Triggering Faultline Effects in Teams: The Importance of Bridging Friendship Ties and Breaching Animosity Ties

Hong Ren
Hong Ren
[email protected]
Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
Search for more papers by this author
,
Barbara Gray
Barbara Gray
[email protected]
Management and Organization Department, Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16870
Search for more papers by this author
,
David A. Harrison
David A. Harrison
[email protected]
Department of Management, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
Search for more papers by this author

Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201

Management and Organization Department, Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16870

Search for more papers by this author

David A. Harrison

[email protected]

Department of Management, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Search for more papers by this author

Published Online:19 Nov 2014https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0944

Supplemental Material

orsc.2014.0944-sm.pdf (130 KB)

Cited by
- Unpacking Friendship in Team Dynamics: A Systematic Review of Friendship From HRD Perspectives
  17 September 2025 | Human Resource Development Review, Vol. 25, No. 2
- A Framework for Subgroup Dynamics Through the System Dynamics Lens: An Integrative Review of the Attribute and the Network Views
  16 March 2026 | Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 17
- Team Iungens Practice: A Behavioural Perspective to Bridge Demographic Faultlines and Relationship Conflicts for Team Creativity
  11 February 2026 | Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 21
- Faultlines in Diverse Teams: Research-Based Strategies for Management Education
  17 December 2025 | Management Teaching Review, Vol. 48
- Cracking the board: new-to-board directors’ perception of board faultlines in Australian state sporting organizations
  17 October 2025 | Managing Sport and Leisure, Vol. 26
- Relationship divisive faultlines and subgroup reciprocity in technological innovation networks: Analysing the sequential mediating role
  Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Vol. 78
- Birds of a Feather Flock Together: The Impact of Top Management Team Faultlines on Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance
  1 December 2024 | Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Vol. 34, No. 4
- Individualized Deals for Overqualified Employees: An Investigation of Supervisor Perceptions of Employee Overqualification
  18 September 2025 | Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 27
- How entrepreneurial team informational and social category faultlines affect new venture performance: A conservation of resources perspective
  14 February 2024 | Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 42, No. 3
- Rethinking the top management team demographic faultlines–firm performance relationship: The roles of TMT temporal stability and TMT hierarchical differentiation
  Journal of Business Research, Vol. 196
- New venture team faultlines and corporate innovation from the perspective of structuration theory
  International Review of Economics & Finance, Vol. 98
- Birds of a feather flock together? Gender differences in decision-making homophily of friendships
  China Economic Review, Vol. 89
- Make it work - The challenge to diversity in entrepreneurial teams: A configurational perspective
  European Management Journal, Vol. 43, No. 1
- When shared leadership backfires in new venture teams: the roles of power struggles and functional background diversity
  30 December 2024 | Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 59
- Activity and Interconnections of Individual and Collective Actors: An Integrative Approach to Small Group Research
  12 April 2023 | Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, Vol. 58, No. 4
- Systematic literature review on networks of innovative teams: Current trends and future research avenues
  European Management Journal, Vol. 42, No. 6
- Devoted but Disconnected: Managing Role Conflict Through Interactional Control
  Vanessa M. Conzon,
  Ruthanne Huising
  15 April 2024 | Organization Science, Vol. 35, No. 6
- Influence of Digital Communication Configuration in Virtual Teams: A Faultline Perspective
  3 January 2025 | Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 41, No. 4
- Backstage Matters: Collective Energy and Information-Sharing on Global Teams
  Academy of Management Discoveries, Vol. 10, No. 3
- Win–win or Lose–Lose? Dual logic, board factional faultlines, and ambidextrous innovation in state-owned enterprises
  Technovation, Vol. 137
- A meta-analytic integration of the faultlines literature
  6 March 2024 | Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 14, No. 2
- How boards’ factional faultlines affect corporate financial fraud
  3 November 2022 | Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 41, No. 1
- Stratification or Polarization: a Qualitative Study of the Formation of Status-Based Subgroups in China
  14 December 2022 | Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 39, No. 1
- The more the merrier or too many cooks spoil the pot? A meta‐analytic examination of team size and team effectiveness
  30 April 2023 | Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 44, No. 8
- How Surface-Level and Deep-Level Faultlines Influence Team Performance through Subgroup Formation and Team Interaction Quality: A Meta-analytic Review
  11 September 2023 | Management and Organization Review, Vol. 19, No. 5
- Perceived Faultlines and Decentralized Structures in Decision-Making Teams
  26 April 2023 | Small Group Research, Vol. 54, No. 5
- Positive faultlines: an unconventional perspective on team compositional dynamics
  13 February 2023 | Team Performance Management: An International Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3/4
- Bridgework: A Model of Brokering Relationships Across Social Boundaries in Organizations
  Tiffany D. Johnson,
  Aparna Joshi,
  Glen E. Kreiner
  13 September 2022 | Organization Science, Vol. 34, No. 4
- Exhausted by social distancing at work: understanding the effects of COVID-19 pandemic in workgroups
  7 June 2022 | Personnel Review, Vol. 52, No. 5
- Cultural diversity in semi-virtual teams: A multicultural esports team study
  13 April 2023 | Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 54, No. 4
- Subgroup formation in h uman – robot teams: A m ulti‐study mixed‐method approach with implications for theory and practice
  10 February 2022 | Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 74, No. 3
- Workplace Friendships: Antecedents, Consequences, and New Challenges for Employees and Organizations
  21 February 2023
