| Recently,organizational models which regard teams as basic working units have been more and more popular.From the perspective of team compositions and team dynamics,research regarding how to improve team output and reduce team loss through the use of team structures has become the focal points of team research.Over the years,research regarding the relationship between team diversity(or heterogeneity)and team performance has been extensively explored.However,most team diversity research focuses on one single attribute of team members in a certain aspect(such as age,gender,position,etc.),but only a few depicts the identity characteristics of team members from multiple perspectives.In order to improve the interpretation of team diversity,it is necessary to simultaneously consider the influence of multiple attributes of team members on team performance.To solve this problem,from the perspective of team faultline,this dissertation summarizes the core elements of team dynamics through digging up the relationships between team composition,team structure,team process and team output.Team faultlines are hypothetical dividing lines that divide a team into subgroups based on one or more attributes(Lau and Murnighan,1998).In the past two decades,faultline research has made fruitful achievements,but most research only eyes on the surface-level faultlines divided by demographic characteristics.Few has focused on the deep-level faultlines divided by team members' personalities,attitudes and values.In addition,previous studies put their eyes on the linear relationship between team faultlines and team processes as well as team outcomes,ignoring the possible curvilinear relationships between them.Through reviewing previous literature,this study puts forward the following research questions by integrating social categorization theory,similarity/attraction theory,information/decision making theory,CEM,optimal distinctiveness theory and cross-cut categorization model.First,is there a curvilinear relationship between team faultlines and team conflict?Second,does the asymmetry of team conflict rather than team conflict have a greater impact on team performance?Third,how does the alignment of surface-level and deep-level team faultlines affect team processes?Fourth,after team faultlines are activated,what is the mechanism of the activation of team faultlines on team performance?Fifth,can social networks,social capital and psychological capital reduce the negative impact of team faultlines on team processes and team outcomes?In order to answer the above questions,this paper established a main effect theoretical framework and divided it into three sub-models to respectively illustrate the curvilinear relationship between team faultlines and team conflict asymmetry,the alignment of surface and deep team faultlines,and the subgroup perception.To verify the theoretical models,multiple waves of questionnaire surveys were collected.In study 1 and 2 which involved student teams,463 valid surveys from 113 teams in wave 1 and wave 2 were collected respectively,and the archival data of team performance was collected in wave 3.In study 3 which involved working teams,589 valid surveys from 102 teams were collected in wave 1 and 87 team performance data was collected in wave 2.This dissertation makes several theoretical contributions by clarifying the scopes of social categorization theory and cross-categorization theory,explaining the inconsistency of previous research.Embedded in different contexts,this dissertation enriches the application of social network and psychological capital in team research.In addition,standing on the existent research,this dissertation makes several innovations in methods.In the phase of data processing,the individual-level data was aggregated into team-level,with data aggregation analysis(ICC and Rwg tests)conducted.The calculation of team faultline strength was based on FLS introduced by Thatcher et al.(2003)and Shaw(2004).Results were conducted by using SAS MACRO procedures developed by Chung et al.(2006).Team friendship network was measured by the roster method(Ren et al.,2015).For each team,the density of friendship ties was calculated by UCINET 6.216.In the phase of empirical study,statistical methods such as correlation analysis,regression analysis,moderation analysis,and graph analysis were conducted.The moderated mediation analysis of the integrated models was conducted by SAS PROCESS developed by Hayes(2017).The hypotheses proposed in the three sub-studies were fully verified,and the following important conclusions were drawn.First,linear and curvilinear models were established for the relationship between team faultlines and team conflict asymmetry.In study 1,team faultlines were based on the heterogeneity of team members' places of birth and undergraduate majors.The results showed that the relationship between team faultlines and relationship conflict was U-shaped.In addition,the relationship between team faultlines and relationship conflict asymmetry was reverted U-shaped.This conclusion indicated that the relationship between team faultlines and team process was not linear,but curvilinear.In this study,the extreme point was shown when the team faultlines strength was 0.2.However,the curvilinear relationship between team faultlines and task conflict as well as task conflict asymmetry was not supported.The results showed that team faultlines were positively related to task conflict,but not to task conflict asymmetry.In addition,task conflict,relationship conflict and task conflict asymmetry could all lead to the reduction of team performance,but no significant relationship was found between relationship conflict asymmetry and team performance.Further study showed that friendship network density could act as a social glue in teams,mitigating the negative relationship between team faultlines and team conflict.Specifically,the higher the density of friendship network,the lower the degree of task conflict,relationship conflict and relationship conflict asymmetry was caused by team faultlines.In conclusion,study 1 partly verified the curvilinear relationship between team faultlines and team conflict,and partly verified the antecedent factor of team conflict asymmetry and its negative impact on team outcomes.Second,study 2 distinguished surface-level and deep-level team faultlines and verified the activation process of multi-dimensional team faultlines.Based on whether the team faultlines is activated or not,team faultlines can be classified as dormant team faultlines and activated team faultlines.The dormant team faultlines can also be classified as surface-level team faultlines and deep-level team faultlines according to different attributes of team members.The results of study 2 showed that surface-level team faultlines aligned by age and gender and the deep-level team faultlines aligned by time urgency and goal commitment were the causes of team faultlines activation.Furthermore,the alignment of surface-level and deep-level team faultlines was more likely to lead to the activation of team faultlines,as with the increase in the number of homogeneous attributes of team members,team members would be more likely to depend and identify their ingroups.Study 2 proved that as for team faultlines,no matter surface or deep,as long as they were dormant,no decrease of team performance would be caused directly.Nevertheless,if dormant team faultlines were triggered and activated,they would lead to a decrease of team performance.In addition,study 2 introduced positive psychology into team research,proving that team collective psychological capital(PsyCap)could help reduce the possibility of team faultline activation.Third,on the basis of study 1 and study 2,study 3 focused on the mechanism in the relationship between perceived subgroups and team performance.The activation of team faultlines made team members share a common perception of subgroup splitting.Study 3 proved that perceived subgroups could not only directly affect team performance,but also indirectly affect team performance by affecting TMS.TMS refers to a system that can encode,store,retrieve and communicate knowledge in a team.Perceived subgroups inhibited the development of specificity,credibility and coordination in TMS,and thus decreased team performance.Further research showed that"Chinese guanxi",which affects the interpersonal communication of team members,should be included in team study for the real-world work team in the Chinese context.Study 3 showed that guanxi could mitigate the negative relationship between perceived subgroups and TMS.If team members valued the importance of guanxi,team split would not lead to a negative effect on TMS.To sum up,nowadays,team cooperation has become the mainstream work mode.Focusing on team conflict and subgroup splitting based on team faultlines aligned by multiple dimensions,this dissertation explores the path through team faultlines to team processes and team outcomes.Embedding theories of social network,social capital and psychological capital into team research,this dissertation tries to explore the path to weaken the negative impact of team faultlines.In addition,this dissertation provides practical implications for enterprises to attract,retain and manage diversified talents,comes up with a full-process problem solution of conflict management,and makes new theoretical contributions to team diversity and team faultlines. |
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