هنگامی که ارزش های اعضای تیم متفاوت است : نقش تعدیل کننده رهبری تیم

Integrating theory and research on values, diversity, situational strength, and team leadership, we proposed that team leadership moderates the effects of values diversity on team conflict. In a longitudinal survey study of national service teams, we found significant, but opposite, moderating effects of task-focused and person-focused leadership. As predicted, task-focused leadership attenuated the diversity–conflict relationship, while person-focused leadership exacerbated the diversity–conflict relationship. More specifically, task-focused leadership decreased the relationship between work ethic diversity and team conflict. Person-focused leadership increased the relationship between traditionalism diversity and team conflict. Team conflict mediated the effects of the interactions of leadership and values diversity on team effectiveness.

In recent decades, as the workplace has grown increasingly diverse and the use of work teams has grown increasingly common, numerous scholars have investigated the effects of team diversity on team processes and performance (for reviews see Jackson et al., 2003 and Mannix and Neale, 2005; van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). Relatively few consistent findings have emerged from this research. Rather, the effects of team diversity on team outcomes, and even the effects of specific types of team diversity on team outcomes, vary considerably from study to study (e.g., Bell, 2007, van Knippenberg et al., 2004 and van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). To make sense of the array of findings, reviewers of the literature have called for: (a) greater care in conceptualizing, and differentiating among, types of diversity (e.g., Harrison and Klein, 2007 and McGrath et al., 1995); (b) greater attention to the diversity of deep-level team member attributes, such as values and attitudes (e.g., Dose and Klimoski, 1999, Harrison et al., 2002 and van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007); and (c) further exploration of the processes and contextual factors that may mediate and moderate, respectively, the effects of diversity on team outcomes (e.g., Joshi and Roh, 2007, Joshi and Roh, 2008, van Knippenberg et al., 2004 and van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). Heeding these calls, we investigated the effects of team values diversity – a form of deep-level team diversity – on team effectiveness, hypothesizing that team conflict mediates and team leadership moderates the effects of team values diversity on team effectiveness. Values are foundational for human behavior and identity (Dose, 1999). They are “generalized, enduring beliefs about the personal and social desirability of modes of conduct or ‘end-states’ of existence” (Kabanoff, Waldersee, & Cohen, 1995, p. 1076). They guide individuals in deciding how they “‘should’ or ‘ought’ to behave” (Meglino & Ravlin, 1998, p. 354) and “convey what is important to us in our lives” (Bardi & Schwartz, 2003, p. 120). Team members whose values differ markedly may thus hold different assumptions and expectations about one another’s behavior, making it difficult to achieve consensus and to collaborate and coordinate with one another (Jehn and Mannix, 2001 and Kirkman and Shapiro, 2005). In short, team conflict may increase, and team effectiveness decrease, as a consequence of team values diversity. Despite the central role that values play across multiple facets of individuals’ lives, few researchers have investigated the effects of values diversity on team effectiveness and the team-level processes that may mediate such effects. Fewer still have examined the contextual factors that may moderate the effects of values diversity on team outcomes. Contextual factors are critical, we argue, shaping the strength of the situation (Meyer et al., 2010, Mischel, 1973 and Mischel, 2004) and thus the extent to which individual differences, such as individual values, guide and predict individual behavior within a situation or setting (Bardi & Schwartz, 2003). One likely determinant of the strength of a team setting, and a focus of our research, is the team leader’s behavioral style. Building on the fundamentals of leadership theory and research (e.g., Fleishman, 1953 and House, 1971), we argue that leaders who are high in task-focused leadership create a strong situation that restricts team members from expressing their individual values, and lessens the extent to which values diversity yields team conflict. Leaders who are high in person-focused leadership, in contrast, legitimize individual team members’ perspectives, creating a weaker team situation that frees the expression of team members’ values and increases the likelihood that team values diversity begets team conflict. Because team conflict may impair team effectiveness (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003), the interactive effects of team leadership and team values diversity may have important consequences not only for team conflict, but for team effectiveness as well. We thus propose a mediated-moderation model, in which team conflict mediates the effect of the interaction of values diversity and team leadership on team effectiveness. Our research contributes to the literature in four key ways. First, we move beyond demographic diversity to examine the effects of values diversity in teams. Little studied in prior research, values diversity may divide a team, fostering team conflict and inhibiting team effectiveness, our results suggest. Second, we highlight the complex and nuanced nature of team values diversity. Our findings illustrate that the effects of team values diversity on team effectiveness are mediated by team conflict and depend not only on specific team leader behaviors but also on the specific values that separate team members. Third, we contribute to a nascent body of research examining the moderating effects of team leadership on the diversity–team effectiveness relationship, proposing and documenting that leader behaviors may either exacerbate or attenuate the detrimental effects of values diversity in teams. And fourth, our findings stimulate new questions and ideas for theory-building and research on team diversity.

Our findings offer important new insights regarding the interactive effects of values diversity and leadership and prompt new questions for organizational scholars to explore in theory and research. For team leaders, our findings offer guidance and a cautionary note: when leading teams high in values diversity, especially work ethic diversity, practice task-focused leadership and hold back, especially in teams high in traditionalism diversity, in offering person-focused leadership. Leaders can and do, our findings suggest, play a key role in shaping the consequences of team diversity for team processes and outcomes.