Mingchang WU, Ya-Hsueh CHEN*
*Professor, Graduate School of Technological & Vocational Education, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
**Doctor, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.

Abstract

Problem Statement: Inter-instituted collaboration has attracted broad attention for educational quality improvement in the last decade. The team performance of these innovative team projects received foremost attention, particularly with knowledge-sharing, emotional intelligence, and team conflicts.

Purpose of Study: The purpose of the study was to empirically investigate the relationships among these three factors. The sample of this study was 178 professors, involving collaboration projects from twenty vocational institutes at the higher-education level.

Methods: The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 17.0 for Windows and LISREL 8.70 for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Also, the study undertook the Maximum Likelihood Estimation to analyze the linear relationships among the three major variables.

Results: The statistical analysis result indicated that knowledge-sharing created a positive effect on team performance. On the other hand, team conflict caused a negative effect on team performance. Emotional intelligence did not have any significant direct effect on team performance but played a moderating role.

Conclusions and Recommendations: This study concluded that vocational institutes are academic organizations where knowledge-sharing is a crucial mission and where strategies are put into place to fulfill that mission; team conflict should be avoided for better team performance. This study finally proposed several suggestions for improved team performance.