Gender Diversity: How Can We Facilitate Its Positive Effects on Teams?

We examined the relationship between gender diversity and team commitment, in association with cooperative group norms and transformational leadership. Forty-eight work teams in an IT firm located in Seoul, South Korea participated in the study. We hypothesized, based on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, that cooperative group norms and transformational leadership would moderate the relationship between gender diversity and team commitment. The results indicated that the negative effects produced by gender diversity in teams may be reduced by cooperative group norms but not by transformational leadership. Implications of these findings are discussed and future research directions outlined.