framework, team voice can ultimately impact the outcome by triggering a series of team processes. Occupying a pivotal role in the IPO framework, team processes usually act as intermediary mechanisms to link variables such as team characteristics with standards such as performance, which also are the means of interdependent teamwork to generate meaningful outcomes [22]. Based on the IPO framework, we cautiously propose our research framework as Figure 1; the figure was drawn by the authors. As shown in Figure 1, team voice can be regarded as the “input”, the consequential factors of team voice can be regarded as the “process”, and project performance can be regarded as the “outcome”.
With the application of science and technology, the construction industry is no longer a single labor-intensive industry, but gradually has the characteristics of a knowledge-intensive industry [28]. On account of this, when the focal team expresses suggestions or concerns for the current situation, the construction project team will first conduct knowledge management more efficiently because of the willingness to change from participating teams, in other words, learning. Team learning includes activities of knowledge acquisition, sharing, and combination [29], and it is defined as a continuous process of collective reflection and action [30]. In project situations, this is the team learning of the project, namely project learning. Moreover, team learning can also trigger deep-level learning as a superficial and direct form of learning, which is team reflexivity. Team reflexivity is the extent of the team’s reflection and communication on the team objectives for adjusting [31]. Through project learning and project reflexivity, the whole project team reacts to the team voice, and addresses the dissatisfaction and changing needs. With the guidance of the IPO framework, this study will further validate the causality between team voice and project learning, and team voice and project reflexivity, demonstrating the bridging role of project learning and project reflexivity between team voice and project performance.
Generally speaking, our purpose is to shed light on the impact of team voice behavior on project performance in construction projects. This study aims to address the following three key issues:
  • Objective 1 Identify how team voice impacts the project performance in construction projects.
  • Objective 2 Identify the mediating role of project learning between team voice and project performance.
  • Objective 3 Identify the mediating role of project reflexivity between team voice and project performance.
Concretely, we discuss the aftereffects of promotive team voice (PrmV) and prohibitive team voice (PrhV), respectively. To certify the effectiveness of team voice, we simultaneously measured project learning and project reflexivity as its consequence factors. We collected 184 valid questionnaires from construction professionals through snowball sampling and adopted the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique. The results show that project learning and project reflexivity mediate the relationship between team voice and project performance.
The theoretical contribution of this study is then three-fold. Firstly, this study unveils the mediating role of project learning and project reflexivity between team voice and project performance, which opens the black box between team voice and project performance in the context of construction projects. Secondly, this study expands the knowledge of team voice through the distinguishable discussion of promotive and prohibitive team voice and the investigation of the team voice’s consequences. Thirdly, this study explains how a single team’s voice can influence the whole performance in the MTS, providing one new perspective for MTS knowledge. Furthermore, for practice, this study first has a directive function for construction project management and MTS management, then emphasizes the necessity and importance of project learning and project reflexivity for project performance to policymakers, researchers, and practitioners.

2. Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development

2.1. Team Voice

Voice behavior refers to the expressions and communications of work-related suggestions, ideas, and concerns by employees for improving organizational functions [13]. Generally, the effective utilization of this spontaneous altruistic behavior is comparable to enhancing employee value and human resource efficiency inadvertently in organizations, which indicates the significance of studying voice behavior. Although current research typically perceives voice as a constructive behavior from employees with the motivation of providing a positive contribution to the organization [32,33,34,35,36,37,38], the voice-related outcomes still remain conflicting [13] (Morrison, 2011). In this regard, Liang et al. [21] believed that the heterogeneity of previous research results is generated from the differential of delivered information type in voice. So, Liang et al. [21] divided it into two categories in a more fine-grained construct; precisely, the improvement suggestions or ideas on the current situation are identified as promotive voice, while prohibitive voice corresponds to the expression of concerns and complaints about the potential predicaments. To better understand employee voice in a multi-dimensional way, refined conceptual models like Liang’s have prevailed in this domain [9,39,40]. In this study, both promotive voice and prohibitive voice are measured simultaneously for more precise conclusions.
Compared with an individual voice, a team voice reflects team members’ collective thoughts [20,35] and is more welcomed and respected by organizations, since suggestions proposed by a team are usually more insightful and sensible than those from an individual [20]. Moreover, a “favorable voice climate” will encourage employees to engage more in voice behavior. In other words, when the approval of voice behavior is a shared belief within the whole work group [41], the frequency of voice behavior will increase. Thus, the collective-level belief and voice behavior are inextricably interwoven [42], which demonstrates that research should not be limited to the individual level. Considering most prior research on the consequences of voice behavior focused on the individual level [43,44,45,46], this study mainly concentrates on the team level.
Furthermore, most existing research usually sets the general organization form as the research background to observe voice or team voice while treating the special organizational form background as Cinderella [13,47], such as projects, with multi-team scale and temporary nature. However, with its prominent flexibility and economy, projectification has won a dominant position in various fields, such as engineering, defense, and aerospace. It is significant to investigate voice behavior in project-based contexts. Therefore, this paper will explore the consequences of team voice in construction projects to fill the academic gap.

