Personality Diversity in Organizational Teams: Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography: Personality Diversity in Teams

Bechtoldt, M. N., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (n.d.). Team personality diversity, group creativity, and innovativeness in organizational teams.

This is one of the few studies that directly measures personality variables against specific group performance outcomes. The authors focus on group creativity and innovation as dependent variables. Independent variables include Big Five personality trait inventory assessments, one of the most commonly used measures of individual personality. Focusing on creativity and innovation is a unique approach to studying how different personalities can work together most effectively. Many organizational teams depend on the group's total creative output or the ability to think creatively during a problem-solving process. Traits like openness to experience and conscientiousness are linked with high creative performance. The authors also make suggestions for overcoming some of the problems in diverse teams, such as the fact that working alone can often be necessary for stimulating creativity among some individuals.

Capretz, L. F., & Ahmed, F. (2010). Why do we need personality diversity in software engineering? ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 35(2), 1–11.

This study is unique because it applies research on personality diversity in work groups to one specific environment: software development. The authors claim that personality diversity would promote many of the goals of software development firms. Within software development, homogeneous teams tend to form organically, which leads to weaknesses in that developers do not verbalize their feelings and lack the levels of emotional intelligence required for the highest level of team performance. This study uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a sophisticated tool for measuring personality characteristics, helping improve the external validity of the study. The authors also differentiate between different types of software engineering applications, as different tasks would warrant different outcomes. The results can be useful for managers seeking to form the most effective teams, comprised of people who are already able to overcome or work with their diverse personalities.

Chowdhury, S. (2005). Demographic diversity for building an effective entrepreneurial team. Journal of Business Venturing, 20(6), 727–746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2004.07.001

This research does not merely describe the effects of individual personality trait diversity on team performance or organizational effectiveness, but also discusses possible reasons for those effects. For example, differences in personality can be linked to different thinking styles or different cognitive approaches to crisis, conflict, and problem solving. With a team comprised of diverse personalities, a leader can rely on having access to a wider range of inputs that can improve outcomes and performance. Demographic diversity is less important than leaders have believed, but this does not obscure the fact that personality diversity can also lead to conflicts between group members. This research shows how diverse-personality teams need to learn how to pool their respective cognitive resources and cultivate the emotional intelligence needed for inter-group harmony. The current study focuses mainly on entrepreneurial teams, which is appropriate for this line of research.

Harrison, D. A., & Klein, K. J. (2007). What's the difference? Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1199–1228.

The authors address different types of diversity, including pay level and personality diversity, claiming that research on organizational diversity has been too inconclusive to be of any practical value. The authors offer a new model for conceptualizing workplace diversity, grouping it into separation, variety, and disparity types rather than focusing more narrowly on demographic or trait features. Using this framework, the authors show how leaders can better maximize the potential of diverse teams by understanding the type of diversity present, and how to resolve conflicts within those teams.

Jackson, S. E., Joshi, A., & Erhardt, N. L. (2003). Recent research on team and organizational diversity. Journal of Management, 29(6), 801–830. )00080-1

This research functions as a systematic review of the literature. First, the authors clarify different types of diversity. Then, they conduct a review of more than sixty published papers assessing the effects of workplace diversity on teams and organizations, using an adapted SWOT analysis method. Although methodologically limited, the study points to the growing body of evidence on personality and attitudinal diversity and how it can impact performance outcomes. The results do not show how different personalities work together, but can nevertheless provide useful background knowledge for this research.

Mohammed, S., & Angell, L. C. (2004). Surface- and deep-level diversity in workgroups: Examining the moderating effects of team orientation and team process on relationship conflict. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(8), 1015–1039.

The authors show how demographic diversity is only surface-level, and that deeper issues like personality differences are critical for workgroup performance. When people on a team have different personalities, tension and antagonism can arise, leading to a breakdown in communication and a loss of effectiveness. Team orientation can create the commitment and stability needed for group cohesion, suggesting that work groups need a strong norming process to help generate shared values and group identity. Extraversion is singled out as a particularly salient personality trait in groups. Team processes also need to be taken into account. Because this study addresses deep-level diversity factors like personality in a direct way that can be applied to organizational settings, it will be valuable for this research.

