Team Composition Revisited: A Team Member Attribute Alignment Approach

Abstract

Research methods for studying team composition tend to employ either a variable-centered or person-centered approach. The variable-centered approach allows scholars to consider how patterns of attributes between team members influence teams, while the person-centered approach allows scholars to consider how variation in multiple attributes within team members influences subgroup formation and its effects. Team composition theory, however, is becoming increasingly sophisticated, assuming variation on multiple attributes both within and between team members—for example, in predicting how a team functions differently when its most assertive members are also optimistic rather than pessimistic. To support this new theory, we propose an attribute alignment approach, which complements the variable-centered and person-centered approaches by modeling teams as matrices of their members and their members’ attributes. We first demonstrate how to calculate attribute alignment by determining the vector norm and vector angle between team members’ attributes. Then, we demonstrate how the alignment of team member personality attributes (neuroticism and agreeableness) affects team relationship conflict. Finally, we discuss the potential of using the attribute alignment approach to enrich broader team research.

How Surface-Level and Deep-Level Faultlines Influence Team Performance through Subgroup Formation and Team Interaction Quality: A Meta-analytic Review

“…That is, it is meaningful to develop the cognitive frame of reference of an individual. For example, people with different personalities may have distinct beliefs about team cooperation (Emich, Lu, Ferguson, Peterson, & McCourt, 2022) and different expectations about task design (Cunningham, 2015), which provide a salient basis for subgroup formation at the workplace. Combined with the arguments about the negative influences of subgroup formation on team social and task interaction quality, we argue that subgroup formation is likely to mediate the negative effects of deep-level social faultlines on team interactions.…”

Status acuity: The ability to accurately perceive status hierarchies reduces status conflict and benefits group performance.

“…First, the additive model is one of the most common and validated "variable-centered" approaches (Emich et al, 2021) for studying the group-level effects of individual characteristics (Bell, 2007;LePine et al, 2011;Prewett et al, 2009), including cognitive ability (Bell, 2007;Ellis et al, 2003;LePine, 2003;Woolley et al, 2010), This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…First, the additive model is one of the most common and validated “variable-centered” approaches (Emich et al, 2021) for studying the group-level effects of individual characteristics (Bell, 2007; LePine et al, 2011; Prewett et al, 2009), including cognitive ability (Bell, 2007; Ellis et al, 2003; LePine, 2003; Woolley et al, 2010), emotional intelligence or social sensitivity (Druskat & Wolff, 2001; Jordan & Troth, 2009; Woolley et al, 2010), personality traits (Chiu et al, 2016; Courtright et al, 2017; LePine, 2003; Xu et al, 2019), psychopathy, dark triad, implicit aggression (Baysinger et al, 2014; Dierdorff & Fisher, 2021; Grijalva et al, 2020), decision style (Zhu et al, 2020), and value orientation (Cheng et al, 2012). Like this existing work, we focus on groups working on interdependent tasks, where productivity should be positively related to the summed abilities of members (Tziner & Eden, 1985) such that “more is better” (Mathieu et al, 2013), making additive aggregation most appropriate (Barrick et al, 1998; Homan et al, 2008; LePine et al, 2011).…”

Team Composition Revisited: Expanding the Team Member Attribute Alignment Approach to Consider Patterns of More Than Two Attributes

“…The attribute alignment approach to team composition is a new way of recognizing the complexity of individual team members in the context of their teams (Emich et al, 2022). This approach allows researchers to consider variation within and across individual team members both conceptually and methodologically.…”

“…The strength of this approach is that it considers teams as complex systems composed of members who themselves contain multiple attributes and belong to an overarching collective (Arrow et al, 2000;Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Emich et al (2022) explain attribute alignment conceptually as the coexistence of team member attributes within individual team members and across the team (e.g., team members who are optimistic are also assertive and team members who are not optimistic are not assertive). In contrast, unalignment reflects dissimilar levels of attributes within team members across the team (e.g., team members who are optimistic are not assertive, and team members who are not optimistic are assertive).…”