Personality heterogeneity in teams: Which differences make a difference for team performance?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of personality heterogeneity on team performance. Relationships were tested from 267 business students in 59 teams working on process improvement projects sponsored by organizations. The impact of personality composition on two types of team tasks (oral vs. written) was examined. Relationships between predictors and criteria differed depending on the type of task performed. Specifically, higher variability on agreeableness and neuroticism resulted in lower oral presentation scores, whereas higher variability on extraversion resulted in higher oral presentation scores. Teams with higher mean cognitive ability scored better on written reports. The implications of these findings for the study of team performance are discussed.