Changes in Indian workforce and globalisation have resulted in an increase in heterogeneous information technology (IT) teams. Team heterogeneity has been shown to impact various team outcomes. This paper examines the impact of demographic, knowledge and underlying diversity in IT teams on various team outcomes. Data were collected from 62 software development (SD) teams and analysed using multiple regressions. The result suggests that more than other forms of heterogeneity, underlying heterogeneity in SD teams has been consistently a significant predictor of the various team outcomes and thus impacts the team effectiveness. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Lata Dyaram

Department of Management Studies

T J Kamalanabhan

IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

Impact of heterogeneity on software development teams

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research

Purpose: Literature highlights diversity to facilitate cognitive outcomes; nevertheless, there is limited scholarly attention on affective diversity effects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived diversity on employee well-being (EWB) and contend different types of diversity to yield differential impact. Further, the authors explore how nature of employee work can moderate these relationships. Design/methodology/approach: With 311 full-time employees representing large manufacturing organizations in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using PROCESS macro. Findings: Results indicate perception of surface and knowledge diversity having a significant positive impact on EWB. Further, the authors found nature of employee work to moderate the link between knowledge diversity and well-being such that perception of knowledge diversity under complex tasks enhanced well-being; no impact of work complexity was observed on the link between surface diversity and well-being. Research limitations/implications: Perceived diversity is malleable lending itself to longitudinal work in this field. Besides nature of work, future research may explore other key contextual factors in diversity dynamics. Practical implications: Contrary to the longstanding theories such as social categorization/similarity attraction, the authors found surface diversity to positively influence EWB. This indicates firms’ effective diversity management strategies in creating inclusive workplace. Further, the authors draw implications around team design and workforce composition. Originality/value: While the scholarly attention to perceived diversity is gradually growing, in a first, the authors empirically examine the impact of diversity perceptions on employee affect in the context of Indian manufacturing firms. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Employee Relations

Towards well-being: role of diversity and nature of work

Academy of Management Review

What's the difference? diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice

The effects of groups' variety and disparity on groups' cognitive complexity.

Journal of Management Information Systems

Conflict and Performance in Global Virtual Teams

Academy of Management Journal

Cross-Level Effects of Workplace Diversity on Sales Performance and Pay

Journal of Management

When Too Little or Too Much Hurts: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship Between Task Conflict and Innovation in Teams

Journal	International Journal of Business Innovation and Research
ISSN	17510252
Open Access	No