2.2. Project Learning

The advent of the knowledge–economy age is a prelude for knowledge competitions among organizations, especially in knowledge-intensive industries, where knowledge plays a dominant role in maintaining a competitive edge and long-term success for enterprises [48,49,50,51]. Organizations rely on employees to create, share and apply knowledge during the work process for utilizing and managing knowledge [52], thus improving competitiveness [53]. Thereupon, team learning, as an effective activity for knowledge sharing and combination [29], has received increasing attention. Edmondson [30] defined team learning as a continuous process of collective reflection and action, and it has been recognized to be the core of organizational change and renewal [30,54]. In the case of the construction industry, each construction project involves a wealth of core knowledge during implementation, and project team members from various disciplines leverage their professional knowledge to launch the construction processes and create new knowledge from their experiences [28]. On these grounds, work on construction projects can be regarded as typically knowledge-based, and it is significant to study team learning for the construction industry. To discriminate the focal team and the whole project team, this study collectively refers to team learning in construction projects as project learning.

2.2.1. Team Voice and Project Learning

Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory [55], when team members acknowledge the dependence of cooperation results under prosocial motivation, they will settle conflicts better, behave in a more pleasant manner, and engage in greater learning [56]. Team voice, which embodies its prosocial and cooperative characteristics [13], involves communication, ideas, and concerns about work issues. These studies suggest a connection between team voice and team learning. Moreover, a familiar and safe environment can enhance individuals’ inclination to express opinions for subjective purposes [57,58]. In other words, the emergence of team voice in the workplace insinuates that the focal team feels safe and trusts the whole team, while team psychological security is an important sustainer for team learning [30]. Therefore, we speculate that there may exist an analogous direct relationship between team voice and project learning in construction projects. Specifically, a promotive voice relates to ideas and suggestions for improving current thinking, procedures, and situations [21], and such promotion-focused behavior will stimulate the whole project team to attach more importance to project learning. A prohibitive voice involves concerns about possible problems [21], which will motivate project learning for searching and creating solutions to avoid greater losses. Although prior research can indirectly support our conjecture, there is still a lack of exact empirical investigation on this subject, which is the gap that this study aims to fill in.
Thus, the hypotheses are formulated as follows:
H1: 
A promotive team voice will positively influence project learning in construction projects.
H2: 
A prohibitive team voice will positively influence project learning in construction projects.

2.2.2. Project Learning and Project Performance

Teams need team learning to understand their situation and customers and to effectively arrange team actions, especially considering the challenges and uncertainties faced by many teams [30]. Information gathering, dissemination, interpretation, storage, and retrieval may be accomplished through team learning [59,60]. This facilitates teams to accommodate the changing conditions, optimize work patterns and solve problems, which may ultimately lead to team performance improvement. Considering the benefits and generality of team learning, academia has started to test the empirical relationship between team learning and team performance [61]. Ample proof shows a positive association between learning and performance in organizations [62,63,64,65]. Previous studies also suggest learning behavior in teams is positively related to team performance [30,66,67,68,69,70]. In this regard, organizational learning theory states that enterprises generate innovation via continuous learning and knowledge management [71]. This is probably because team learning fosters shared understanding and common language among team members, which then facilitates the development of new knowledge [72]. So, this study aims to clarify the relationship between project learning and project performance within the context of construction projects.
Thus, the next hypothesis is formulated as follows:
H3: 
Project learning will positively influence project performance in construction projects.

