Abstract: During group decision-making, experts play important roles because they are expected to have the necessary related expertise to facilitate the process. However, in most of the past researches group experts have been set to be competent, few has concerned the role of incompetent expert. This study aimed to explore the influence of incompetent expert on group interaction processes from the power dynamic perspective. Three-member decision-making groups were formed with a leader, an expert, and a team member. Groups were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (competent-expert condition vs. incompetent-expert condition). The competence level of the expert was manipulated by information distribution. In the competent-expert condition, the expert received all of necessary information to make the correct decision. However, in the incompetent-expert condition, the information that the expert received was no more than other team members, and the initial preference of the expert was incorrect based on the information he had. The final valid data were 40 teams (120 individuals), with 20 teams in each condition. All teams engaged in a fire rescue decision-making task using hidden profile paradigm, in which teams could only discover the optimal alternative if their members exchanged and integrated their unshared information. The results demonstrated that compared with the competent-expert condition, there emerge a team member compensation effect. That is, during the decision-making process, the average low-status team member significantly increased his dominant behavior (including total speaking time and turn taking) and leadership functional behavior, containing both task-related functional behaviors and socioemotion-related functional behaviors. Moreover, the average low-status team member became more influential in a team when its expert is incompetent compared with teams with competent experts. Further analysis suggested that the openness of the leader moderate the relationship between expert manipulation and low-status member influence. Specifically, only when leader is high on openness could the low-status member increase his influence level significantly. The present study contributes to the literature and practice in the following ways. First, it explores the effect of incompetent expert on group interaction patterns. Results have demonstrated the group adaptation under the incompetent-expert condition. It also revealed the effects of compensation from low-status members. What is more, result also suggested that not all team are equally adaptive, only when their leaders are open enough, could the potential values of low-status members be released. There are some limitations future research could take into consideration. First, the participants in this study are all male, future research could use mixed gender team to extend the generalizability of the results. Secondly, to eliminate the impact of time pressure on team decision making. This study did not require team complete their discussion within a certain time. Thus, time duration among different team varied a lot. However, time, pace and rhythm are regarded important by more and more team researchers. Exploration of the interaction pattern changes with time dimension in future research is quite promising.

Key words: incompetent expert, group adaptation, interaction behaviors, influence

摘要： 团队中专家的作用日益受到关注，而不胜任专家对于团队互动模式的影响鲜有研究。采用实验室任务团队，通过对专家胜任力进行精确操纵，研究发现不胜任专家团队条件下出现了明显的“成员补偿效应”。即普通成员的主导行为和功能性行为显著增加；影响力水平显著提升。同时，普通成员影响力水平受到领导开放性的调节。只有在高领导开放性的团队中，普通成员对不胜任专家的补偿效应才能发挥作用。

关键词: 不胜任专家, 团队适应性, 互动行为, 影响力