Organizational change and innovation are critical for business survival and more likely to occur when employees engage in change-oriented behaviors. Previous studies have examined the direct effects of workplace social exchanges on employees’ change-oriented behaviors; however, less attention has been given to the combined effects of these exchanges and the mechanisms by which these relationships occur. In this study, I look at the combined effects of leader-member exchange, trust in team members, and perceived organizational support on voice, innovative, and learning behaviors via psychological safety. In addition, based on the understanding that psychological safety is not always present in the work environment, I look at the conditions under which these workplace social exchanges lead to the aforementioned behaviors even when psychological safety is low or absent. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is three-fold: (1) to explore the combined effects of leader-member exchange, trust in team members, and perceived organizational support in improving followers’ psychological safety within the organization, (2) to investigate the mediating role of psychological safety on the relationships between workplace social exchanges and followers’ change-oriented behaviors, and (3) to expand on previous findings and examine the conditions under which these social exchanges and psychological safety lead to followers’ change-oriented behaviors. Specifically, I propose and test a theoretical model derived from social exchange theory to examine conditional indirect effects of leader-member exchange, trust in team members, and perceived organizational support on voice, innovative, and learning behaviors through psychological safety within the organization, and to examine the role of proactive personality, political skill, perceived team social integration, perceived support for innovation and perceived organizational justice as second stage moderating variables that may compensate for low psychological safety within the organization. My theoretical model was tested using lagged data collected from leader-follower dyads representing 174 followers and 85 leaders from four organizations located in the United States. To test this theoretical model, I used a quantitative non-experimental research design, a survey method, and multilevel analytical procedures.

More than ninety per cent of projects are run by project teams and the stronger the team the more likely the project will succeed. Team building activities are performed to both increase team performance and to enhance the likelihood of project success. For the purpose of this study, information technology (IT) business projects were chosen as IT is a major driving force in business today and there is widespread dissatisfaction with the performance of IT business projects. In analysing the causes of dissatisfaction, increasingly researchers are recognising that technology is a secondary issue behind the human side of project team management. Business projects were chosen because increasingly IT is being used in the business environment to solve problems in the post-industrial era characterised by the service industry, while the manufacturing industry, from which much of the project literature has emerged, reduces. The importance of the project team in developing IT business projects is well recognised and managers are concerned about their ability to transform an ad-hoc collection of people assigned to a particular project into a coherent, integrated project team. In most cases the activities recommended to build a successful IT business project team have been theoretically based, rather than empirically founded. The goal of this research was to investigate the team building activities used on successful projects. To achieve this goal, the research defines the key measures of project success and establishes their relative importance; determines the most important team building activities for project success with experienced project managers; enhances the understanding of implementation of team building activities on successful projects; and provides suggestions on how to increase the likelihood of project success through focusing on team building activities. The research used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to develop a hierarchical model linking project success measures with team building activities. Confirmation of the AHP results and additional understanding of team building activities implementation was achieved by interviewing experienced project managers. The research found that customer satisfaction, although seldom used, was significantly more important as a project success measure than the three measures most often used - time, budget and scope. As identified by project managers, the most important team building activities for achieving customer satisfaction are team leadership; ensuring senior management support; staffing the team properly; planning the project with the team and empowering team members; building commitment among team members; developing strong communication channels and developing appropriate organisational interfaces. The research found successful projects focused on relationships in addition to the task focus of many project methodologies. The research findings on team building activities will enable project leaders on IT business projects to develop empowered project teams with stronger affiliations and support throughout the organisation. By empowering project teams to create effective internal and external relationships there will be fewer project failures, increased customer satisfaction and improved achievement of project success.