Decision Diversion in Diverse Teams: Findings from Inside a Corporate Boardroom
基于对一家上市公司董事会五年的参与观察，发现团队构成变化增加多样性后，会引发一种名为“决策偏离”的功能失调过程，即团队用协商子群体利益替代了有效完成任务的目标。
Using qualitative data from a 5-year participant observation study conducted inside the corporate board of a publicly-held company, we discovered what happened when team composition changed to increase the diversity of perspectives and interests represented on the team. Based on board meeting transcripts over the 5-year period, we observed that a change in team composition was followed by a process we label decision diversion, a dysfunctional process in which the team replaced its goal of effective task performance with negotiating the interests of subgroup members. A key insight of our study is that this process unfolded as team members attempted to engage in effective task-based information analysis and decision-making. Our study suggests that the traditional assumptions underlying the understanding of team composition may be insufficient. We provide alternative explanations for the origins of the dynamics of decision diversion in teams.