| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1014771 | European Management Journal | 2015 | 12 Pages |
•Based on the similarity–attraction perspective and the social categorization perspective, this study regards team helping behavior as a collective phenomenon that happens at the level of work teams.•We hypothesize that both team members' surface-level demographic diversity and deep-level trait diversity will negatively relate to team helping behavior. We further argue that team cohesion and cooperation will mediate the effects of team members' demographic and trait diversity with team helping.•Collecting survey data from 558 employees in 133 work teams in Taiwanese firms, we use hierarchical regression technique to test our hypotheses and find partial support for our arguments. Since some of the predictions based on the similarity–attraction perspective were not supported, it appears that not all types of team diversity influence team outcomes in the same way. The widely-accepted similarity–attraction perspective may be too broad and too general to explain the effect of team diversity in influencing team processes and team outcomes.
This study regards team helping behavior as a collective phenomenon that happens at the level of work teams. We argue that both the surface-level demographic diversity and deep-level trait diversity of team members are negatively related to team helping behavior. We further argue that team cohesion and cooperation will mediate the effects of team members' demographic characteristics and trait diversity on team helping. Collecting survey data from 558 employees in 133 work teams in Taiwanese firms, we use a hierarchical regression to test our hypotheses and find that they are partially supported. Since some of the hypotheses based on the similarity–attraction perspective were not supported, it appears that not all types of team diversity influence team outcomes in the same way. The widely-accepted similarity–attraction perspective may thus be too broad and too general to explain the effects of team diversity on team processes and outcomes.
