Demographic Diversity and Faultlines: The Compositional Dynamics of Organizational Groups

Research addresses issues of diversity within organizational groups by discussing and summarizing previous approaches and by introducing a new variable - faultlines - which depends on the alignment of individual member characteristics. By analyzing a group's faultlines, the research focuses attention on the underlying patterns of group member characteristics, which can be an important determinant of subgroup conflict, particularly when the group's task is related to one of its faultlines. The dynamics of faultlines are discussed, from the early to later stages of a group's development, and it is shown how they may be strongest and most likely when diversity of individual member characteristics is moderate.