Supporting fluid teams: a research agenda

Fluid teams are teams that are rapidly assembled from across disciplines or areas of expertise to address a near-term problem. They are typically composed of individuals who have no prior familiarity with one another, who as a team must begin work immediately, and who disband at the completion of the task. Prior research has noted the challenges posed by this unique type of team context. To date, fluid teams have been understudied, yet their relevance and application in the modern workplace is expanding. This Perspective article presents a concise overview of critical research gaps and opportunities to support selection, training, and workplace design for fluid teams.

Perk or Peril? Making Sense of Member Differences When Interorganizational Collaboration Begins

Team member differences can be found in various characteristics and be seen as both perks and perils. But what makes one group focus on certain dimensions and differences’ positive implications, while another collective notices other aspects and sees trouble ahead? We address this question in the context of interorganizational teams’ first stages, when impressions are limited and valuations must be made promptly. Our findings from in-depth interviews offer a sensemaking perspective on perceived otherness and explicate when and why differences are interpreted as helping or hindering collaborative practices. Moreover, we illuminate how coorientation and representation dynamics shape otherness perceptions and valuations.

Top Management Team Political Polarization and Its Implications for Strategic Decision-Making

Small teams’ decisions play a major role in shaping business and society. As political differences permeate our lives, their influence is increasingly being felt throughout organizations. Yet, little is known about how executives’ political differences influence the Top Management Team’s decision-making processes. We integrate literatures on executive diversity, political polarization, and small teams to develop a new construct, Top Management Team political polarization, and examine how this team characteristic influences two critical parts of the strategic decision-making process: comprehensiveness and speed. We also propose behavioral integration reduces polarization’s drawbacks, offering improvements to decision-making processes in these polarizing times.

Performing in diverse settings: A diversity, equity, and inclusion approach to culture

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are being built into the fabric of today’s organizations, and utilizing such a lens is vital to understanding cross-cultural performance. Yet, most of the culture and diversity literature has grown in silos and is therefore not leveraging the many benefits that their integration could provide. To counter this gap, we advance a theoretical framework featuring a new definition of cross-cultural performance (CCP) from a DEI perspective, as a new angle for doing work across cultures. Specifically, CCP is defined as the integration of multiple cultural perspectives of individuals who work together with the goal of enabling a diverse, inclusive, and equitable work environment. By applying the DEI lens to CCP, we elevate the meaning of performance due to added consideration of compositional differences, the possible barriers to employees’ success, and the extent to which others’ perspectives are indeed valued. Accordingly, our framework identifies three main components of CCP: catalyzing cultural differences, taking part in engaging communication, and promoting allyship activities. Furthermore, we specify emotional management as the glue of these three components, and key outcomes at different levels of analysis. Last, we discuss the implications of our framework to both theory and practice as well as directions for future research.