L4: Diversity in Teams Flashcards
what are the 4 Is of transofrmational leadership?
- idealized influence: being a positive role model for followers, “walking the talk”
- inspirational motivation: ability to inspire & motivate subordinates
- indvidiualized consideration: genuine care for the needs & feelings of subordinates
- intellectual stimulation: challenge subordinates to become their best, most creative selves
what is moderation vs mediation
Moderation: when does x affect y?
Mediation: through what/how/why does x affect y?
what did Kearney study?
TL as a moderator for diversitys effects on team performance
What were Keaney & Geberts findings? TL
- TL moderates the relationship between diversity & team performance: when levels of TL were high, diversity increased team performance. These relationships were nonsignificant when TL was low. When TL was high, age diversity had no effect on team performance, when TL was low, it had a negative impact.
- This moderation effect was fully mediated by elaboration of information: TL encourages open discussion which enhances outcomes of its relationship with team diversity & performance.
- Collective team identification partially mediates the moderation effect: TL strengthens team identity, leading to better information sharing.
What were the practical implications of Keaney & Geberts findigns on TL
- TL should be used to make sure there are no process losses in diverse teams, but instead there are gains. (since TL increases info elaboration, team identification, and team performance)
- Open & elaborate communication should be encouraged to maximise these gains, as should collective team identification.
what is the aim of Van Knippenberg’s paper?CEM
propose an integrative model that explores when diversity works & when it doesnt (combine pessismistic social categorization perspective & optimistic info processing diversity) based on characteristics of the team, characteristics of the context, characteristics of individuals within the team
Categorization Elaboration Model
What does Knippenbergs Categorization Elaboration Model say on diversitys influence on work group performance?
- If diversity encuorages the exchange & integration of ideas (aka elaboration) then it boosts performance
- But if diversity creates divisions & biases (in group vs out group) then it kills teamwork & makes things worse
what are some characteristics of the team that can influence the relationship between diversity & group work according to Knippenberg?
- faultlines (leads to subgroup categorization -> intergroup bias -> reduced info elaboration & perfomance)
- cross categorization (creates connection & focus on similarities which helps team work)
- superordinate identity (overarching identity that subsedes the subgroups like national football team unites ajax & psv fans)
what is cross categorization?
when differences on different dimensions are crossed (find similarities across subgroups)
when are faultlines the strongest?
- category salience & comparitive fit (u can look at ur subgroup and see similarities with urself, and differences w other subgroup)
- this subgroup categorziation -> intergoup bias -> reduced info elaboration & performance
what are some characteristics of the context (task) that influence the relationship between diversity & team work?
- Task complexity: if complex task, diversity helps. If its a simple, repetitive task: diversity is just a distraction
- Motivation: teams need to be motivated to actually listen to each other & use different perspectives. If ppl are lazy or indifferent, diversity becomes useless (ppl need to feel indispensable)
- Ability: team needs to be capable of handling complexity - they are overwhelmed, diversity turns into confusion instead of innovation. (ppl need to be able to handle the task)
- cooperation is good for diversity
- interdependence is good for diversity
what are some characteristics of individual within the team that influence the relationship between diversity & group work?
- transofrmational leadership makes diversity have better effects on team performance
what is the dark side of visionary/ transformational leadership?
- can include categorization! like trump
these leaders exhibit: - idealized influence
- charisma (morality, trust, intergrity)
- inspirational motivation
this categorizaion hinders the relationship between diversity and communication adequacy/team performance
categorization hinders communication in diverse teams
what are the practical takeaways from Knippenbergs Categorization elaboration model?
- Diversity isnt automatically good or bad - it depends on whether teams engage in elaboration or categorization
- To make diversity work, companies should: Build culture of collaboration, Motivate teams to actively use diverse perspectives instead of ignoring them; Train ppl to overcome social biases & work w different viewpoint
- Diverse teams perform best on complex tasks, but only if theyre motivated & skilled enough to handle it
what is the importance of understanding team diversity?
- organisatiosn increasingly work using teams
- teams are increasingly diverse
- so understanding diversity is becoming more important
- yet theres a growing backlash against DEI
what is (team) diversity?
Differences between individuals on any attribute that may lead
to the perception that another person is different from the self
or degree to which objective or subjective differences exist between group members
what types of diversity are there?
