What is Team Processes

This chapter reviews what we know about the effects of surface-level diversity (age, sex, and ethnicity) and deep-level diversity (personality characteristics such as conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness) in organizational teams. It also outlines challenges to today's diversity management and Human Resource (HR) practices, such as the lack of definite conclusions from research results, the mismatch between team diversity research designs and organizations' needs, and the lack of research examining simultaneously different aspects of diversity. Drawing from analysis results of team data from 55 teams of volunteers from Shanghai, the author recommends that HR training and selection take specific team contexts into account and increase attention on functions that support important team processes such as communication and mutual support among team members.