It’s the little things: A qualitative study of the nature and role of interpersonal inclusion in fostering individual performance in project teams

Abstract

The capability to work within a diverse team is of growing importance given the changing nature of work (WEF 2016; WEF 2020), the rise of teams as a site of knowledge production, flatter hierarchies and diverse workforces. To date, however, the dominant focus of diversity and inclusion scholarship, as well as that concerning team effectiveness, has been on the relationship between an individual and a whole group, rather than between peers within the group. The primary objective of this research was to explore the nature of interpersonal inclusion between peers in workplace teams, and thus to illuminate the black-box mediating the relationship between diversity and performance (Lawrence 1997). This study complements and expands inclusion scholarship (e.g. Shore et al. 2011; Shore et al. 2018) and team member exchange theory (Seers 1989; Seers et al. 1995) by foregrounding peer relationships; proposing a taxonomy of three factors which characterise interpersonal inclusion between peers (namely instrumental assistance, emotional bond and embodied connection), as well as their antithesis in relation to interpersonal exclusion; and identifying interpersonal inclusion as a social exchange process. This process enables team members to give and access resources, which contributes to individual job performance and, ultimately, team effectiveness. In addition, interpersonal inclusion acts a gateway to team level inclusion, and thus a more positive psycho-social experience as well as a larger pool of resources. By focussing on peer relationships, the extant research provides a more comprehensive picture of the inclusion/exclusion experience than previously identified. In particular, acts of interpersonal inclusion between peers are highly noteworthy for team members, and occur four times more frequently than acts of interpersonal exclusion. Moreover, the behaviours of interpersonal inclusion are equally salient to, and prevalent for, team members who perceive themselves as more similar to the group, as well as those who perceive themselves as more different. Experiences between peers diverge however in relation to interpersonal exclusion, with those who perceive themselves as different to the group being three times more likely to report acts of interpersonal exclusion than those who perceive themselves similar. This reduces access to resources and thus hampers the ability to perform tasks which are critical to individual job performance. The taxonomy of interpersonal inclusion between peers, and relationship between interpersonal inclusion/exclusion and individual job performance as well as team effectiveness, was developed through an interview-based study, and the taxonomy validated through a second ethnographic case study. The ethnographic study was undertaken with a team working virtually, and thus provides insights into, and practical ideas about how to generate, interpersonal inclusion between peers in a virtual setting. Both studies were conducted within a Global Consulting firm located in Australia. Given the diversity of staff within a Consulting firm, the frequency with which consultants cycle through project teams and thus the importance of high-quality soft skills to high quality peer relationships, this research is relevant to professional service firms which follow a similar “industry recipe” (Spender 1989, p. 6).