Effects of Moral Value Diversity on Team Composition and Team Cohesiveness

Abstract

In the 1980s, work teams became the hot topic in the business and academic worlds. Organizations are enthusiastically using teams and team-based structures. This team oriented structures are intended to improve organizations’ productivity, quality, and customer service. Thus, more research is suggested on issues such as the effectiveness work teams. Researchers have cited the importance of cohesion of teams and team effectiveness. Moreover, they viewed cohesion as “a general indicator of synergistic group interaction—or process”. In addition, in literature variety of work group compositions are mentioned widely. The most popular composition variables include demographic characteristics and moral value diversity. It is stated that, diversity in composition of a work team had effects on social team processes such as team cohesiveness and team performance. Due to the rapid changes in perceptions of society and wide variety of moral values, people are forced to choose their team members among highly diverse population. With regarding to the suggestions in the literature, in this paper we will be examining composition of a work team in manner of moral values and its effect on team cohesiveness which is an antecedent of team performance. Twelve study groups, each composed of five students, are used as research sample. A questionnaire including team cohesiveness and moral values items will be distributed to students and in the end, their performance will be evaluated by the lecturer of the work teams.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p56