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In this chapter, we present a model for the process of value creation in power-differentiated groups and identify affect as a key moderator. We divide the value creation process into two key steps: information sharing and information processing. Further, we propose that high- and low-power group members each play a critical, albeit different, role in these processes. High-power group members are instrumental in establishing an environment that encourages all group members to share their unique information. Once that information is available, low-power group members use it to formulate solutions that create value. Further, we propose that the affective experience of each of these determines the extent to which they fulfill their role. If high-power group members are happy, they are more likely to create an open and sharing environment. If angry, they will likely squelch broad participation in information sharing. While low-power group members are naturally prone to effortful cognition, we propose that the more suspicious they are regarding the motives of those around them, the more carefully they will process available information.

We created the Research on Managing Groups and Teams conference in 1997 with the first edited volume appearing in 1998. This is the 15th volume in the series, and its publication is truly bittersweet, as it will be our final volume as editors. Each year we explored a different theme, with a young scholar selected to be the thematic editor for the conference and volume. Our intention was to create a venue for junior scholars to develop and showcase their work. Over the years, this small conference of approximately 50 participants (who varied depending on the theme) has become a research incubator for junior faculty members. Their contributions to the field of management have been extensive, covering topics such as technology, time, social identity, status, and diversity – to name just a few.

Purpose – To motivate diversity researchers to reconsider prior findings that use homogeneity as the standard to which diverse teams are compared. To recognize that homogeneity may be just as (if not more) influential than diversity in shaping group processes.

Design/approach – We selectively review the diversity literature and develop a conceptual reinterpretation of prior research. We challenge the general orientation in the literature to treat homogeneity as a baseline to which the effects of diversity are compared. We develop propositions that use diversity as the baseline for homogeneity and provide directions for future research.

Findings – We redigest evidence relating to five core areas in which researchers have identified differences between diverse and homogeneous groups, indicating that homogeneity may lead to (1) an avoidance of disagreement, (2) less use of unique information, (3) overconfidence about performance, (4) more social focus, and (5) less sensitivity to relationship conflict than might be warranted. Based on this reinterpretation of prior literature, we propose that homogeneous teams are prone to delusions, assuming they share similar values, opinions, knowledge, and preferences that make their world seem more homogeneous and comfortable than it may actually be.

Originality/value – We attempt to spur greater understanding of how diversity and homogeneity affect group functioning. We stress the independent effects of homogeneity in shaping group outcomes, an underexplored perspective in the diversity literature.

Purpose – To provide a framework for organizing research on group negotiation, including the contributions of the current volume.

Methodology – The organizing framework arranges past research on group negotiation and the contributions offered in this volume according to the core negotiation elements of people, processes, and places, and their impact on the integration of negotiators' preferences.

Findings – There is an extensive literature on negotiation, but historically group negotiation has represented only a small part of that dialogue. There are three general categories of group negotiation: multiparty negotiation, team negotiation, and multiteam negotiation. The core issue addressed in this chapter is how – viewed through the lens of the four identified core negotiation elements of preferences, people, processes, and places – the quantity and arrangement of negotiators involved in a negotiation qualitatively changes the negotiation experience, and specifically how (different types of) negotiating groups make more complex the challenge of identifying, agreeing to, and implementing integrative agreements.

Implications – More than dyadic negotiation, the difficulty of reaching agreements that satisfy all parties can lead to agreements that some negotiators are less than enthusiastic about implementing. It is the difficulty and importance of finding agreements that satisfy all parties in group negotiation that makes it so important to understand the influence of group negotiation by people, processes, and places.

Value of the Paper – This chapter organizes the landscape of group negotiation research by illuminating both what we know about the people, processes, and places that influence the negotiation of group members' preferences, as well as pointing the way – both theoretically and methodologically – for future researchers to fill in the blanks that remain.

This chapter considers the social structuring processes that occur in groups using computer medicated communications (CMC). Building on a model of status dynamics in face-to-face groups, we develop a series of propositions that indicate how characteristic differences between face-to-face and computer-mediated communications media are likely to affect the behaviors used by individuals to manage their status in a group setting. We propose several types of behaviors or moves that appear to be used to create, negotiate, and manage status in electronically communicating groups. We use qualitative field data from on-going teams to illustrate this perspective of how communication technology can shape the informal social structures of groups.

Creativity is increasingly being recognized as an important source of competitive advantage because a single creative idea that is both novel and useful may take an organization in a profitable new direction. A long tradition of research has focused on individual creativity; especially the traits and social situations that make some people more creative than others. Over time, however, there has been a major shift in the way work is conducted such that organizations are becoming increasingly “team” based and employees are spending more time working as a member of a group. In line with this shift, research on creativity also moved from a focus on the individual to a focus on groups of people who collaborate to generate creative ideas. The growing interest in group creativity reflects an underlying assumption that the exchange of ideas that occurs in a group setting is more likely to result in a wider range of ideas that are more creative than any one person could have come up with alone. Although the evidence to support this assumption is somewhat mixed, there is a great deal of work yet to be done. Our goal in this volume is to promote the already burgeoning interest in group creativity by identifying new questions that will drive future research in this area.