2.3. Project Reflexivity

Self-regulation theory proposes that individuals adjust cognitions and behaviors through the comparison of the current state and expected objectives to increase the success probability; this process is also known as self-regulatory action [55,73,74]. For an MTS, such as a construction project, self-regulatory actions are achieved through team regulatory processes. The team regulatory processes include team monitoring, team goal orientation, and team goal planned speed tracking [75,76,77], which are all based on team reflexivity. Team reflexivity is defined as “the extent to which group members overtly reflect upon, and communicate about the group’s objectives, strategies (e.g., decision making), and processes (e.g., communication), and adapt them to current or anticipated circumstances” [31]. In other words, team reflexivity can be regarded as the extent of team reflection. There are different depths of reflection [78], including shallow reflection, moderate reflection, and deep reflection. The shallow reflection concentrates on immediate tasks [79], the moderate reflection emphasizes methodological criticism [79], and the deep reflection generally involves cultural norms and value issues [80]. The function of reflection in different depths is not immutable; their importance for a team in different scenarios is various. For specific types of teams, deep reflection may be more important, while for construction project teams, immediate tasks will attract more concern, due to their temporary and urgent nature [81,82,83]. Based on this, it is necessary to examine team reflexivity in construction projects. To tell the focal team and the project team apart, this study collectively refers to team reflexivity in construction project as project reflexivity.

2.3.1. Team Voice and Project Reflexivity

Considering the team voice can be understood as expressions and communications of work-related suggestions, ideas, and concerns from work teams [13], the information transmitted by the focal team through voice usually can induce reflection and discussion of the project team. After all, all the team actions stem from the common expectation of improving the project performance [2,3]. Especially for construction projects, the promotive voice from the focal team will encourage the project team to make targeted discussions, which can lead to new possible considerations of proposed constructive ideas or suggestions [84,85]. Similarly, although the complaints and concerns recognized as a team prohibitive voice may cause a negative impact on the project team to some extent [86], it can rouse vigilance and provoke the team to rethink the preventive measures of assumptions and practices [84,87,88]. Moreover, a prohibitive voice can even stimulate the emergence of explanations, introspections, and debates in conflicts.
Thus, the hypotheses are formulated as follows:
H4: 
A promotive team voice will positively influence project reflexivity in construction projects.
H5: 
A prohibitive team voice will positively influence project reflexivity in construction projects.

2.3.2. Project Reflexivity and Project Performance

Since the fundamental driver of self-regulatory actions is achieving the set goal [55,73,74], team reflexivity is served as the foundation of the team regulation process and ought to lead to positive outcomes. To verify this conjecture, scholars executed empirical works on the relationship between team reflexivity and team performance, while the conclusions are still ambiguous. Abundant evidence from existing research asserted that team reflexivity promotes team performance [89,90,91]; also, a team with higher team reflexivity represents better team performance and information processing [56]. Simultaneously, some researchers suggested team reflexivity positively influences team performance in an indirect way, such as bridging through other intermediary factors, or acting as a moderator of other interfering factors [92,93]. In addition, limited studies claimed there is a negative or even null relationship between team reflexivity and team performance under some conditions [74,94]. The inconsistency of the above conclusions indicates that the impact of team reflexivity on team performance in specific contexts requires empirical data. So, this study takes construction projects as the research background to map the MTS context, which provides further empirical evidence for exploring the impact of project reflexivity on project performance.
Thus, the next hypothesis is formulated as follows:
H6: 
Project reflexivity will positively influence project performance in construction projects.

3. Methodology

3.1. Measurement Development

To examine these proposed hypotheses, a questionnaire was designed to conduct empirical research. All survey items were derived from publicly published academic works in related realms. The measurements for team voice (including promotive voice and prohibitive voice) were transcribed from Liang et al. [21]. The project reflexivity was measured with instruments from Swift and West [78]. The scales for project learning were based on the research of Edmondson [30]. The project performance metrics referred to the study of Jia et al. [95]. All options were gauged with a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. In addition, the general project information was also considered as control variables, including project duration, project investment, project type, and project delivery mode [9]. Figure 2 was provided herein to show the conceptual model based on the proposed hypotheses, with all corresponding item measurements for every indicator, and the figure was drawn by the authors.
In order to distinguish the “team” between the focal team and the project team with an MTS, the questions related to promotive team voice and prohibitive team voice were highlighted only for the work team to which the respondent belonged, rather than the entire project team. For the questions related to project learning, project reflexivity, and project performance, the respondents were asked to answer based on the actual situation of the entire project.
As we conducted the investigation in China, a series of preparations was unfolded to ensure the scientificalness and effectiveness. We introduced the back-translation method to guarantee linguistic equivalence between English and Chinese [96]. Specifically, we translated the questionnaire content into Chinese and then invited three professors majoring in construction management, engineering management, and organization management to referee the Chinese version. The professors also discussed and revised the translated text to eliminate cultural bias and enhance accuracy. After that, four construction professionals were interviewed to comment on the understandability, appropriateness, and sensitivity of the items. Then, two project management doctoral candidates translated the Chinese version back into English. Furthermore, we distributed the questionnaire to fifteen experts and project managers engaged in the construction industry who had worked for more than three years as a pre-test. The interviewees provided suggestions on the whole data collection process, including the length of the questionnaire, the estimated time for answering, the appropriateness of the problem description, and the effective distribution method. The questionnaire was finally modified and finalized.

