Leading diverse teams to success: What are the factors that can make a difference?

Abstract

Rapidly increasing globalization and international, often virtual communication require – besides intercultural competencies of people - thoughtful and well-designed strategies and tools for managing diversity. Interestingly, studies on the relationship between diversity and performance of teams have yielded inconsistent results. This is why in our research we want to find out what can be done to contribute to a positive relationship between diversity and team outcomes and thus pose the guiding research question: Which features tend to influence the relationship between diversity and team processes/outcomes? Once identified through a systematic literature analysis, our research goal is to arrange and visualize these features in a systematic way such as to provide an online visual aid to help practitioners and researchers to see at a glance which features to consider for a positive difference in managing team-diversity.