Investigating attitude toward diversity on a worldwide scale is bounded with difficulties. About ninety percent of the individuals I contacted chose not to reply to the e-questionnaire. To maximize the participation rate, the e-questionnaire was made as short as possible without leaving out important information. Though, few items showed an acceptable reliability. Even if the evaluation of the IAO scale scores replicated findings collected by well established assessment tools employed in social psychology (e.g., The Campus Diversity Questionnaire-Revised), the IAO questionnaire still leaves a margin for improvement, specifically in order to raise its alpha coefficient of reliability.
Additionally, due to the explorative nature of the e-questionnaire, the analysis and evaluation of qualitative data were quite time-consuming. Thus, the IAO questionnaire should also be enhanced in this regard.
Hendrick (1986) claims that similarly to individuals, organizations as a whole are only able to survive if they adapt to their environments. Specifically, they must continually accomodate to political, economic, social, and technological changes (Banks et al., 2001). Sgroi (2006) surveyed hundred fifty companies and inter-viewed more than eighty business leaders. She concluded that organizations are going to encounter “an environment of extreme cognitive complexity . . . requiring extraordinary strategic thinking skills and the ability to make high-quality deci-sions quickly in the face of competitive pressures and uncertainty” (p.8). Such challenges exceed the capabilities of single employees and may be overcome only in groups (Paris et al., 2000). According to Guzzo and Shea (1992), working in groups appears to be more and more the norm in toady’s organizations, yet work-ing effectively together is one of their greatest challenges.
Regarding the structure and the purpose of organizational groups, literature distinguishes between teams and workgroups (e.g., Katzenbach & Smith, 1993).
While teams are often created to work on long-run projects, workgroups are par-ticularly suited for short-term tasks. Typically, teams have someone who is des-ignated to lead and coordinate members (Zenger et al., 1994). Long-run efficacy of teams may appear only after their members went through specific development stages (e.g., Tuckman & Jensen, 1977; Worchel, 1994). On the other side, work-groups are often self-directed. They are set to complete unbounded and specific tasks. Soon after members have met, task group interaction is affected by how everyone is appearing, communicating, and acting. Time is an important factor, because emotional fit among members has to be well-balanced and occur quickly.
Results may be fruitful, if everyone’s abilities and strengths are fully explored and considered. In order for both of these actions to occur, workgroup members have to share information, views, and insights (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). Work-group effectiveness greatly depends upon the extent to which each member helps others and builds upon voiced suggestions (Podsakoff et al., 1997), thus decreasing process loss (Steiner, 1972). Another main challenge for workgroup effectiveness is to overcome tensions among workgroup members caused by real or perceived human differences (Thomas, 1992; Wall & Callister, 1995). Therefore, workgroup members shall neither perform with an “habitual routine” nor with a “cognition saving” state of mind. According to Schippers et al. (2003), complex and novel tasks require from each member reflection, discussion, and constant adaptiveness.
4.1 Need for an Experiment with Self-Directed Workgroups
As individuals become more mobile and the world is facing more unpredictable events (e.g., natural, social, economical, etc.), companies need to recruit members able to quickly adjust to new environments. They have to possess the ability to evolve on novel and ambiguous projects. Organizational success is often accom-plished through the adaptive behavior of the workgroup members.
Investigating the effects of members’ perception of human differences on work-group performance has become a new area supported by research. In fact, work-group process (e.g., how do members get along with one another while working) medi-ates between demographical composition and outcomes (e.g., Jehn et al., 1999;
O‘Reilly et al., 1989; Pelled, 1996). Specifically, negative perceptions of racial dissimilarities may disrupt communication among workgroup members, which in turn limits achievement of group potential (Amason & Sapienza, 1997) as cited in Stewart & Garcia-Prieto (2008).
Work within demographically heterogeneous groups may lead some members to feel less comfortable to agree with individuals they dislike (Heider, 1958). On the other side, work within demographically homogeneous groups may lead mem-bers to expect others’ opinions and perspectives to be similar to their own (Jost et al., 1998). Nevertheless, if members experienced a similar socialization (e.g., three males or females sharing the same ethnicity as well as similar age), opinions and perspectives are probably going to be similar. In diverse workgroups on the other side, Portero-Brown (2000) suggests that members’ ability to take advan-tage of others’ perspectives depends upon their reaction toward demographical differences.
The fact of investigating specific characteristics (e.g., attitudes, experience, etc.) under different experimental conditions should allow us to find out which work-groups are able to reach the best of their potential (i.e., make effective usage of different knowledge and perspectives). In this regard, whether attitude toward differences mediates effective decision-making should be investigated, specifically when members are confronted with opinions and perspectives coming from col-leagues who differ in gender and/or nationality.
When taking into consideration the inquiries formulated in the theoretical part of the current investigation, a laboratory experiment was designed and conducted with college students in order to understand the impact different factors may have on group performance and group potential achievement. Specifically, the purpose of this experimental study was to inquire into the effect of information diversity on group performance (research question 5), the effect of group members’ sat-isfaction on group performance (research question 2), the effect of members’
different work-style on group performance (prediction 4), the effect of mem-bers’ cooperation on group performance (prediction 3), the effect of members’
attitude toward diversity on group performance (prediction 13), the effect of members’ preference for colleagues on group performance(prediction 8), the ef-fect of members’ foreign language proficiency on group performance (prediction 12), the effect of members’ social dominance orientation on group performance
(research question 15) as well as the effect of members’ diversity exposure on group performance (prediction 10). Since the participants of the explorative study were not asked to fill out the SDO questionnaire, the relationship between IAO and SDO was addressed in the scope of the experimental sample (research question 16). Furthermore, the experiment also aimed to investigate the pre-diction regarding the influence groups’ demographical composition might have on members’ satisfaction(prediction 1).