The female advantage in team dynamics: The role of genuine emotional displays.

Abstract

While the “female advantage” is a well-studied phenomenon, its incidence and effects remain a focus of much debate. In particular, with the growing relevance of teamwork and genuine affective exchange processes in team dynamics, a better understanding of multilevel effects of gender in team processes and outcomes is needed. Drawing from research in team configurations and dynamics explaining how inputs (e.g., team composition) can influence team processes (e.g., emotional exchange) that subsequently affect team outcomes (e.g., performance), we examine mediating effects of deep acting as a gendered group emotional mechanism, assuming it is more prevalent in female-dominated teams. 437 employees working in 92 teams responded to measures of emotional labor and performance. Employees were nested in teams, and data were analyzed using multilevel structural equation modelling. Mediation analyses showed that proportions of women are associated with higher team-level deep acting and subsequent team performance. Findings are discussed in terms of how organization theories could be strengthened by making visible gendered dynamics of shared emotional exchange processes and their effects in team performance, liberating genuine emotional responses among all team members.