Sharon Rongen

My research is about the influence of dominant individuals in a team. I will look at four different variables: dominant individuals, status disagreement, team cohesion and team performance. In this research, i define dominant individuals as assertive, as informal leader and as someone who shows self-confidence which makes them come across as competent.

Status disagreement exists if someone places himself or herself higher in the status hierarchy than its team members do.

With the data i want to test five different hypotheses. These hypotheses are presented hier:

H1          There is a U-shaped relationship between the proportion of dominant individuals and

upward status disagreement, in such a way that upward status disagreement is highest

when there are no dominant individuals or when all members are dominant and that upward status disagreement is lowest when the proportion of dominant individuals is low.

H2          Status disagreement has a negative effect on team cohesion.

H3          Team cohesion positively influences team performance.

H4a        The relation between group performance and proportion of dominant individuals in a team

is mediated by upward status disagreement in such a way that a small proportion of

dominant individuals leads to a low level of upward status disagreement, which in turn

causes the group to be highly cohesive, which eventually leads to a higher group

performance.

H4b        If on the other hand, the group has no dominant individuals or solely consists of dominant

individuals, the team will suffer from high levels of upward status disagreement, which

causes the group to lack cohesion, which in turn will negatively affect the performance of the group