Psycoloky

Journal of Applied Psychology

2004, Vol. 89, No. 6, 1008 –1022

Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association

0021-9010/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.89.6.1008

Work Group Diversity and Group Performance: An Integrative Model and

Research Agenda

Daan van Knippenberg

Carsten K. W. De Dreu and Astrid C. Homan

Erasmus University Rotterdam

University of Amsterdam

Research on the relationship between work group diversity and performance has yielded inconsistent

results. To address this problem, the authors propose the categorization-elaboration model (CEM), which

reconceptualizes and integrates information/decision making and social categorization perspectives on

work-group diversity and performance. The CEM incorporates mediator and moderator variables that

typically have been ignored in diversity research and incorporates the view that information/decision

making and social categorization processes interact such that intergroup biases flowing from social

categorization disrupt the elaboration (in-depth processing) of task-relevant information and perspectives.

In addition, the authors propose that attempts to link the positive and negative effects of diversity to

specific types of diversity should be abandoned in favor of the assumption that all dimensions of diversity

may have positive as well as negative effects. The ways in which these propositions may set the agenda

for future research in diversity are discussed.

integration have not been very successful in linking diversity with

performance (Bowers, Pharmer, & Salas, 2000; Webber &

Donahue, 2001; also see Wood, 1987). To meet this challenge and

to advance our understanding of the effects of work-group diversity on group performance, we introduce a model of the processes

underlying the positive and the negative effects of diversity that we

believe has greater predictive power and opens up new directions

in research on diversity and group performance. We begin...