3.2. Data Collection

Direct management participants consisting of the executive in construction projects were the target group of this study, including the project manager, project department head, and general management involvers. Compared with other participants, the direct management participants in the focal team owned higher authority and credibility when describing the situation of team voice, the focal team, and the entire project team. The respondents were required to take one recently completed project as the answer basis. In this study, we adopted the online survey method, monetary incentive method, and chain-referral sampling method, which boosted the response rates of the questionnaire and enriched the collection of effective data. To ensure authenticity, the questionnaire was published on a popular publicly accessible questionnaire website (Tencent wenjuan) and collected anonymously. Moreover, each completed answer sheet would be automatically screened online to scrub the invalid data, while a small e-cash reward would be sent to the remaining respondents to encourage the questionnaire dissemination.
Considering the representativeness of the data, we distributed the questionnaire to the students of Master of Engineering Management (MEM) from Tongji University in China as the first batch of formal respondents. The student information manifested the divergence of the student backgrounds; although all students were employed in the construction industry, they settled in different cities, worked in various enterprises, and participated in distinct projects. More than that, we randomly sent the survey link to the alumni chatgroups of two famous universities, and we also publicized our questionnaire to construction professionals through social media. All respondents were encouraged to share the questionnaire with other colleagues or practitioners. Substantially, our questionnaire link was visited 568 times, and 195 answers were received, yielding a response rate of 34.3%. After excluding invalid data, we analyzed 184 questionnaires to examine the model. The descriptive information of respondents and projects on the control variables is shown in Table 1 and Table 2. All information in the tables was reduced from the analysis results of collected data, and the tables were drawn by the authors.
According to Table 1, the proportion of male respondents (66%) was approximately twice that of female respondents (34%), which reflected the characteristics of the construction industry. Work experience represented familiarity with construction project work, and 82% of interviewees in this investigation had worked over five years. Of the participants in 184 questionnaires, more than 90% had obtained an undergraduate degree or above. In terms of position, 24% of answerers were project managers, and 34% were the head of the project department.
As these empirical data were based on the completed projects that the respondents participated in recently, the fundamental state of the project involved is highly valued to ensure timeliness. According to Table 2, regarding team size, 35% of the respondents belonged to a team with less than 10 colleagues, 37% of the sample teams contained 10~20 employees, and 25% had more than 20. Simultaneously, 48% of the sample projects comprised 2~10 teams, 18% consisted of 11~50 teams, and 33% were more than 51. As for project duration, 37% of the sample projects were completed within one year, 26% lasted 13~24 months, and 38% covered more than two years. Correspondingly, 42% of the project expenditures were within CNY 100 million, 38% cost about CNY 101~1000 million, and 21% spent more than CNY 1000 million. Furthermore, 29% of answers pertained to the owner party, while 60% were from the contractor party. The vast majority of the type of the sample projects was municipal construction (73%), while building construction occupied 13%. Finally, for the project delivery method, 44% adopted the DBB mode, and 26% applied the DB mode.
The approach of time trend extrapolation recommended by Armstrong and Overton (1977) was adopted to examine the problem of non-response bias. We compared the early 25% of respondents with the late 25% of respondents for the main variables in our study. The t-tests suggested that there was no significant difference. Thus, non-response bias was not a serious concern in this study.

