The preventative benefit of group diversification on group performance decline: An investigation with latent growth models
研究了群体随时间推移变得更多元化（成员加入或离开）如何帮助销售团队在逆境中减缓绩效下滑，并发现群体规模增大会削弱这种预防效果。
Summary Integrating the open systems perspective of groups and the contingency approach to diversity, we study how group diversification (i.e., a process in which a group becomes more diverse over time as members join and/or leave the group) affects group performance change in an adverse task environment. We argue that diversification benefits performance by reducing group performance decline in times of adversity. Group size increase, however, attenuates this preventative benefit of group diversification. Focusing on organizational tenure and gender, we studied 279 sales groups (3277 individuals) in a large German financial consulting company from 2004 to 2008. In this period, a national legislative change prompted the company to withdraw its star product from the market and presented adversity to the sales groups. Results from latent growth models (LGMs) overall support our arguments. This research extends the (conditional) beneficial view of diversity from a static theoretical space about group being diverse to a dynamic one about group becoming diverse.