Perceptions of team performance : The impact of group composition and task‐based cues

The need to integrate men and women more effectively into team roles requires a fuller consideration of the dynamics of work‐team diversity and the consequences for both behavior and cognition among team members. Drawing from sociological and psychological perspectives, this study examines the influence of team gender composition and gender‐orientation of the task on members' perceptions of their team's performance. The participants for this study included 216 university students (108 men, 108 women) who were randomly assigned to one of three types of gender‐mixed teams – male‐dominated, female‐dominated and balanced‐gender work‐teams. Teams were required to generate, in a (videotaped) team meeting, a negotiation strategy for two business‐related cases. Self‐report instruments provided information regarding perceptions of team performance, and expert judges offered objective measures of team performance. The findings of this study offer striking evidence that team gender composition and the gender‐orientation of the task, can clearly affect member perceptions of the quality of their team's performance, regardless of the actual performance level achieved.