Being Different, But Close: How and When Faultlines Enhance Team Learning

• Published date: 01 December 2016
• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12083

Being Different, But Close: How and When

Faultlines Enhance Team Learning

JOYCE RUPERT,

1

ROBERT JAN BLOMME,

1,2

MARIA J. DRAGT

1

and KAREN JEHN

3

1

Centre for Leadership and Management Development, Business University Nyenrode, The Netherlands

2

Faculty for Management, Science and Technology, Open University Netherlands

3

Melbourne BusinessSchool, University of Melbourne, Australia

Although work-group diversity may have potential positive impact on team learning and performance, the way

diversitycharacteristics are distributed, influenceswhether teams exploit thispotential. In this quantitativefield study

on 52 teams in two health-care organizations, we examined the relationship between informational faultlines (the

demographic alignment of the informational characteristics of the members in a group, creating relatively

homogeneous subgroups) and team learning. We used a moderated-mediation model to test the interplay between

faultline strength (the alignment of characteristics) and distance (between subgroups, based on the characteristics)

on task and process learning. We hypothesized and found that strong but close subgroups stimulatetask and process

learningin teams. This study also providesevidence that transactivememory is a mediator in the relationshipbetween

the interaction of faultline strength and distance with task and process learning.

Keywords: faultline strength; faultline distance; transactive memory; process learning; task learning

Introduction

In today’s organizations, teams have become important

building blocks of organizational effectiveness, given

their ability to process more information and to solve

more complex issues than individuals (Hinsz et al.,

1997; Mathieu et al., 2014). Additionally, due to

demographic changes, globalization, workforce mobility

and specialization, work groups have become

increasingly diverse. Therefore, there has been a growing

interest in understanding how teams learn and perform

(for reviews see Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007;

Jackson and Joshi, 2011). Team learning, in this paper

defined as a process in which team members ‘acquire,

share, and combine knowledge through experience with

one another’(Argote et al., 2001: 370), appears to be a

critical group process predicting group performance

(Wilson et al., 2007).

Research indicates that when teams are diverse in

knowledge andinformation, this can leadto an integration

of different views and perspectives, stimulating team

learning and innovation (Bunderson and Sutcliffe, 2002;

Van der Vegt and Bunderson, 2005). On the other hand,

research has shownthat diverse teams may become mired

in previouslyadopted routines, unable to learn andchange

their coordination in fundamentally different ways (e.g.,

Stewart, 2006; Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007;

Wilson et al., 2007). These mixed findings of past

diversity research (for recent meta-analyses see Bell

et al., 2011; Van Dijk et al., 2012)indicate the importance

for managers to understand the complexities and

dynamics of diverse teams.

In response to these mixed findings, Lau and

Murnighan (1998) advanced the conceptualization of

the groups’diversity composition by looking at the

alignment of mem bers’diversity characteristics, creating

homogeneous subgroups, called ‘faultlines’(Lau and

Murnighan, 1998). For instance, compare a team

consisting of two senior nurses and two junior

behavioural therapists with a team consisting of a junior

and senior nurse and a junior and senior behavioural

therapist. Accord ing to the faultline persp ective, the

alignment of member characteristics in the first team

captured in the concept of faultline strength, will

potentially disrupt team functioning, while the second

group is less likely to suffer from subgroup dynamics.

Correspondence: Joyce Rupert,Nyenrode Business University,Straatweg

25, 3621 BG Breukelen, The Netherlands, Tel: +31 620435206. E-mail:

j.rupert@nyenrode.nl

Correctionadded on 06 September2016, after first onlinepublication: The

author, MariaJ. Dragt, was previously misspeltand has been corrected in

this version.

European Management Review, Vol. 13, 275–290, (2016)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12083

©2016 European Academy of Management

So far, ample research has demonstrated the disruptive

effects of faultline strength on team level outcomes, such

as conflict, satisfaction, cohesion, and performance (see

Thatcher and Patel, 2011 for a meta-analysis). Despite

this convincing evidence, two faultline reviews (Thatcher

and Patel, 2012; Meyer et al., 2014) indicate, however,

that effects of faultline strength on team processes and

outcomes are highly contextual, painting an increasingly

less coherent picture of faultline research. Some recent

studies even found positive effects of faultline strength

on informationelaboration, reflectivereframing (i.e. sense

making), employees’loyalty and team performance (e.g.,

Ellis et al., 2013; Hutzschenreuter and Horstkotte, 2013;

Iseke et al., 2015) with some of them specifying the

conditions under which these positive effects may occur

(Bezrukova et al., 2012; Meyer and Schermuly, 2012;

Chung et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2015). In their faultline

review, Thatcher and Patel (2012) have concluded these

potential positive effects of faultlines to be an area of

future interest.

