Individual Dissimilarity and Team Work

Dissimilarity is the degree to which individual attributes are/aren’t shared by other team members (Jackson, Stone & Alvarez, 1992). Recent studies examined its effect from different aspects (Pelled et al, 2001; Pelled et al., 1999; Jehn et al., 1997).

Consider Informational, Visible and Value dissimilarities specifically (Harrison et al., 1998; Pelled et al., 1999); Where informational dissimilarity relates to differences in occupancy, profession and working experience and visible dissimilarity refers to being different in a ‘visible’ way like age, skin color and ethnicity whereas value dissimilarity corresponds to distinction in ethics, approaches, methodologies of performing activities.

Elizabeth Hobman (et al,2003) state that perceived dissimilarity results in conflicts associated with the individual’s level of participation in team work. Perception of dissimilarity should be taken into account when managing projects. Value dissimilarity induces beneficial task conflicts but has negative impact on relationships among team members. This impact can be downsized by aligning members to ‘Goals’ while keeping the approach ‘loose’ (Schneider et al, 1999); and by educating teams on importance of commitment to ‘team unity’ (Gelfand et al, 1996). Teams should also be open to diversity so as to motivate dissimilar members’ involvement and explore new approaches even playing the devil’s advocate (Turner et al, 1994). Organizations have a stake here, where processes, procedures and regulations should emphasize on ‘equality’ and team evaluation should be based on achievements.

The case I experienced was an example of how information and value dissimilarities influence team performance। If the committee had the chance to continue with the diversified approaches, the outcome would have been enhanced.
Regards,
Samer

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