Three-way Interaction of Team Faultline, Value Diversity, and Task Design on Team Effectiveness

Abstract

In the current organizations, successful management of diversity at work has become the most important and challenging issue for managers. While scholars have deepened the understanding on the nature of diversity by proposing new concept such as faultline, previous studies on diversity and faultline have focused more on structural aspect of diversity, while neglecting the role of psychological aspect of diversity among team members. In addition, although team task design plays an important role in interactions among team members, the extent literature has not examined how team task design changes team processes under the different structural and psychological team compositions. To overcome the above limitations, this study constitutes an integrative model of team faultline, value diversity, and team task design on team process and on team effectiveness. Integrating the categorization-elaboration model and the false-consensus bias theory, we suggest that team faultline has positive effect on team effectiveness through team mental model only when both team value diversity and team task design are high. This paper intends to contribute to the literature of team diversity, team design, and team mental model.