Building Innovative Teams: Exploring the Positive Contribute of Emotions Expression and Affective Commitment

The current challenging organizational context demands that organizations adapt quickly and continuously in order to survive and maintain their competitive advantage. Considering this need, one of the responses given by companies has been the valorization of work teams and their capacity for innovation, as well as fostering positive skills and emergent states in employees, such as emotional carrying capacity and affective commitment, respectively. The aim of this research is thus to study the relationship between emotional carrying capacity and group innovation, considering affective commitment as the mediating variable. To test these relationships, an empirical cross-sectional study was conducted including 138 Portuguese work teams belonging to different sectors of activity, composed of 625 members and their respective leaders. The results were analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM) and showed positive relationships between emotional carrying capacity and affective commitment, as well as between affective commitment and group innovation. In addition, the mediating role of affective commitment in the relationship between emotional carrying capacity and group innovation was also supported. Therefore, the results suggest that a work context in which members openly express their emotions contributes to reinforcing their affective attachment to the group, making them feel more involved and available to test and implement new ideas and procedures. The findings reinforce the benefits of promoting the expression of emotions and the development of healthy bonds between team members.