This study contributes to this literaturein three different

ways. First, we contribute to the contextualperspective on

faultlines, by examining another aspect of faultlines –the

demographic distance between subgroups –influencing

the relationship between faultline strength and team

learning. This aspect of group faultlines has been largely

ignored in previous faultline research, despite its

potentially unique effects on team functioning (c.f.

Zanutto et al., 2011). To our knowledge, so far only

Bezrukova and colleagues (2009) examined faultline

distance as a contextual factor and found this factor to

further exacerbate negative effects of faultline strength

on team performance.

Second, this study contributes to a recent theoretical

advancement in faultline research, which conceptualizes

subgroups according to whether their members have

common identities, resources or task-relevant knowledge

(Carton and Cummings; 2012, 2013). This theory in

subgroups suggestthat the final category –which include

informationalfaultlines may positivelyimpact group level

outcomes, through advantageous information processing

effects. In this study we examine the potential positive

impact of informational faultlineson team learning, under

varying degrees of faultline distance. We focus on team

learning, as research has shown this type of diversity to

be especially relevant for informational faultlines (e.g.,

Van der Vegt and Bunderson,2005), thereby contributing

to the few faultline studies that have examined this

outcome (see Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003; Lau and

Murnighan, 2005, Vora and Markóczy, 2012).

Our third contribution is that we respond to the call for

faultline research to explore potential mediational

processes (Thatcher and Patel, 2011), which help explain

the relationship between faultlines and group outcomes.

As Carton and Cummings(2012) suggest, the information

processing that results from informational faultlines,

relates to how subgroups interact and use their mental

models. Transactive memory is a mental model of how

knowledge is distributed within a team (Lewis, 2003),

Therefore, we examine transactive memory as a mediator

in contextual relationship between faultline strength and

team learning.

Theoretical Background

Developments in faultline literature

The term ‘faultline’comes from geological faults, which

may split certain sections in the ground. Lau and

Murnighan (1998: 328) applied this geological term to

teams, where faultlines refer to ‘hypothetical dividing lines

that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more

attributes’. The faultline becomes stronger when more

attributes align with each other, thereby creating two or

more relatively homogeneous subgroups (Lau and

Murnighan, 1998; 2005). The faultline framework

proposes that strong faultline teams are more likely to suffer

from disruptive processes, which will negatively impact

group processes and outcomes than weak faultline teams.

Since the introduction of the faultline framework, an

abundance of studies have provided evidence for the

disruptive effectsof faultline strength, including increased

levels of conflict and decreased levels of satisfaction,

cohesion, and performance (for reviews and a meta-

analysis see Meyer et al., 2014; Thatcher and Patel,

2011; 2012). However, the relationship between faultline

strength and team learning is a relatively understudied

area. So far, to our knowledge, only three studies have

examined the relationship between faultline strength and

team learning and the results are inconclusive. In an

experimental field study on 79 student groups, Lau and

Murnighan (2005) found that faultlines based on gender

and ethnicity were not related to team learning. In a field

study on 156 teams in pharmaceutical and medical

product firms, Gibson and Vermeulen (2003) found a

curvilinear relationship between faultlines and team

learning, indicating that moderate faultline groups had

higher levels of team learning than strong or weak

faultline groups. More recently, Vora and Markóczy

(2012) investigated the moderating impact of faultline

strength on the relationship between group learning and

performance in a study on 22 student groups. They found

that group learning in strong faultline groups was both

positively and negatively related to performance,

depending on the communication content. As aspects of

team learning,task and personal communication appeared

to instigate positive effects, whereas performance

communication had negative effects on performance in

faultline groups.

276 J. Ru per t et al.

©2016 European Academy of Management