Browsing by Subject "Diversity in the workplace"
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Item Diversity, conflict, and systems leadership in project groups: a longitudinal study(Texas Tech University, 2002-12) Agar, Feride PinarThe changing demography of the workforce has made group composition the most actively researched determinant of group effectiveness. The present study examined the effects of a major aspect of group composition, group diversity, on intragroup conflict and group performance. The majority of research on group diversity has considered diversity to be stable and objective. This study proposed a model of diversity that emphasized its perceptual and transient nature. It was postulated that different types of diversity would be salient at different times in a group's life and that these different types of diversity would trigger different group processes. Further, the model proposed in this study incorporated systems leadership, which enabled diverse groups to avoid the unfavorable effects of diversity while reaping its benefits. Seventy-six student project teams in the capstone Strategic Management class offered in the college of business administration of a large southwestern state university participated in a longitudinal survey study to test specific hypotheses derived from the proposed model. The results indicated that diversity had a transient nature and that the salience of different forms of diversity changed throughout groups' development. Also, it was found that different forms of diversity led to different types of conflict, which in turn influenced group performance. Finally, it was found that systems leadership moderated between diversity and conflict.Item The effects of diversity on intragroup conflict and performance in the U.S. Army Reserve Officer['s] Training Corps (ROTC)(Texas Tech University, 2002-05) McGurk, DennisResearch on the effects of diversity on intragroup conflict and group performance has yielded mixed results. Recent research has shown diversity to be detrimental to group performance when it is based on superficial aspects of the group members such as gender, age or ethnicity but beneficial when diversity is based on members' task relevant aspects such as education or work experience (e.g., Jehn, Northcraft & Neale, 1999; Pelled, Eisenhardt, & Xin, 1999). Intragroup conflict has been found to be detrimental to group performance when the conflict is focused on emotional interactions among group members but beneficial when the conflict is focused on different opinions of how to solve the groups' problems (e.g., Jehn et al, 1999; Pelled et al, 1999). However, most of the studies on diversity, conflict and performance have been conducted in business setting and the findings have not been evaluated in other settings. The current study investigated the effects of social category diversity, academic ability diversity, prior military experience diversity and value diversity on intragroup conflict (relationship, task and process) and performance in groups composed of ROTC cadets during Advanced Camp 2001, a five-week assessment course for Army cadets. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that for this sample, there were only two factors, relationship and task conflict. Regression analyses revealed that value diversity was positively related to intragroup conflict and social category diversity was positively related to group performance.