When too little or too much hurts: evidence for a curvilinear relationship between team faultlines and performance

Fault lines are inherent to many workgroups, but the literature has not fully explained what fault lines mean for team functioning. In this study, we investigate the curvilinear relationship between fault lines and team performance from a cross categorization perspective. Analyses of multisource data obtained from 61 workgroups located in China support an inverted U-shaped relationship between fault lines and team performance. Additionally, we find that this curvilinear relationship is moderated by a team’s climate of psychological safety such that the curvilinear relationship is more pronounced among teams with a weaker psychological safety climate. The findings contribute to elaborating the nature of and advancing a contingency view of the relationship between fault lines and team performance. Theoretical implications are discussed along with possible limitations and directions for future research.