A meta-analytic integration of the faultlines literature

Reviewing over 20 years of faultlines research, we conducted a meta-analysis based on 168 studies from 162 papers with a sample size of 24,953 teams. Dormant faultlines are positively and significantly related to conflict and activated faultlines, but contrary to widespread beliefs, not directly related to team performance or team satisfaction. Further, the negative effects of dormant faultlines hinge on their activation; activated faultlines mediate the relationship between dormant faultlines on the one hand, and conflict, information elaboration, team performance, and team satisfaction on the other. However, when controlling for the effect of activated faultlines, there are positive effects of dormant faultlines on information elaboration. The relationship between dormant faultlines and activated faultlines was more pronounced when dormant faultlines were based on demographic attributes. Additionally, dormant faultlines were negatively related to team performance when teams were not top management or board teams and when studies were conducted in labs. We synthesize these results to provide a robust agenda for future research on team faultlines. It has been a little over 25 years since the demographic faultlines construct was introduced to our field by Lau and Murnighan to help explain the mixed effects of diversity research. Hundreds of publications indicate the value of the faultlines construct; however, the results of our meta-analysis suggest that, contrary to widespread belief, there are no direct effects of dormant faultlines (hypothetical faultlines) on team performance or team satisfaction, although dormant faultlines do have a strong positive relationship to conflict. Once activated, faultlines are positively related to conflict, negatively related to information elaboration, and negatively related to team performance and team satisfaction. One bright spot in our findings is that if faultlines are activated and we control for the relationship between dormant faultlines and conflict, teams have more information elaboration suggesting that effective faultline management can have positive effects.