Should I stay or should I go?: Predicting team members' intent to remain in the team

Abstract

The authors examined team demographic diversity, perceived team efficacy, intrateam conflict, and perceived team performance as predictors of members'intentions to remain in their team, a form of behavioral commitment. Eighty-three second-year MBA students randomly assigned to 28 three-person teams participated in a negotiation simulation. As hypothesized, results from HLM analysis showed team relationship conflict but not task conflict mediated the relationship of age and national diversity with members' intent to remain. Individual members' initial perceptions of their team's negotiation efficacy and negotiation performance were also found to predict their intent to remain as a team member, but team performance did not mediate the team efficacy-intent-to-remain relationship. Hypotheses predicting that team relationship conflict moderates the relationship of team efficacy with intent to remain and team performance were not supported.