Diversity in Temporal Portfolios: Understanding How Time-Based Individual Differences Can Affect Team Performance

Although the research findings that have emerged regarding the effect of member diversity on team performance are generally disappointing, diversity scholars have shown surprisingly high agreement in their recommendations concerning how to move this area of study forward.  In addition to including task and team types as moderators, a pervasive suggestion has been to go beyond demographic and functional differences to incorporate more forms of diversity. Heeding both of these recommendations, the current research draws attention to an unexplored form of individual difference operating in a team, and it describes the relevant aspects of the task environment that serve as catalysts or suppressors for their impact. Specifically, we advocate that individuals carry, often unconsciously, a temporal portfolio into team settings. Such a portfolio is comprised of time-based individual differences:  time urgency, time perspective, polychronicity, and pacing preferences.  Whether temporal portfolio diversity facilitates or inhibits team performance will depend on task characteristics and the specific attribute under discussion.

Susan Mohammed is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Her research focuses on teams and decision making, with a special emphasis on team mental models, team composition/diversity, and temporal dynamics in teams.  She currently serves on the editorial board for Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

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