Microdynamics in Diverse Teams: A Review and Integration of the Diversity and Stereotyping Literatures

Abstract

Research on the consequences of diversity in teams continues to produce inconsistent results.We review the recent developments in diversity research and identify two shortcomings. First, an understanding of the microdynamics affecting processes and outcomes in diverse teams is lacking. Second, diversity research has tended to treat different social categories as equivalent and thus not considered how members' experiences may be affected by their social category membership. We address these shortcomings by reviewing research on stereotypes, which indicates that stereotypes initiate reinforcing microdynamics among (a) attributions of a target team member's warmth and competence, (b) perceiving members' behavior towards the target team member, and (c) the target team member's behavior. Our review suggests that perceivers' impression formation motivation is the key determinant of the extent to which perceivers continue to treat a target based on categorization. Based on our review, we provide an integrative perspective and corresponding model that outlines these microdynamics of diversity and stereotyping in teams and indicates how stereotyping can benefit as well as harm team functioning. We discuss how this integrative perspective on the microdynamics of diversity and stereotyping in teams relates to the social categorization and the information/decision-making perspective, set a research agenda, and discuss the managerial implications. KeywordsDiversity; Teams; Stereotypes; Microdynamics; Performance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 2 Page 2 of 101 Academy of Management Annals Microdynamics in Diverse Teams: A Review and Integration of the Diversity and Stereotyping LiteraturesGlobalization, demographic changes, and the increased use of teams in contemporary organizations have created a surge in research on the consequences of different team members working together . The many recent meta-analyses on the consequences of team diversity signify the considerable amount of attention that has gone to this field of study (e.g., Bell, 2007; Bell, Villado, Lukasik, Belau, & Briggs, 2011;Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007;Joshi & Roh, 2009;van Dijk, van Engen, & van Knippenberg, 2012). For the past two decades, diversity research has mainly relied on a dual theoretical approach where the social categorization and the information/decision-making perspectives inform answers to the questions why and how diversity affects team performance (Milliken & Martins, 1996; van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004;Williams & O'reilly, 1998). There is much that we have learned from these perspectives, but despite the fact that theories have been advanced and research models have become more sophisticated, so far the main conclusion that has been drawn is that research on the relationship between team diversity and team performance is inconclus...

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