When intragroup conflict is a good thing: team diversity and use of force by police

Public administration scholars, and those in other fields such as business management and social psychology, have long been interested in the effects of workforce diversity on performance. Results thus far are decidedly mixed, in large part because different research traditions operate at different levels of organization and test different performance measures. Drawing from the broader literature on diversity outside public administration, we focus specifically on work team, as the unit of analysis, in this article. We argue that intragroup conflict on a diverse team is potentially beneficial when lower levels of trust and cohesion among group members reduce counterproductive work behavior and thus improve performance. We test this assertation in an analysis of police use of force on citizens in Dallas, TX, between 2013 and 2020. Findings show that demographically diverse teams reduce the use of force against citizens. The largest effects are found in response groups that include variation on both race/ethnicity and gender. We conclude with a discussion of these results and the implications for research on diversity and social equity. Limitations are also discussed.