Is diversity good or bad? Evidence from eSports teams analysis

We use eSports data to construct an empirical model to measure the effect of diversity on team performance. Different kinds of diversities are considered, diversity of culture, diversity of language and diversity of skill. Our main results are that cultural diversity is beneficial for team performan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied economics Vol. 50; no. 47; pp. 5064 - 5075
Main Authors Parshakov, Petr, Coates, Dennis, Zavertiaeva, Marina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 08.10.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Diversity
Economic analysis
Economic theory
eSports
Group performance
Multiculturalism & pluralism
production
team composition
Teams
Teamwork
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Summary:We use eSports data to construct an empirical model to measure the effect of diversity on team performance. Different kinds of diversities are considered, diversity of culture, diversity of language and diversity of skill. Our main results are that cultural diversity is beneficial for team performance: the absence of diversity reduces performance by 30%. However, language and experience diversity negatively affect results. Taking the difference in the results into account, we conclude that firms should not thoughtlessly maximize team diversity: different kinds of diversity have different integration and communication costs.
ISSN:0003-6846
1466-4283
DOI:10.1080/00036846.2018.1470315