4. Analysis and Results

Partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted to analyze the data for three reasons. Firstly, research on team voice in the construction management field is still in its infancy. This study aimed to unearth the influence of team voice and the influencing mechanism, thus being exploratory, which aligned with the predictive ability of the modeled pathway of PLS-SEM [97]. Secondly, the differences in parameter estimation between PLS-SEM and covariance-based SEM (CB-SEM) were small in common scenarios of applied research; also, the resulting results of CB-SEM and consistent PLS (PLSc-SEM) were generally similar. However, given the limited data (N = 184) collected in this study, compared with CB-SEM, PLS-SEM had favorable convergence behavior, which was better at processing small-size samples without setting any distribution assumptions about the data [97,98]. A small sample size might lead to nonnormal data, which could process nonnormal outcomes through CB-SEM, while PLS-SEM presented more robust [99,100]. In addition, PLSc-SEM was usually used for theoretical model recognition deficiencies and structural models with six or more constructions [98]. Thirdly, the theoretical model in this study was complex (including multiple mediation analysis), and PLS-SEM guaranteed robust estimations for our theoretical model [101]. Simultaneously, different from regression analysis and PROCESS methods, which only allowed sequential testing of model parts and ignored the entire model structure, PLS-SEM outstandingly considered the whole theoretical structure model in the estimation process [98].

4.1. Measurement Model

We assessed reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity to verify the measurement model. Table 3 shows Cronbach’s alphas, composite reliability [102], and average variance extracted (AVE). Table 4 displays factor loadings for each indicator. The values of factor loadings for all items were above the threshold of 0.7, reaching a satisfactory level of item reliability [103]. In addition, Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.89 to 0.95, and the CRs ranged from 0.924 to 0.964, suggesting good internal consistency [103]. In addition, the minimum AVE value was 0.715, which was greater than the acceptable level of 0.5, supporting good convergent validity. Table 5 demonstrates the correlations of all constructs. Most correlations were smaller than the recommended level of 0.7. In addition, all the square roots of the AVE values were greater than the respective cross-correlations, thus establishing discriminant validity among each of the latent variables according to the Fornell–Larcker criterion [104]. Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 are shown below; all information in the tables was reduced from the analysis results of collected data, and the tables were drawn by the authors.

4.2. Structural Model

The structural model was examined by the PLS technique with SmartPLS 4. The results are shown in Figure 3, including standardized path coefficients and R-squared values of endogenous variables. All information in the figure was reduced from the analysis results of collected data, and the figure was drawn by the authors. The bootstrapping technique was adopted to examine the significance of path coefficients (10,000 resampling with 184 cases). As suggested by Figure 2, promotive team voice was found to be positively related to both project learning (b = 0.369, p < 0.001) and project reflexivity (b = 0.245, p < 0.05), thus supporting H1 and H4. Similarly, prohibitive team voice was found to have a positive effect on project reflexivity (b = 0.355, p < 0.01), thereby verifying H5. However, contrary to our derived hypothesis, prohibitive team voice negatively influenced project learning because the path from prohibitive voice to project learning was significantly negative (b = −0.181, p < 0.05). In this way, H2 did not receive empirical support. Consistent with H3 and H6, both project reflexivity (b = 0.334, p < 0.001) and project learning (b = 0.357, p < 0.001) were found to positively influence project performance. Finally, there was a positive relationship between project learning and project reflexivity (b = 0.601, p < 0.001).

4.3. The Mediating Role of Project Learning and Project Reflexivity

To examine the mediating effects of project learning and project reflexivity, the bootstrapping technique was used with 10,000 resamples. The results of the mediation analysis are displayed in Table 6; all information in the table was reduced from the analysis results of collected data, and the table was drawn by the authors. As shown in Table 6, for all examined paths, the lower and upper bounds of the 95% confidence interval did not contain 0, which supported the mediating effect [95].
Concretely, all paths shown in Table 6 illustrated that team voice could influence project performance indirectly. The path “PrmV→PR→PP” and “PrhV→PR→PP” proved the mediating role of project reflexivity between team voice and project performance. The path “PrmV→PL→PP” and “PrhV→PL→PP” suggested the mediating role of project learning between team voice and project performance. Furthermore, according to the path “PrmV→PL→PP” and “PrmV→PR→PP”, project learning and project reflexivity showed a parallel multiple mediation effect between team voice and project performance. Based on the path “PrmV→TR→PL→PP” and “PrhV→TR→PL→PP”, project learning and project reflexivity indicated chain-mediated effects between team voice and project performance.