- The Effect of Formal Time Allocations on Learning Trajectories and Performance
  25 April 2022 | Small Group Research, Vol. 53, No. 6
- Interactive Effects of Person–Group Fit and Team-Member Exchange in Predicting Continuous Improvement
  10 December 2022 | Sustainability, Vol. 14, No. 24
- Management Faultlines and Management Forecasts*
  27 September 2022 | Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 39, No. 4
- Forced to go virtual. Working-from-home arrangements and their effect on team communication during COVID-19 lockdown
  24 March 2022 | German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, Vol. 36, No. 3
- Relational demography in organizations: an assessment of the explored and overlooked
  8 March 2022 | Baltic Journal of Management, Vol. 17, No. 2
- Psychological Distance Impacts Subgroup Reciprocity in Technological Innovation Networks: The Mediating Role of Divisive Faultlines
  16 March 2022 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 13
- Technological Distance and Breakthrough Inventions in Multi-Cluster Teams: How Intra- and Inter-Location Ties Bridge the Gap
  30 June 2021 | Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1
- Shaping positive and negative ties to improve team effectiveness: The roles of leader humility and team helping norms
  6 November 2020 | Human Relations, Vol. 75, No. 3
- Organizational Demographic Faultlines: Their Impact on Collective Organizational Identification, Firm Performance, and Firm Innovation
  1 September 2021 | Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 58, No. 8
- The curvilinear relationship between team informational faultlines and creativity: moderating role of team humble leadership
  8 February 2021 | Management Decision, Vol. 59, No. 12
- HRM Challenges for Immigrant Employees: Status-Laden Transitions Across Cultures and Workplace Social Environments
- Working Across Faultlines—Assessing Intersubgroup Communication in Teams
  16 April 2021 | Frontiers in Communication, Vol. 6
- Beyond the double-edged sword of cultural diversity in teams: Progress, critique, and next steps
  18 January 2021 | Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1
- Network Agency
  Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 15, No. 1
- If We See, Will We Agree? Unpacking the Complex Relationship Between Stimuli and Team Climate Strength
  Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 15, No. 1
- Toward A Temporal Theory of Faultlines and Subgroup Entrenchment
  25 October 2019 | Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 57, No. 8
- Reconciling Conflict and Cooperation in Environmental Governance: A Social Network Perspective
  Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 45, No. 1
- Effects of Leader Networking Behaviors and Vertical Faultlines on Support for Innovation
  8 May 2020 | Small Group Research, Vol. 51, No. 5
- A human resource allocation method for business processes using team faultlines
  11 April 2020 | Applied Intelligence, Vol. 50, No. 9
- Understanding Work Teams From a Network Perspective: A Review and Future Research Directions
  3 February 2020 | Journal of Management, Vol. 46, No. 6
- Into the fray: Adaptive approaches to studying novel teamwork forms
  24 March 2020 | Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 10, No. 2
- Faultlines during Meeting Interactions: The Role of Intersubgroup Communication
- Group power structure, inter-subgroup cross-dependency, and work group performance
  6 June 2019 | Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 37, No. 1
- Perceived Subgroups, TMS, and Team Performance: The Moderating Role of Guanxi Perception
  29 November 2019 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 10
- Deploying “connectors”: A control to manage employee turnover intentions?
  Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 79
- Faultlines as the “Earth’s Crust”: The Role of Team Identification, Communication Climate, and Subjective Perceptions of Subgroups for Global Team Satisfaction and Innovation
  16 July 2019 | Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4
- Team creativity/innovation in culturally diverse teams: A meta‐analysis
  18 March 2019 | Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 40, No. 6
- Strangers in Strained Lands: Learning From Workplace Experiences of Immigrant Employees
  30 July 2018 | Journal of Management, Vol. 45, No. 2
- Embracing Complexity: Reviewing the Past Decade of Team Effectiveness Research
  Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 6, No. 1
- Team Assembly
  14 November 2019
- Multidimensionality: A Cross-Disciplinary Review and Integration
  1 November 2018 | Journal of Management, Vol. 45, No. 1
- Effects of Media Compensation on Team Performance: The Role of Demographic Faultlines
  10 September 2018 | Small Group Research, Vol. 49, No. 6
- Combining stock‐and‐flow, agent‐based, and social network methods to model team performance
  11 February 2019 | System Dynamics Review, Vol. 34, No. 4
- Connections and Collaboration—Celebrating the Contributions of Barbara Gray
  16 January 2018 | Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Vol. 11, No. 1
- Informational Faultlines, Integrative Capability, and Team Creativity
  29 June 2017 | Group & Organization Management, Vol. 42, No. 6
- Buffering Against the Detrimental Effects of Demographic Faultlines: The Curious Case of Intragroup Conflict in Small Work Groups
  18 January 2017 | Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Vol. 10, No. 1
- Why and When Hierarchy Impacts Team Effectiveness: A Meta-Analytic Integration
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 7
- The Social Context of Decisions
  Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 3, No. 1

Volume 26, Issue 2

March-April 2015

Pages 311-631

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Published Online:November 19, 2014

Cite as

Hong Ren, Barbara Gray, David A. Harrison (2014) Triggering Faultline Effects in Teams: The Importance of Bridging Friendship Ties and Breaching Animosity Ties. Organization Science 26(2):390-404.

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0944

Keywords

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge and thank Dan Chiaburu, Jennifer Diamond, Su Chuen Foo, and Ravi Gajendran for their contributions to the data collection of this research.

PDF download

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Triggering Faultline Effects in Teams: The Importance of Bridging Friendship Ties and Breaching Animosity Ties

Supplemental Material

Volume 26, Issue 2

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Cite as

Keywords

Sign Up for INFORMS Publications Updates and News