تنوع عمقی تیم، درگیری رابطه، و واکنش های عاطفی اعضای تیم : بررسی در سطح مقطعی

Drawing from recent advances in the study of deep-level diversity in work teams and the similarity–attraction paradigm, this study examines the ways in which diversity in personality characteristics and preference for teamwork among team members influences the relationship between relationship conflict and subsequent team member affective reactions. Using a longitudinal, multilevel sample of 53 teams (260 respondents), results reveal that similarity or homogeneity in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability weakens the negative influence of relationship conflict on team member affective reactions, while heterogeneity in extraversion and preference for teamwork also weakens these relationships. A discussion of theoretical and practical implications follows.

A number of recent studies have advanced understanding of how deep-level composition variables influence team effectiveness (e.g., Barrick et al., 1998, Bell, 2007, Harrison et al., 1998, Harrison et al., 2002, Peeters et al., 2006a and Peeters et al., 2006b). Some consider how diversity in deep-level composition variables may influence team processes and outcomes, yielding “a vast array of mixed results” (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008, p. 439). Two dominant theoretical paradigms are popular in the diversity literature to examine the positive or negative influence of deep-level diversity: the social categorization/similarity–attraction perspective (e.g., Byrne, 1971, Jackson, 1992, Tajfel, 1981 and Williams and O'Reilly, 1998) and the information processing/decision making perspective (e.g., Auh and Menguc, 2006 and van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). As van Knippenberg and Schippers (2007, p. 518) note, however, “In their simplest form (a main effect of diversity), neither analysis is supported. Evidence for the positive as well as for the negative effects of diversity is highly inconsistent … and raises the question of whether, and how, the perspectives on the positive and negative effects of diversity can be reconciled and integrated.” Team relationship conflict refers to disagreement and infighting due to personal “incompatibility …, which typically includes tension, animosity, and annoyance among members within a group” (Jehn, 1995, p. 258). In contrast to task-related conflict, relationship conflict involves contrasting viewpoints, ideas, opinions, feelings, and emotions that are not about the task at hand (Bono et al., 2002 and Parayitam and Dooley, 2009). Relationship conflict also reflects interpersonal tensions (Edmondson & Smith, 2006). Prior research examining how deep-level diversity and relationship conflict are related has considered the “main effect” of deep-level diversity on relationship conflict (e.g., Mohammed & Angell, 2004). In keeping with the similarity–attraction paradigm (Byrne, 1971), however, similarity among team members in personality and values may indirectly influence team members by interacting with team relationship conflict. This study examines whether similarity in team members' deep-level characteristics mitigates the negative influence of team relationship conflict on team members' affective reactions. Consistent with deep-level diversity research (Bell, 2007 and Mohammed and Angell, 2003), this study considers deep-level diversity with respect to the Big Five dimensions of personality and preference for team-based work (Campion et al., 1993 and Hackman, 1987). Most prior research focuses on the team performance effects of both deep-level diversity and relationship conflict, although affective reactions of team members are equally important team effectiveness criteria (Hackman, 1987). In fact, relationship conflict and deep-level diversity may have a stronger effect on individual-level, perceptual affective reactions (e.g., desire to remain and satisfaction with the team) rather than on team-level performance (see Mohammed & Angell, 2003), because affective reactions are highly influenced by social interaction (Hackman, 1992). This effect likely occurs first at the individual level, as team members perceive the ambient stimuli provided by others on their team and formulate attitudes about the team. However, scholars tend to study the respective impacts of deep-level diversity in work teams (e.g., Bell, 2007, Harrison et al., 1998, Harrison et al., 2002, Mohammed and Angell, 2003, Mohammed and Angell, 2004 and van Knippenberg et al., 2004) and relationship conflict (e.g. Jehn, 1995 and Mohammed and Angell, 2004) at a single level of analysis—usually just the team level. Therefore, the contributions of this study are examining how and why individual team members react to team-level relationship conflict and how and why the reaction might be mitigated by team-level deep-level similarity. The study focuses on two affective reactions of individual team members–satisfaction and desire to remain with the team–and uses multilevel analyses (Bliese and Ployhart, 2002 and Hofmann, 1997) to test cross-level hypotheses.

The current study focuses on the moderating effect of deep-level diversity characteristics in teams on the relationship between relationship conflict and individual satisfaction and desire to remain with the team. In general, this study shows that the team members on teams that are more similar with respect to agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability are better able to cope with relationship conflict, thus preventing conflict from negatively influencing their affective reactions. Future research should continue to examine the effects of similarity vs. heterogeneity of deep-level diversity characteristics and how that may both contribute to and mitigate the negative effects of team conflict.