5. Discussion

This study employed the IPO framework to explain the internal impact mechanism between team voice and project performance in construction projects. Results from 184 project participants revealed the mediating role of project learning and project reflexivity. Specifically, promotive team voice could positively impact project learning and project reflexivity, while prohibitive team voice had a positive relationship with project reflexivity but was negative to project learning. Both project learning and project reflexivity were positively related to project performance. In addition, project reflexivity could actively affect project learning. Project learning and project reflexivity were mediators between team voice and project performance. Specifically, project learning and project reflexivity together showed a parallel multiple mediation effect between team voice and project performance, and together played chain-mediated effects between prohibitive voice and project performance.
In terms of the relationship between team voice and project learning, the results were contrary, which might come from the difference between PrmV and PrhV. According to Liang et al. [21], promotive voice related to the suggestions or ideas that had a positive effect on improving the current situation, while prohibitive voice mainly meant the concerns or complaints of possible problems. Although both promotive team voice and prohibitive team voice were voice behaviors derived from altruistic and prosocial motives, prohibitive team voice was more aggressive than promotive team voice. According to Wang et al. [9], the satisfaction, trust, and commitment of the project team would foster a promotive team voice; however, satisfaction and trust had no obvious connections with a prohibitive team voice. It could be indicated that the relationship quality of the whole project team will turn to a lower level after receiving a prohibitive voice from the focal team, which could possibly interfere with collective understanding and actions, in other words, to the detriment of project learning.
As for project reflexivity, the results showed that both promotive voice and prohibitive voice could positively affect project reflexivity. This positive relationship implied that when the focal team expressed promotive team voice (i.e., suggestions or ideas on improving the current situation [21]), the project team might reflect and communicate based on the conductive suggestions and make targeted adjustments or changes to some extent. Meanwhile, if the focal team expressed prohibitive team voice (i.e., concerns or complaints of possible problems [21]), the team might reconsider the raised potential problems to avoid losses and risks. These findings reflected the effectiveness of the promotive voice and prohibitive voice in the project team, which were consistent with our ratiocination in the previous chapters. Interestingly, prohibitive team voice had a stronger impact on project reflexivity than promotive team voice. This subtle distinction might be on account of self-esteem [105]; according to social identity theory [106,107], questioning or negative attitudes more easily attract attention and cause conflict, while the team completed the reflection in the process of interpretation and debate.
Consistent with our hypothesis, both project learning and project reflexivity could positively affect project performance, which was identical to many previous research studies [30,70,89,90,91]. It was concluded that the positive relationship of project learning and project reflexivity with team performance was appropriate for both general organizational structure and multi-team organizational structure. As project performance is the common goal of all involved teams in a construction project, common and appropriate understanding from learning and reflection would provide strong support for project performance [89].
Moreover, the results notably sketched a strong positive relationship between project learning and project reflexivity. In virtue of the definition, project learning and project reflexivity emphasize the collective conception. Specifically, team reflexivity was the extent of collective reflection [31], while team learning was the process of collective reflection [30]. This implied that team reflexivity related to team learning through knowledge exchange at the collective level. In this regard, other researchers suggested that team reflexivity could urge team learning with systematic information processing and collective knowledge sharing [56,108], which might provide explanations.
In general, the bridge role of the consequential factors between team voice and project performance could be safely confirmed. Project reflexivity was proven to play one mediating role between prohibitive team voice and project performance. Promotive team voice could possibly influence project performance through project learning and project reflexivity simultaneously, which presented a parallel multiple mediation effect. Based on the positive attitude of scholars toward the relationship between voice behavior and performance [44], this study further provided an explanation for the underlying mechanism under a construction project background. Furthermore, the path of project learning and project reflexivity between team voice and project performance indicated the chain multiple mediation effect, which was caused by the inextricable connection between project learning and project reflexivity. Also, these mediation relationships verified the effectiveness of the IPO framework.

6. Conclusions

This study adopted the IPO framework to open the black box of the relationship between team voice and project performance in the context of construction projects by revealing the mediating role of project learning and project reflexivity. Specifically, the main conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) team voice impacts project performance through its consequential factors; (2) project learning mediates the relationship between team voice and project performance; and (3) project reflexivity mediates the relationship between team voice and project performance. This study contributes to the literature on team voice and the understanding of project management.