Neuman, G. A., Wagner, S. H., & Christiansen, N. D. (1999). The relationship between work-team personality composition and the job performance of teams. Group & Organization Management, 24(1), 28–45.

The authors used Big Five personality factor assessments, testing a total of 328 individuals working in the retail sector across 82 different work group teams. Independent variables included two different ways of determining team personality composition. The first was team personality elevation, which refers to the average level of any given Big Five trait (agreeableness, extraversion, etc.). The second was team personality diversity, which refers to the variability of personality traits within the team. The dependent variable was work team effectiveness, measured quantitatively with performance metrics. The results show that both team personality elevation and diversity impacted overall performance, with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience being more important to team personality elevation, and extraversion and emotional stability being more important to diversity.

Newman, D. A., & Lyon, J. S. (2009). Recruitment efforts to reduce adverse impact: Targeted recruiting for personality, cognitive ability, and diversity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 298–317.

The goal of this research is to show how different personalities work together to achieve organizational goals. This study applies research on personality diversity to human resources management, and specifically to the function of recruiting. The authors question whether it is sound human resources practice to deliberately cultivate a diverse pool of personalities or create homogeneous teams. Using mathematical modeling, the authors show how task-specific cognitive ability can interface well with the personality trait of conscientiousness. Although the results of this study have limited direct bearing on this research, it is important to note that the way an organization presents itself to potential applicants, and the organization's reputation, have a bearing on the diversity of team members.

Shore, L. M., Chung-Herrera, B. G., Dean, M. A., et al. (2009). Diversity in organizations. Human Resource Management Review, 19(2), 117–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2008.10.004

The authors address multiple aspects of diversity, including age, ethnicity, and gender. In this systematic review of literature, the study details which diversity dimensions have proved more influential on team performance. Because the authors do not include personality specifically as a search term in their review, the study is not directly applicable to this research. Nevertheless, the authors discuss how other aspects of diversity such as cultural background and gender do have a bearing on personality traits and related issues like communication and cognitive styles. This research will be helpful for formulating the background research for the project.

van Knippenberg, D., & Schippers, M. C. (2007). Work group diversity. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 515–541.

Prior literature on the impact of diversity on teams and organizations has been inconclusive, with some studies showing that diversity can enhance productivity or effectiveness, while other studies demonstrate just the opposite. Increasingly, research is focusing less on demographics and more on personality diversity. Focusing on personality allows leaders to identify issues even beyond Big Five personality traits, delving into the realms of values and principles that individual team members may hold because of their personality style. Understanding personality diversity therefore helps a disparate group achieve organizational goals.

The Value of Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology

Qualitative research has taken a back seat to quantitative research in the social sciences, and particularly in psychology. Yet qualitative research methods can be tremendously helpful for shedding light on specific issues. Case studies, for example, can provide a wealth of information on intervening variables impacting a specific psychiatric disorder. Qualitative and mixed-methods research add value to the social sciences. In fact, many of the most historically important and groundbreaking studies in psychology relied on qualitative, not quantitative, research methods (Wertz, 2014). While qualitative analyses are used in social work and some other fields, psychological research can benefit from including more qualitative studies that bolster the dry, data-driven approach that has started to overtake the field. As Maitlis (2017) points out, qualitative research helps researchers understand "lived experience," offering "deep immersion" that quantitative studies simply cannot provide (p. 319). Qualitative research does not take the place of quantitative research; nor should quantitative studies replace qualitative ones categorically. Each method of inquiry supplements the other.

The value of qualitative inquiry is that it adds depth to knowledge gained from data-driven methods. Qualitative studies can be used to reveal contextual variables and nuances that quantitative methods may miss. Moreover, qualitative studies are essential for highlighting the importance of outlier cases — cases that fall outside of the normative realm of inquiry (Maitlis, 2017). Researchers in the field of psychology earnestly seeking a broader, more generalizable set of results from their quantitative research would do well to use mixed methods or supplement quantitative studies with qualitative methods of inquiry.

References

Maitlis, S. (2017). The value of qualitative research for positive organizing. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), 319–320.

Wertz, F. J. (2014). Qualitative inquiry in the history of psychology. American Psychological Association, 1(2014), 4–16.