The effects of personality composition and decision-making processes on change preferences of self-managing teams: A business simulation

Team decision-making on organizational and strategic changes is pervasive. Yet, little is known about determinants of teams' change preferences. We analyze how composition with respect to personality traits associated with (pro-)active behavior (locus of control and type-A/B behavior) influences self-managing teams' preferences for the likelihood and magnitude of changes, and whether participative decision-making and team monitoring as core features of group decision-making counteract or reinforce change tendencies. Results from a business simulation with 42 teams largely support predictions. Stronger type-A orientation increases the likelihood of (drastic) changes. Teams dominated by internal locus of control members are highly responsive to performance feedback in their change preferences. Participative decision-making encourages, whereas team monitoring restricts tendencies towards extreme magnitudes.