Professor Qin Xin's interdisciplinary team of our school has made important theoretical progress in the field of team and culture

Recently, the latest research result of Professor Qin Xin's interdisciplinary team of our school "Collectivism Can Impair Team Performance When Relational Goals Conflict with Group Goals" was published in the international authoritative psychology journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB). The study challenges a basic assumption in the field of team and culture that collectivism is always beneficial to team performance, and further identifies situations where collectivism can impair team performance (i.e. when relational goals conflict with group goals). This research is from Professor Qin Xin of Sun Yat-sen University (first author), Associate Professor Kai Chi Yam of National University of Singapore, Associate Professor Ye Wenping of Jinan University, Professor Zhang Junsheng of Sun Yat-sen University, Associate Professor Liang Xueji of Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool University, Associate Professor Zhang Xiaoyu of Sun Yat-sen University and Professor Krishna Savani of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, founded in 1974, is the flagship journal of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, focusing on cutting-edge research in psychology and related interdiscipline.

This research has important theoretical contributions to team and cultural research, and has important policy implications for team practice. Theoretically, this research challenges a basic assumption in the field of team and culture that collectivism is always beneficial to team performance, and further identifies situations where collectivism can impair team performance (i.e., when relational goals conflict with group goals). On the one hand, collectivism promotes team performance as a whole; On the other hand, by finding that collectivism can impair team performance in some situations, the research provides a more balanced theoretical perspective for collectivism and a theoretical possibility for collectivism to "foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses". In practice, the research suggests that it is particularly important to distinguish between situations where relational goals conflict or non-conflict with group goals. For example, in team sports such as football and basketball, which involve sequential coordination between teammates, relational goals often conflict with group goals. In contrast, in team sports which involve simultaneous but non-sequential coordination (e.g. curling, group gymnastics, and group table tennis), relational goals rarely conflict with group goals. On the premise of distinguishing the above situations, we may take some policies or measures to improve team performance.