The Effects of Faultlines on Team Performance in Collectivistic and Individualistic Work Groups: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Given the detrimental impacts of team faultlines on team processes and outcomes, prior research has attempted to explore contingencies that mitigate the negative effects. We join this burgeoning research stream by investigating the role of individualism-collectivism values in bridging team faultlines. With a unique sample of 128 matches nested in 32 countries in 2014 FIFA World Cup, we theorize and find that team faultlines are negatively associated with team performance and such a negative relationship is weakened when the teams are high in collectivism. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed in this paper.