Effects of Team Diversity on Team Commitment and Team Innovation Behavior

Recently, with wide adoption of team-centered organizations and increased team diversity, interest in diversity management is increasing, and diverse perspectives and knowledge from team members are required for team effectiveness. On the other hand, team diversity can function negatively by interfering with team members' interactions and this makes it difficult to predict the effects of diversity on team effectives simply. This study focused on the diversity perceived by team members rather than actual diversity and categorized perceived diversity into social category diversity, value diversity, and formation diversity. This study investigated the effects of perceived diversity on innovation behavior and the mediating effect of team commitment on the relation between perceived diversity and team innovation behavior. For empirical test, we collected data on 49 teams and 189 people in the civil service organization and conducted analysis after aggregating individual-level answers into team level. According to the results, category diversity and information diversity did not significant effects on team commitment and team innovation behavior but only value diversity had a negative effect. Furthermore, the mediating effect of team commitment was also supported. In addition, the value diversity of team members had a negative effect on team innovation behavior, which is a team performance variable, but was found to have a positive effect on team innovation behavior through team commitment. Therefore, it was confirmed that team commitment, in which team members are willing to work toward the team's goal, can be an inducer for better organizational performance. As a result, it was suggested that value diversity should be reduced in terms of human resource management in an organization, and that team commitment is important to increase team performance.