• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.237-248
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• 2009

Faultline theery, introduced by Lau and Murnighan in 1998, adds valuable explanations in addition to what previous demographic studies have explored. However, previous research has not been able to fully integrate the characteristics embedded in the workplace environments, and the influence of faultlines in IT industries has yet to be explored. In this study, IT related influence is given considerable weight into traditional faultline theory and the impact of IT-based faultlines is revealed. Our study indicates that IT-based faultlines have a negative impact on task conflict and process conflict, and these two effectively also effectively mediate the influence of IT-based faultlines to group performance. Two potential moderators are studied and the Tesults indicate that commitment has no moderating effect between IT-based faultlines and group performance while open communication has strong moderating effect. Our empirical study reconfirmed that faultlines are important indicators in group work and also that faultlines are intimately related to various conflicts and group outcomes. We hope our research findings will be beneficial to organizations concerned with effective and efficient group work.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.149-160
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• 2018

An alternative method for team diversity studies is to examine demographic faultlines. A concept of demographic faultline enables us to better understand team dynamics with multidimensional diversity. This study suggests the demographic faultline as a new situational factorto influence the relationship between leader teamwork behaviors and a climate of support for innovation. When subgroups divided by demographic faultline are homogeneous within them and heterogeneous between them, the homogeneity may increase intimacy in each subgroup while the heterogeneity may increase exclusiveness between those subgroups. We argued that a leader could play an important role to build a cooperative relationship between faultline-based subgroups and highlight positive aspects of developing and maintaining subgroups in organizations. With a sample of 81 teams (558 employees), it was examined how leader teamwork behaviors would affect a team-level climate of support for innovation and how this relationship would be moderated by each team's demographic faultline (gender, age, and educational specialty). As predicted, it was found that there was a significant positive relationship between each leader's teamwork behaviors and each team's climate of support for innovation. In addition, this relationship was stronger for teams with strong faultline than with weak faultline. Our findings and their implications were further discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Industrial Systems Conference
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• 2008.10b
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• pp.249-254
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• 2008

Since Lau and Murnighan first introduced the concept of faultlines in 1998, there are many extended studies related to faultlines theory. It is obvious that faultlines theory adds valuable explanations in addition to what numerous previous demographic studies have explored. However, previous research has not been able to fully integrate the characteristics embedded in the workplace environments, and the influence of faultlines in IT industries has yet to be explored. So it is not reasonable and convincing to extend the findings from previous faultlines research to other industries in the global world. In this study, IT related influence is given considerable weight into traditional faultlines theory and the impact of IT-based faultlines is revealed. Our study indicates that IT-based faultlines have negative impact on task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict, and also have negative impact on individual outcomes such as individual performance and satisfaction. The influence of IT-based faultlines on people s intend to remain in the current organization is found to be insignificant. Our empirical study reconfirmed that faultlines are important indicator in group works and also that faultlines are intimately related to various conflicts and individual outcomes. We hope our research findings would be beneficial to the organizations concerned with effective and efficient group work.