Searching for Common Threads: Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups

Milliken, Frances J.; Martins, Luis L.

doi:10.2307/258667

Cited by 1,473 publications

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“…The underlying assumption is that heterogeneous teams are composed by members with more diverse life and organizational experiences than homogeneous teams (Milliken & Martins, 1996). When different perspectives and experiences come into play in a work group, conflicts within the group may arise (Pelled et al, 1999).…”

Section: Diversity and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the black box in Brazilian work groups: a study of diversity, conflict and performance

Sobral

Bisseling

2012

BAR, Braz. Adm. Rev.

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Over the last few decades, several studies have been conducted to examine the complex relationships between team diversity and individual and organizational outcomes. Although, in theory, team diversity can foster positive organizational synergies by increasing the variance of perspectives and approaches to work different members can bring, the same idiosyncratic characteristics can also engender significant difficulties resulting from problems in coordination, communication and conflict. This study used a sample of 44 work groups to examine the influence of five types of diversity on team outcomes and the mediating role of task and relational conflict on this relationship. A survey of 279 team members and interviews with the 44 team managers were used to examine these relationships. Findings suggest that different forms of diversity impact task conflict in different ways, which in turn is negatively associated with job satisfaction and team performance. Results further show that diversity is unrelated to relational conflict; however, this type of conflict seems to hinder both job satisfaction and team performance. Overall, these patterns suggest a complex link between team diversity and how work groups function.

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Section: Diversity and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the black box in Brazilian work groups: a study of diversity, conflict and performance

Sobral

Bisseling

2012

BAR, Braz. Adm. Rev.

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“…It seems that it is already an established phenomenon pointing the robustness of cross-cultural literature. However, many researchers are still debating the theoretical perspectives that exert the benefits of cultural diversity (Palich & Gomez-Mejia, 1999) by highlighting, among others, that diversity can create dissatisfaction and a decline in business performance (Milliken & Martins, 1996). Others, more moderate, having emerged in context of globalization, but classic studies (Hall, 1959&1960, Lawrence & Lorch, 1967Hofstede, 1980) posited that the cultural diversity management of an organization provides benefits if and only if, it's well managed.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Cultural Management and Organizational Performance: A Content Analysis Perspective

Sultana¹,

Rashid²,

Mohiuddin³

et al. 2013

IJBM

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Globalization, offshore outsourcing, global value chain and global division of labor have led today's Business firms to internationalize their activities, therefore, cultural diversity become an important issue in managing the contemporary worldwide workplaces. In fact, it has become a necessity for managers to take this challenge by fully utilizing the potential capabilities of multi-cultural workforce in order to achieve organizational effectiveness. To address this situation, we attempted to understand the impact of cross-cultural diversity management on organizational effectiveness and competitive advantage in an organization. A content analysis method has been used in this article to explain the impact of cultural diversity management in order to accelerate firms' competitiveness. The outcome of our research indicates a significant and positive correlation of an effective cultural diversity management practices on competitive advantages and organizational effectiveness.

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“…Their model of social influence and selection builds on the four social mechanisms homophily, social influence, heterophobia, and rejection. Homophily is the tendency of individuals to be attracted to, and to preferentially interact with, others who are like them (McPherson and Smith-Lovin 1987;McPherson et al 2001;Milliken and Martins 1996). During interaction, similar individuals have the tendency to influence each others' attitudes and thereby become more similar and more attracted to each other (we refer to this also as positive influence).…”

Section: Demographic Faultlines and Team Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent decades saw an increase of both demographic diversity (Lau and Murnighan 2005;Tsui et al 1992;van Knippenberg et al 2004;van Knippenberg and Schippers 2007) and reliance on work teams (Jehn et al 1999;Lau and Murnighan 1998;Milliken and Martins 1996) in organizations. The co-occurrence of these trends fostered researchers' interest in how diversity affects team processes and performance (Williams and Meân 2004;Williams and O'Reilly 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How attitude certainty tempers the effects of faultlines in demographically diverse teams

Grow

Flache

2011

Comput Math Organ Theory

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Lau and Murnighan's faultline theory suggests that strong demographic faultlines can undermine cohesion in work teams. A strong faultline splits a team into internally homogeneous but mutually dissimilar subgroups based on demographic characteristics. Social influence processes within these subgroups then lead to the polarization of team members' attitudes along the divisions imposed by the faultline. However, faultline theory hitherto neglects effects of attitude certainty. Research shows that the certainty with which individuals hold their attitudes affects social influence processes. We extend theoretical faultline research by integrating attitude certainty. For this, we incorporate the interplay of the dynamics of attitude certainty and social influence into a formal model of demographic faultline effects developed by Flache and Mäs. Computational experiments suggest a moderation effect. Demographic faultlines only affect team cohesion if attitude certainty is low. We discuss implications for future research.

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Searching for Common Threads: Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups

Cited by 1,473 publications

References 0 publications

Exploring the black box in Brazilian work groups: a study of diversity, conflict and performance

Exploring the black box in Brazilian work groups: a study of diversity, conflict and performance

Cross-Cultural Management and Organizational Performance: A Content Analysis Perspective

How attitude certainty tempers the effects of faultlines in demographically diverse teams

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