Does diversity in team members’ agreeableness benefit creative teams?

• Published in: Journal of research in personality Vol. 85; p. 103932
• Main Authors: Lee, Sean T.H., Park, Guihyun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01-04-2020
• Subjects: Agreeableness; Diversity; Team; Team conflict; Team creativity; Team satisfaction; Team conflict; Team creativity; Team; Team satisfaction; Diversity; Agreeableness
• ISSN: 0092-6566; 1095-7251
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2020.103932

•Diversity in team members’ agreeableness was positively associated with both task and relationship conflict.•Task conflict engendered was, in turn, negatively associated with team creativity.•Relationship conflict engendered was, in turn, negatively associated with team member satisfaction.•All findings held even after controlling for mean and diversity levels of all other personality dimensions.
Although deep-level diversity among team members are often discussed as important catalysts of team creativity, little is currently understood about the impact of diversity in team members’ personality on team creativity and team satisfaction. We propose that diversity in team members’ agreeableness would reduce the effectiveness of creative teams through its impact on team conflict experienced. To test our hypotheses, we recruited 93 student teams to participate in a laboratory study where each member had their personality traits assessed before engaging in a team creativity task. We found that diversity in team members’ agreeableness was positively associated with team task conflict experienced which, in turn, was negatively associated with team creativity. Additionally, we found that diversity in team members’ agreeableness was positively associated with team relationship conflict, which, in turn, was negatively associated with team satisfaction. Implications and future directions are discussed.