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Swim or sink together
(2015)
This article investigates collective team identification and team member alignment (i.e., the existence of short- and long-term team goals and team-based reward structures) as moderators of the association between task and relationship conflicts. Being indicators of cooperative goal interdependence in teams, both moderators are hypothesized to mitigate the positive association between the two conflict types. Findings from 88 development teams confirm the moderating effect for collective team identification, but not for team member alignment. Moreover, the moderating role of collective team identification is found to be dependent on the level of task conflict: It is more effective in decoupling task and relationship conflicts at medium as compared with high or low levels of task conflict.
Findings in the extant literature are mixed concerning when and how gender diversity benefits team performance. We develop and test a model that posits that gender-diverse teams outperform gender-homogeneous teams when perceived time pressure is low, whereas the opposite is the case when perceived time pressure is high. Drawing on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM; van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004), we begin with the assumption that information elaboration is the process whereby gender diversity fosters positive effects on team performance. However, also in line with the CEM, we argue that this process can be disrupted by adverse team dynamics. Specifically, we argue that as time pressure increases, higher gender diversity leads to more team withdrawal, which, in turn, moderates the positive indirect effect of gender diversity on team performance via information elaboration such that this effect becomes weaker as team withdrawal increases. In an experimental study of 142 four-person teams, we found support for this model that explains why perceived time pressure affects the performance of gender-diverse teams more negatively than that of gender-homogeneous teams. Our study sheds new light on when and how gender diversity can become either an asset or a liability for team performance.