Effects of Different Team Formats on the Performance of Multidisciplinary GHG Assurance Teams

SUMMARY Assurance of GHG and other ESG disclosures has become widespread. We examine the effect of team format on the performance of GHG multidisciplinary assurance teams comprising an assurance expert (financial background) and a subject matter expert (scientific background). We compare the performance of three different multidisciplinary GHG assurance teams (nominal, interacting and review) on a brainstorming task involving GHG risk generation. We find that both nominal teams and review teams outperform interacting teams in the quantity and quality of risks generated. We also find evidence of the nature of cognitive diversity in multidisciplinary teams as assurance experts generate more unique risks associated with comparing the subject matter with suitable criteria than subject matter experts.