6.1. Implications

This study makes theoretical contributions in the following aspects.
Firstly, this study opens the black box between team voice and project performance in the context of construction projects by revealing the mediating role of project learning and project reflexivity, which echoes the recent call for empirical work on the mechanism between voice behavior and its positive outcomes [44]. Although prior literature suggested the benign relationship between voice behavior and group functioning [13], this study corroborates its applicability at the team level in the context of construction projects and demonstrates this mediating path by adopting the IPO framework, which deepens the theoretical understanding of promoting project performance.
Secondly, this progresses the relevant research on voice behavior. The distinction between the promotive and prohibitive team voices in this study deepens the understanding of their different meanings. Also, previous studies of team voice focused on the antecedents [9], while the existing studies of the voices’ consequences focused on the individual level [43,44,45,46]. This study compensates for the research deficiency on the consequence factors of team voice.
Thirdly, this study contributes to the literature on MTSs. Although some prior research studies attempted to understand how the focal team affected the overall performance of the MTS in the context of the construction project [3], they rarely probed from the voice perspective. Essentially, voice behavior is an act of providing information, while information is the foundation of collaboration between teams. Therefore, it is significant to study how the focal team impacts system performance from the perspective of voice behavior. This study demonstrates the impact of a single team’s voice on system performance on a multi-team scale and reveals the impact paths, providing a new perspective for MTS knowledge.
This study also provides practical implications in the following aspects.
Firstly, this study has a directive function for construction project management and MTS management. Voice behavior, reflexivity, and learning are common organizational actions in the work routine. These three processes can facilitate the exchange of opinions and knowledge within the organization, thus strengthening cooperation. For managers, the understanding and acceptance of teamwork skills figures prominently in a team-based organization [109,110]. The mediating role of project learning and project reflexivity between team voice and project performance in this study can provide managers with guidance and explanation of teamwork skills. Therefore, managers should encourage and think highly of the expression from participant teams in MTSs, which will help to enhance the project performance. The opinions spoken from the team level imply a higher level of importance and value.
Secondly, this study also suggests that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners need to better emphasize the necessity and importance of project learning and project reflexivity, which is conducive to project performance directly. Specifically, submitting regular feedback reports, conducting collective lectures, establishing information exchange platforms, etc., can effectively stimulate project learning and project reflexivity, thereby promoting project performance.

6.2. Limitations and Future Research

There are inevitable limitations in this study.
Firstly, although this study explains the impact path of team voice on project performance through project learning and project reflexivity in construction projects, other factors from different perspectives may also reveal the underlying influence mechanism of team voice on project performance., Sophisticated elements are involved in project management, such as the operating environment, the role of the project manager, the integration strategy, and so on [111], which may be affected by team voice and then influence project performance. The issue of team voice in construction projects requires more systematic discussion and research in the future.
Secondly, team voice is a dynamic action in practice that needs long-term observation and statistics, while this study collected only cross-sectional data as analyzed samples. A team is composed of individuals, so the dynamic individual reflexivity development of members may also affect the team status [112]. Furthermore, the respondents of this study only collected data from the focal team, without other teams or supporting colleagues in the same project. If future research can collect long-term data from more participant teams in the same construction project team, the conclusion will be more accurate.
Thirdly, notwithstanding the fact that project learning and project reflexivity are common team processes for all organizations worldwide, all the sample data were gathered from China in this study. Future research should better collect data from more countries and regions to avoid regionality.

