Table 2.

Summary implications: discrete.

Implications	Main takeaway
Surface-level attributes
Observable process decrements	van Dijk et al. (2012) found almost no relationship between demographic diversity and objective performance. However, subjective observer ratings indicated that diversity adversely impacted performance. This suggests that perceptible decrements were observed by outside raters and thus implies that process issues were apparent (e.g., intrateam conflict), but did not translate into objective performance decrements. This points to an overall observation that process decrements may be detrimental to the team even if they do not meet a threshold of impacting objective performance. Process decrements may especially impact fluid teams performing complex, demanding, highly interdependent and time-limited tasks.
Potential for opposing effects	The two prominent perspectives leveraged to explain the diversity-performance relationship—the social categorization/intergroup bias/similarity–attraction perspective and the informational diversity–cognitive resource perspective—may impact performance in opposite directions. That is, for example, demographic diversity may adversely impact performance whereas task diversity may benefit performance. The primary implication is that a thorough understanding of a team’s composition, including how various attributes present among a team combine to impact performance is needed.
Identify, understand, and theoretically map diversity effects	How diversity is operationalized (i.e., variety, separation, disparity) may have an important impact on team outcomes. That is, how diversity is conceptualized (i.e., as variety, disparity, or separation; Harrison and Klein, 2007) has an impact on the diversity-performance relationship. These types of diversity relate to different theories and consequently predict varying outcomes.
Importance of task-related diversity is task/context specific	Diverse functional backgrounds should benefit performance when (a) a task requires varied functional backgrounds, (b) the varied functional backgrounds on the team are task-relevant, and (c) when teams have the resources and abilities to draw upon these backgrounds.
Diversity can breed creativity	Diversity seems to benefit creativity or innovation. Team tasks that require innovation (vs. production) may benefit from diversity.
Demographic attributes such as age, gender, or race may structure initial team interaction	Initial team interaction is often structured according to observable surface level cues such as gender, race, or occupational status, and these task expectations are then modified by subsequent team interaction. In fluid teams that only operate within a short time span, surface-level cues may be more impactful, and can lead to stereotype-based interaction.
Some cues may be more impactful than others	Gender and ethnicity are overt, easily accessible cues, whereas cues such as educational background or expertise may be less immediately discernable. Salient cues are more likely to be used by individuals to make attributions, and consequently, more likely to impact their behavior.
Weak team cognitions may make fluid teams more vulnerable	Fluid teams may suffer due to undeveloped team cognitions. Moreover, the potential requirement of fluid teams to effectively execute challenging interdependent tasks that benefit from having high levels of team cognition suggests that fluid teams may be more vulnerable to diversity-based disruptions.
The importance of context	A number of meta-analytic results found observed negative effects of demographic diversity to be stronger for complex tasks, interdependent tasks, and tasks in high technology settings. Compared to traditional teams, fluid teams are more likely to be assembled to address such complex, high-demand tasks. On the other hand, results generally found the harmful effects of demographic diversity to be stronger in field settings than in ad hoc laboratory settings. While this may be an artifact of laboratory settings (e.g., reduced motivation), it may be that short-term teams without a chance for future interaction may be less impacted by demographic diversity. Further research is needed.
Deep-level attributes
Presence of multiple concurrent effects	Diversity of deep-level attributes, though also applicable to surface-level attributes, can impact process/performance in multiple ways. For example, varying levels of conscientiousness may impede performance due to (a) tension, or conflict, arising from personality conflicts on this dimension, (b) from lackluster performance from low conscientious members, and/or (c) the requirement of other members to make up for potential process-loss attributed to low conscientious members. These multitudinal effects require further consideration.
Personality	Findings suggest that team performance benefits from greater levels of overall conscientiousness and suffers from conscientiousness diversity. Teams benefit from members who score high on agreeableness, and even a single antagonistic, uncooperative individual can negatively impact the team. Variability on agreeableness has a weak negative relationship with performance. Research suggests a small benefit of having team members with higher levels of extraversion, which we would expect to be dependent on the type of task. The findings suggest a small performance gain for elevated aggregate levels of emotional stability on team performance. Results suggest that teams may benefit from individuals with more openness to experience. The overall findings of the effects of personality on team performance must be qualified when applied to fluid teams, as results are often shown to be weaker in ad hoc teams than in field team settings.
Collective orientation matters	Teams benefit from individuals who have a predilection for teamwork (i.e., collective orientation). Having a teamwork focus may be especially important for teams that are rapidly assembled to address a short-term critical task.
Other individual-level factors may be relevant	The overall findings suggest that selecting team members high on cognitive ability will benefit team performance. Given that fluid teams engage primarily in task-related activities with less emphasis on social activities, cognitive ability may be especially salient. Emotional intelligence is positively related to team performance and this effect is stronger in field versus ad hoc teams. Short-term ad hoc teams may not offer the opportunity for emotional intelligence to express itself.
Deep-level diversity can impact team processes and emergent states	Deep-level diversity, including personality diversity, values diversity, and cultural diversity can have a negative impact on positive emergent states, positive team processes, and a positive relationship with conflict. Triana et al. (2021) found values diversity to most adversely impact team processes and states, followed by personality diversity, and then cultural diversity.
Diversity can lead to conflict that degrades trust	Trust is expected to be central to newly formed teams. Research examining the conflict-trust relationship shows that all types of conflict degrade trust (relationship conflict, ρ = −0.45; task conflict, ρ = −0.53; process conflict ρ = −0.59; de Wit et al., 2012). Moreover, research suggests that the possible positive effects of conflict (specifically task conflict) may only be present when high levels of trust are already present among teams (De Dreu and Weingart, 2003). This may be especially relevant to fluid teams where initial trust development is difficult (Driskell et al., 2023).
Task complexity moderates the impact of deep-level diversity	Meta-analysis of van Dijk et al. (2012) examining the moderating effects of task difficulty/complexity suggests that deep-level diversity is detrimental to team performance in more complex tasks. This overall finding is in line with Triana et al. (2021) who found deep-level diversity to be more detrimental to team positive emergent states and team processes in tasks of high complexity.
Deep-level attributes may not be readily discernable in short-term team contexts	Examining deep-level composition variables, Bell (2007) found that personality attributes and preference for teamwork were more strongly related to performance in field vs. laboratory studies. While again, this may be an artifact of laboratory studies, this finding suggests that the effects of deep-level attributes may be less salient in a short-term fluid team context. However, some characteristics, such as very low conscientiousness or very low emotional stability, may be immediately impactful. Further research is needed.