The Impact Of Subgroup Type And Subgroup Balance On The Quality Of Team Decision

At present,the research of subgroup is still in the initial stage, scholars have made a preliminary study on the formation, definition, type, structure properties and the impact on the team performance of subgroup, they have found that subgroups within the team have different degrees of impact on team results due to the identity threat, power centralization,team learning, convergence of mental models(White& Ruh,1973;Lau&Murnighan,1998,O’Leary&Mortensen,2010;Gibson&Vermeulen,2003; Bunderson&Boumgarden,2010;Carton&Cummings, 2012,2013).But for content properties and structure properties of subgroup, how to influence the team’s results and what kind of impact still lack systematic study.which has been coming the one of the key points of subgroup research.This study try to explore the impact of content properties and structure properties of subgroup on team results by a new perspective that analyzing the relationship between subgroup type,subgroup balance and team decision quality. Following the logic of comparative study,this study look forward to explaining the impact of different types of subgroup in different balance of subgroup on the team decision quality by their interaction, and whether there is a difference between the impacts.Applied experiment method with 80 teams’ data collected from one university and analyzed the relationship among subgroup type, subgroup balance and team decision quality.Main conclusions are as follows: the subgroup type and the subgroup balance not only have a significant impact on the team decision quality alone,but also have reciprocal influence, namely,the subgroup type mediates the impact of subgroup balance on team decision quality,and the subgroup balance mediates the impact of subgroup type on team decision quality.This study enriches theory about subgroup and team decision, and provides some empirical suggestions for business administration especially for team designation, member configuration and team decision.