Author Contributions

Project administration, D.W.; investigation, D.W.; conceptualization, D.W. and J.J.; formal analysis, D.W. and S.J.; methodology, D.W. and T.L.; funding acquisition, G.M.; supervision, G.M.; software, D.W. and J.J.; writing—original draft, D.W.; writing—review and editing, D.W. and J.J. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) No. 72171177, Ministry of Education in China (MOE) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences No. 21YJAZH059, and National Key P&D Program of China No. 2022YFB26022.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Buildings 13 01599 g001 550
Figure 1. Research framework.
Figure 1. Research framework.
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Figure 2. The conceptual model with indicators and corresponding measurements.
Figure 2. The conceptual model with indicators and corresponding measurements.
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Figure 3. Structural model analysis results.
Figure 3. Structural model analysis results.
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Table
Table 1. Descriptive information of respondents (N = 184).
Table 1. Descriptive information of respondents (N = 184).
ProfileFrequencyPercentage
Gender
Male12166
Female6334
Working years
≤53318
6~109753
11~153117
16~2084
>20158
Education
Junior college or below137
Undergraduate11764
Master or above5429
Position
Project manager4424
Project department head6234
Project engineer7842
Table
Table 2. Descriptive information of projects (N = 184).
Table 2. Descriptive information of projects (N = 184).
ProfileFrequencyPercentage
Team Size
≤53117
6~105128
11~205630
21~30137
≥313318
Number of teams
2~55228
6~103720
11~203217
21~30158
31~4084
41~5074
>503318
Project duration
6 months or below3620
7~12 months3217
13~24 months4726
25 months or above6938
Project cost
<CNY 50 million5429
CNY 50~100 million2313
CNY 101~1000 million6938
>CNY 1000 million3821
Project party
Owner5429
Contractor11060
Others2011
Project type
Building construction2313
Municipal construction13473
Others2715
Project delivery method
Design-Bid-Build (DBB)8144
Design and Build (DB)4726
Construction Management at Risk (CMAR)95
Others4726
Table
Table 3. Results of confirmatory factor analysis.
Table 3. Results of confirmatory factor analysis.
ConstructsCronbach’s Alpharho_AComposite ReliabilityAVE
PP0.9020.910.9270.717
PrhV0.90.9060.9260.715
PrmV0.950.9540.9640.871
PL0.940.9410.9570.849
TR0.890.8990.9240.752
Note: PP = project performance; PrhV = prohibitive team voice; PrmV = promotive team voice; PL = project learning; and PR = project reflexivity.
Table
Table 4. Factor loadings of research constructs.
Table 4. Factor loadings of research constructs.
PPPrhVPrmVTLTR
PP10.811
PP20.83
PP30.884
PP40.865
PP50.842
PrhV1 0.786
PrhV2 0.877
PrhV3 0.85
PrhV4 0.842
PrhV5 0.869
PrmV1 0.944
PrmV2 0.948
PrmV3 0.926
PrmV4 0.913
TL1 0.927
TL2 0.926
TL3 0.928
TL4 0.903
TR1 0.846
TR2 0.85
TR3 0.876
TR4 0.896
Note: PP = project performance; PrhV = prohibitive team voice; PrmV = promotive team voice; PL = project learning; and PR = project reflexivity.
Table
Table 5. Correlation matrix.
Table 5. Correlation matrix.
PPPrhVPrmVTLTR
PP0.847
PrhV0.5970.845
PrmV0.5910.7440.933
TL0.5880.4170.5410.921
TR0.5810.5370.5090.6920.867
Note: Bold values are square root of average variance extracted. PP = project performance; PrhV = prohibitive team voice; PrmV = promotive team voice; PL = project learning; and PR = project reflexivity.
Table
Table 6. Result of mediation analysis.
Table 6. Result of mediation analysis.
95% Bootstrapping
Confidence Interval
PathOriginal
Sample (O)		Standard
Deviation
(STDEV)		T Statistics
(|O/STDEV|)		p ValuesLower BoundUpper Bound
PrmV→PL→PP0.1320.0413.2210.0010.060.215
PrhV→PL→PP−0.0650.0312.0750.038−0.127−0.002
PrmV→PR→PP0.0820.0411.9830.0480.0080.168
PrhV→PR→PP0.1180.0552.1630.0310.0290.235
PrhV→PR→PL→PP0.0760.0322.4160.0160.0250.148
PrmV→PR→PL→PP0.0530.0291.8410.0660.0070.118
Note: PP = project performance; PrhV = prohibitive team voice; PrmV = promotive team voice; PL = project learning; and PR = project reflexivity.
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Wang, D.; Jia, J.; Jiang, S.; Liu, T.; Ma, G. How Team Voice Contributes to Construction Project Performance: The Mediating Role of Project Learning and Project Reflexivity. Buildings 2023, 13, 1599. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071599

AMA Style

Wang D, Jia J, Jiang S, Liu T, Ma G. How Team Voice Contributes to Construction Project Performance: The Mediating Role of Project Learning and Project Reflexivity. Buildings. 2023; 13(7):1599. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071599

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wang, Ding, Jianyao Jia, Shan Jiang, Tianyi Liu, and Guofeng Ma. 2023. "How Team Voice Contributes to Construction Project Performance: The Mediating Role of Project Learning and Project Reflexivity" Buildings 13, no. 7: 1599. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071599

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