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Team diversityandteamperformance: The moderatingroleofleadermood
Team diversityand team performance: The moderating role of leader mood
Diversity, “a characteristic of a socialgrouping that reflects the degree to which
there are objective or subjective differencesbetween people within the group”(van
Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007, p. 519)holds great promise for teams. Evidence
suggests that team diversity has the potential to positively impact team outcomes
(van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). However, a large body of evidence suggests
that the realization of the potential benefits inherent in diversity may be dependent
upon several moderators. Our aim is to contribute to this literature by examining the
role that leader mood can play in managing diverse teams.
Typically, diversity researchers have relied on one of two competitive
perspectives to predict and explain the effects of diversity: the information-decisionmaking perspective, which predicts positive effects of diversity on team processes
and performance, and the social categorization perspective, which predicts negative
effects of diversity(Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). The Categorization-Elaboration
Model(CEM, van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004)has advocated the
simultaneous consideration and integration of both of these perspectives. The CEM
suggests that whether or not diversity results in categorization and intergroup bias or
in elaboration of task-relevant information depends upon several moderating
variables. In line with this view, we consider both of these perspectives and explore
the moderating role of leader mood on the relationship between team diversity and
two central team processes, collective team identification and elaboration of taskrelevant information. Specifically, drawing on recent theorizing on the social functions
of emotions in the EASI model(Van Kleef, 2009), we posit thatthe leader’smoods
impact the relationship between team diversity and team processes via two
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Team diversityandteamperformance: The moderatingroleofleadermood
pathways. First, the leader’s moods evoke affective reactions in team members that,
in turn, influence the extent to which they identify with the team. With respect to the
social categorization perspective, we argue that the affective reactions elicited by
leader positive mood strengthen the relationship between team diversity and
collective team identification, whereas the affective reactions evoked by leader
negative mood attenuate this association. Second, the leader’s moods also convey
socially-relevant information that is likely to influence team effort, such that leader
positive mood decreases the elaboration of task-relevant information, whereasleader
negative mood increases the elaboration of task relevant information. Finally, given
the differential impact of positive and negative leader mood on identification and
elaboration, we posit that the effect of the elaboration on team performance is
moderated by team identification.
Our study aims to make three important contributions to the respective
literatures on team diversity and affective leadership. First, by considering the role of
leader mood, we shed light on previously unexamined determinants of the effects of
team diversity as well as on hitherto unexplored consequences of affective aspects of
leadership. Second, studying leader moods enables us to examine and draw
conclusions about the moderating role of leadership in the diversity-performance link
in a broader way than has been done previously, without needing to focus on a
specific leadershipstyle. Finally, our findings contribute to the growing literature on
the social functions of emotionsby operationalizing and testing the two pathways of
the EASI model(Van Kleef, 2009) using established constructs from the CEM model.
Method
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Team diversityandteamperformance: The moderatingroleofleadermood
The sample consisted of 304individuals working in 66project teams in a large
financial services firmspecizling in advising corporations with regard to valuations,
financial modeling, and mergers and acquisitions. Teams areassembeled for the
duration of a specific project, which usually lasts between three months and a year.
We
collected
data
using
multiple
sources.
Education
diversitywasmeasuredwithobjective data provided by the HR department, team
performance was rated by the clients, team identification and elaboration were
measured using self-ratings by team members, and leader mood was rated by the
leaders.
Results and Discussion
As predicted, under high levels of leader positive mood, diversity was positively
related to identification and negatively associated with elaboration. In contrast, under
high levels of negative mood, team diversity was negatively related to identification
and positively associated with elaboration. Finally, we found that elaboration was
positively correlated with performance only when identification was high.
Within the context of team diversity research, our study is noteworthy in
several respects. Our findings add support to the contingency approach in the
diversity literature (van Knippenberg, et al., 2004) by illustrating that the impact of
informational team diversity depends on contextual conditions such as leader moods.
In addition, our findings also provide empirical support for the social functional
perspective of emotions and the notion that emotions can exert interpersonal
influence by providing information to observers. Finally, our results show that
information elaboration is not invariably conducive to team performance, and that its
effects are influenced by team identification. This study contributes to the nascent
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Team diversityandteamperformance: The moderatingroleofleadermood
literature that examines how leaders influence teams and when and how they are
able to unlock the performance potential entailed by both informational and
demographic team diversity.
References
Van Kleef, G. A. (2009). How Emotions Regulate Social Life: The Emotions as Social
Information (EASI) Model. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(3), 184188.
and Social Psychology, 86(1), 57-76. doi: Doi 10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.57
van Knippenberg, D., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Homan, A. C. (2004). Work group diversity and
group performance: An integrative model and research agenda. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 89(6), 1008-1022. doi: Doi 10.1037/0021-9010.89.6.1008
van Knippenberg, D., & Schippers, M. C. (2007). Work group diversity. Annual Review of
Psychology, 58, 515-541. doi: DOI 10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085546
Williams, K.Y. & O’Reilly, C.A., III. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations:
A review of 40 years of research. In B.M. Staw & L.L. Cummings (Eds.), Research
in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 20, pp. 77-140). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.