Jeffrey T. Polzer

Being Different Yet Feeling Similar: The Influence of Demographic Composition and Organizational Culture on Work Processes and Outcomes

This research was supported by a Center for Creative Leadership grant to the first author. We thank Dan Brass, Ben Hermalin, Rod Kramer, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper, and Linda Johanson for working her usual editorial magic. We also thank Zoe Barsness, Joe Baumann, Mary Cusack, Brenda Ellington, Tiffany Galvin, Anne Lytle, Ann Tenbrunsel, Melissa Thomas-Hunt, and Kim Wade-Benzoni for help in administering the study. Drawing from self-categorization theory, we tested hypotheses on the effects of an organizations demographic composition and cultural emphasis on work processes and outcomes. Using an organizational simulation, we found that the extent to which an organization emphasized individualistic or collectivistic values interacted with demographic composition to influence social interaction, conflict, productivity, and perceptions of creativity among 258 MBA students. Our findings suggest that the purported benefits of demographic diversity are more likely to emerge in organizations that, through their culture, make organizational membership salient and encourage people to categorize one another as having the organizations interests in common, rather than those that emphasize individualism and distinctiveness among members..

Identity in organizations : building theory through conversations

Preface - David Whetten Why Organizational Identity and Why Conversations? The Definition and MetaDefinition of Identity - Stuart Albert PART ONE: WHAT DOES ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY MEAN? From Individual to Organizational Identity - Dennis Gioia The Identity of Organizations - Dennis Gioia et al PART TWO: WHAT DOES IDENTITY IMPLY FOR STRATEGY? Organizational Identity within the Strategic Management Conversation - Larry Stimpert, Yolanda Sarason and Loren Gustafson Contributions and Assumptions A Strategy Conversation on the Topic of Organization Identity - Rhonda Reger et al PART THREE: HOW DO PEOPLE IDENTIFY WITH ORGANIZATIONS? To Be or Not To Be - Michael Pratt Central Questions in Organizational Identification Identification with Organizations - Blake Ashforth et al Epilogue - Paul C Godfrey et al What Does the Concept of Identity Add to Organization Science? Postscript - Paul C Godfrey Observations on Conversation as a Theory-Building Methodologyorganizations with value-chain activities dispersed around the world. Issues of organizational memory and learning curves are particularly important in this age of flexible production, mass customization, and an externalized and/or virtual workforce. This book should be required reading for scholars doing research related to organizational earning and for practitioners trying to implement knowledge management and transfer programs in organizations.

Capitalizing on Diversity: Interpersonal Congruence in Small Work Groups

We examine interpersonal congruence, the degree to which group members see others in the group as others see themselves, as a moderator of the relationship between diversity and group effectiveness. A longitudinal study of 83 work groups revealed that diversity tended to improve creative task performance in groups with high interpersonal congruence, whereas diversity undermined the performance of groups with low interpersonal congruence. This interaction effect also emerged on measures of social integration, group identification, and relationship conflict. By eliciting self-verifying appraisals, members of some groups achieved enough interpersonal congruence during their first ten minutes of interaction to benefit their group outcomes four months later. In contrast to theories of social categorization, the interpersonal congruence approach suggests that group members can achieve harmonious and effective work processes by expressing rather than suppressing the characteristics that make them unique.

Finding Value in Diversity: Verification of Personal and Social Self-Views in Diverse Groups

We propose a model of group processes that accords a key role to the verification of peoples self-views (thoughts and feelings about the self). This approach partially incorporates past work on self-categorization (under the rubric of verification of social self-views) and introduces a new set of processes (the verification of personal self-views) to the groups literature. Conceptual analysis and recent empirical evidence suggest the self-verification framework offers a novel perspective on finding value in diversity.

Friends in High Places: The Effects of Social Networks on Discrimination in Salary Negotiations:

This article tests hypotheses about the effects of social networks on inequitable salary negotiation outcomes using a U.S. high-technology companys salary negotiation data for 1985–1995. Analyzing results of 3,062 actual salary negotiations, we found that members of racial minority groups negotiated significantly lower salary increases than majority members, but this effect was dramatically reduced when we controlled for social ties to the organization. Having a social tie to the organization significantly increased salary negotiation outcomes, and minorities were less likely than majority members to have such a social tie.

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: How High-Status Individuals Decrease Group Effectiveness

Can groups become effective simply by assembling high-status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks. Examining Wall Street sell-side equity research analysts who work in an industry in which individuals strive for status, we find that groups benefited---up to a point---from having high-status members, controlling for individual performance. With higher proportions of individual stars, however, the marginal benefit decreased before the slope of this curvilinear pattern became negative. This curvilinear pattern was especially strong when stars were concentrated in a small number of sectors, likely reflecting suboptimal integration among analysts with similar areas of expertise. Control variables ensured that these effects were not the spurious result of individual performance, department size or specialization, or firm prestige. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results for the literatures on status and groups, along with practical implications for strategic human resource management.

Fostering Group Identification and Creativity in Diverse Groups: The Role of Individuation and Self-Verification

A longitudinal study examined the interplay of identity negotiation processes and diversity in small groups of masters of business administration (MBA) students. When perceivers formed relatively positive impressions of other group members, higher diversity predicted more individuation of targets. When perceivers formed relatively neutral impressions of other group members, however, higher diversity predicted less individuation of targets. Individuation at the outset of the semester predicted self-verification effects several weeks later, and self-verification, in turn, predicted group identification and creative task performance. The authors conclude that contrary to self-categorization theory, fostering individuation and self-verification in diverse groups may maximize group identification and productivity.

Interest Alignment and Coalitions in Multiparty Negotiation

This study tested hypotheses developed from the distinct literatures on negotiations and coalitions and hypotheses integrating the two. In a complex, three-person negotiation simulation, subjects h...

Interpersonal Congruence, Transactive Memory, and Feedback Processes: An Integrative Model of Group Learning

This article presents a multilevel model of group learning that focuses on antecedents and consequences of interpersonal congruence, transactive memory, and feedback processes. The model holds that members’ self-verification motives and situational conditions (e.g., member diversity and task demands) give rise to identity negotiation behaviors (i.e., self-disclosure and feedback sharing). The effects of identity negotiation on interpersonal congruence, the transactive memory system, and ongoing group processes are influenced by team process interventions such as team-level feedback and group facilitation. Situational changes may renew identity negotiation that, in turn, leads to changes in the transactive memory system. Directions for research and practice focus on the use of feedback to facilitate interpersonal congruence and transactive memory and increase goal achievement and continued group development.

Beyond Individual Creativity The Superadditive Benefits of Multicultural Experience for Collective Creativity in Culturally Diverse Teams

Although recent research has consistently demonstrated the benefits of multicultural experience for individual-level creativity, its potential advantages for collective creativity in culturally diverse teams have yet to be explored. We predicted that multicultural experience among members of a collective would enhance joint creativity in a superadditive fashion. Using a two-step methodology that included both individual and dyadic brainstorming sessions, we found that even after controlling for individual creativity, multicultural experience had a superadditive effect on dyadic creativity. Specifically, dyads performed best on a creative task in terms of fluency, flexibility, and novelty—three classic dimensions of creativity—when both dyad partners had high levels of multicultural experience. These results show that when it comes to multicultural experience, the creative whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Implications for diversity research are discussed.