- deep level (education, religion etc) vs surface level (what u can see immediately: age, race, gender etc)
- demographic (like gender, race) vs informational diversity (like educational, training, job related experience)
- more vs less job related
- serparation, variety, disparity
what is separation as a diversity subtype?
is assumed to be maximal when there are 2 opposing factors at either end of the continuum (ie when groups are polarized)
ex: in 4 person group, its maximal age separation is when 2 ppl are old, and 2 are young
what is variety as a diversity subtype?
concerned w differences in kind or category, primarily in terms of info, knowledge, or expertise.
its maximal when all members differ from one another (theres no overlap among members in expertise and every member can contribute unique resources)
ex: group where every member is from different country
what is disparity as a diversity subtype?
represents differnences among members along a vertical contrinuum of valued social assets, such as power, pay, and status.
its maximal when one member has everything and all other members have nothign
ex: in group with one old person, and 3 young ppl
how is diversity a double-edged sword?
- diversity is good for teams: value in diversity hypothesis (information processing approach)
- diversity is bad for teams: diversity impedes performance & team functioning
what is the information processing apporoach? optimistic view of diversity
- Diverse teams have more relevant information and perspectives available than homogeneous groups (i.e., have more available resources)
- When teams can combine these resources well (=good process), they can achieve superior performance
what is the social categorization perspective?
pessimistic view of diversity
Diversity creates social divisions which harm teamwork
Stems from:
* Similarity-attraction theory (People attracted to similar others)
* Self-categorization / social identity theories (Part of our identity/self esteem is rooted in group memberships, ppl categorize themselves and others into groups, with which they identify and which they try to promote
so do diverse teams perform better or worse than similar (homogeneous) teams?
- it depends on moderators
- results regarding direct (main) effects of diversity on team processes and outcomes are mostly inconclusive
what are some moderators of diversity effects in teams?
- team configurations & contextual moderators
- leadership
- diversity beliefs
define diversity beliefs
beliefs about the value of diversity to work group functioning
how do diversity beliefs impact the relationship between team diversity & outcomes?
Groups that believe that differences are important, meaningful, or valuable will benefit from diversity!
when ppl have info thats different from other ppl in the group, they will only share it w the group if they have pro diversity beliefs
having different info from other ppl in the group, the group performs better only when pro diversity beliefs
can having positive diversity beliefs influence sub categorization?
can negative diversity beliefs in make ppl see more categoris?
negative diversity belief holders perceived more subgroups in strong subgroup settings, while negative & positive diversity belief holders perceived similar subgroups in weak subgroup settings
which task characteristic most likely stimulates info elaboration in diverse teams?
- task that creates high interdependence among team members
- task w littelc omplexity
- task that increases competition among team members
high interdependence
which of these 3 thigns matters most when trying to predict whether divesrity will be postiive or negative for team outcomes?
- whether theres visionary leadership in the team
- whetheres theres surface level diversity in the team
- whethe the teams attitude is negative or positive about diversity
attitude is negative or positive about diversity
define teams
a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more social systems, and who manage their relationships across organisational boundaries
what are the types of teams?
- work teams
- parallel teams
- project teams
- management teams
what are work teams?
continuing work units responsible for producing goods or providing services that usually have a supervisor
what are parallel teams?
exist parallel to an organisation, and perform functions that the regular organisation is not equipped to perform well
ex: quality circles which are meant to mointor & improve the functioning of an organisation
what are project teams?
time limited teams that work at one-time outputs, typically a new product or service. often draw their members from different parts of an organisation, or from various disciplines
what are management teams?
coordiante & provide direction to sub-units under their jurisdinction and are responsible for the overall performance of those sub units
what is the dominant approach taken in team research?
the input-process-output (IPO) model of performance
what does the Input Process Output (IPO) model posit?
inputs: team size, composition, org climate, leadership
affect
group processes: info sharing, conflict etc
and these in turn determine group output: team performance, team member satisfaction etc
what are criticisms on IPO model?
its too static!
in reality, teams are dynamic systems that evolve over time, and outputs at time t might be the inputs at a later time t+1
ex: performance at time t might affect cohesion at time t+1, and cohesion might subsequently influlence certain group processes and outcomes at time t+2
define team processes
members who are interactinw other members or w their environment, and these processes are used to direct, align, and monitor taskwork
ex: info sharing, problem solving, conflict management
what are emergent states
properties of the team that are typically dynamic in nature and vary as a function of team context, inputs, processes, and outcomes
they dont represent team actions or interactions, but are products of team experience
ex: cohesion, trust, team climate
they are both outputs & inputs
what is cross training
an instructional strategy in which each team meber is trained in the duties of his or her teammates to increase interdependence through shared mental models
