The communication within heterogeneous teams: what influences and shapes it? - The influence of team diversity on conflict and group performance, and the moderating effect of personality traits on these relationships.

The communication between individuals has always been important as it allowed them to understand each other and work together. The proper communication in workgroups is vital, especially for companies. Effective communication allows groups to make good decisions that would be beneficial for their employers, for instance. However, this is often affected by a myriad of factors like diversity, task or relationship conflicts, or personality. These can influence the group’s communication, making the group perform better or worse. Task conflict can positively influence the diverse group’s performance as individuals may bring in ideas that others would not have thought of before. On the contrary, the relationship conflict may pose a negative effect, distracting the group from the purpose of a given task. Therefore, it is important to study these influences and learn how to cope with them. This thesis aimed to test the effects that diversity and task/relationship conflict have on team’s performance. This research also evaluated another influencing factor, which is not widely researched yet. It tested the moderating effects of five personality traits, which could also influence the relation between diversity and task conflict, and the relation between relationship conflict and diversity. In order to test these influences, this research used the desert survival situation task to measure team performance and aforementioned factors. This thesis contributed to the scientific research by measuring and testing the effects of personality traits through the Multi-Personality Questionnaire. This research argued that high scores on the MPQ would make the relation between diversity and task conflict stronger. However, high scores on the MPQ could also weaken the relation between diversity and relationship conflict.