The Role Of Context In Work Team Diversity Research: A Meta-Analytic Review

Integrating macro and micro theoretical perspectives, we conducted a meta-analysis examining the role of contextual factors in team diversity research. Using data from 8,757 teams in 39 studies conducted in organizational settings, we examined whether contextual factors at multiple levels, including industry, occupation, and team, influenced the performance outcomes of relations-oriented and task-oriented diversity. The direct effects were very small yet significant, and after we accounted for industry, occupation, and team-level contextual moderators, they doubled or tripled in size. Further, occupation- and industry-level moderators explained significant variance in effect sizes across studies.