On the Same Side of the Faultline: Inclusion in the Leader's Subgroup and Employee Performance

Abstract

Extending theory on faultlines and subgroups, we argue that faultlines splitting a team into homogeneous subgroups can have different effects on team members' individual performance, depending on different intra-subgroup processes. Specifically, we propose that the effect of faultline strength on individual performance depends on whether a team member's subgroup includes the team leader. Building on the notion of faultline triggers, we further propose that organizational crises exacerbate this interaction because they make social support by the team leader especially important. We tested these assumptions with objective performance data collected over a period of four years from 3263 financial consultants (325 teams) while controlling for the effects of relational demography. Results showed that in teams with strong faultlines, consultants' performance decreased to a lesser extent in crisis years if the consultants shared a subgroup with their team leader. Thus, faultlines had different effects on team members from different subgroups.

Beyond the mean: Understanding firm‐level consequences of variability in diversity climate perceptions

“…Leaders have been argued to act as interpretative filters of organizational events (Luria, ) and have been found to influence the emergence of consensus in climate perceptions (González‐Romá & Peiró, ). Future research may aim at extending these findings by considering differentiated forms of leadership (e.g., leader–member exchange differentiation and differentiated individual‐focused transformational leadership) along with leaders' own attitudes toward diversity (Greer et al, ) or their subgroup membership (Meyer, Shemla, Li, & Wegge, ) as these factors may lead to systematic variations in the treatment of demographically (dis‐)similar followers. As for the consequences of demographic splits in diversity climate perceptions, future multilevel research may also consider individual‐level effects, as deviations from dominant diversity climate perceptions may have different implications for members of low‐ and high‐status groups.…”

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

“…Accordingly, one study found that members of larger subgroups are more likely to exhibit social loafing behavior, especially if they displayed low levels of social competence (Meyer, Schermuly, & Kauffeld, 2016). Similarly, members of homogeneous subgroups that include the leader of the team perform better than members of leaderless subgroups if the organization faces a crisis (Meyer, Shemla, Li, & Wegge, 2015). These findings show that diversity-related processes can operate between the individual and the team level of analysis.…”

“…A recent review of these contingencies (Guillaume et al, in press) identifies no less than six broad categories of moderators spanning multiple levels from the individual team member to the organization (strategy, unit design, human resource management practices, leadership, climate and culture, and individual differences among team members). Accordingly, there is a clear need for overarching theories integrating multiple levels of analysis, which is also evident in the fact that an increasing number of recent studies adopt multilevel frameworks (Joshi, in press;Joshi & Knight, 2015;Leslie, in press;Meyer et al, 2015;Richard, Stewart, McKay, & Sackett, in press). A microdynamic perspective is particularly necessary when considering temporal dynamics, which has been largely absent in diversity research (Cronin et al, 2011;Humphrey & Aime, 2014).…”

Combining stock‐and‐flow, agent‐based, and social network methods to model team performance

“…Somewhat in contrast, Meyer et al . () argue that individual performance in a team improves when the team leader is of the same subgroup. This might be extended to argue that clustering team members of the same subgroup together might improve overall team performance.…”