Demographic Faultlines: A Meta-Analysis of the Literature Sherry M. B. Thatcher University of Louisville Pankaj C. Patel Ball State University We propose and test a theoretical model focusing on antecedents and consequences of demographic faultlines. We also posit contingencies that affect overall team dynamics in the context of demographic faultlines, such as the study setting and performance measurement. Using meta-analysis structural equation modeling with a final data set consisting of 311 data points (i.e., k [predictor– criterion relationships]), from 39 studies that were obtained from 36 papers with a total sample size of 24,388 individuals in 4,366 teams, we found that sex and racial diversity increased demographic faultline strength more than did diversity on the attributes of functional background, educational background, age, and tenure. Demographic faultline strength was found to increase task and relationship conflict as well as decrease team cohesion. Furthermore, although demographic faultline strength decreased both team satisfaction and team performance, there was a stronger decrease in team performance than in team satisfaction. The strength of these relationships increased when the study was conducted in the lab rather than in the field. We describe the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing the study of faultlines. Keywords: faultlines, team composition, diversity, meta-analysis, structural equation modeling Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024167.supp Due to changing economic, technological, and societal environ- ments, organizations increasingly use teams to meet environmental demands (Devine, Clayton, Philips, Dunford, & Melner, 1999). 1 A team’s composition, described as the configuration of member attributes in a team (Levine & Moreland, 1990), such as demo- graphic characteristics, personality variables, and skill levels, is thought to be particularly influential on a team’s processes and outcomes (Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2002; Harrison, Price, Gavin, & Florey, 2002; van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). Much of the research on team composition has focused on demographic diver- sity, defined as “the distribution of differences among the members of a unit with respect to a common demographic attribute” (adapted from Harrison & Klein, 2007, p. 1200). Both positive and negative effects of demographic diversity have been theorized and empirically substantiated (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007; Williams & O’Reilly, 1998), but cumulative findings of the effects of demographic diversity have been inconsistent (Bell, Villado, Lukasik, Belau, & Briggs, 2010; Harrison & Klein, 2007). Given the mixed results of demographic diversity on team processes and outcomes, researchers have begun to explore more complex com- positional patterns, such as demographic faultlines in teams. Faultlines are defined as hypothetical dividing lines that split a team into relatively homogeneous subgroups based on the team members’ demographic alignment along multiple attributes (adapted from Lau & Murnighan, 1998; see Bezrukova, Jehn, Zanutto, & Thatcher, 2009, p. 35). The conceptualization of the faultline construct has expanded to include attributes that are not demographic in nature, such as personality or work attitudes. Despite this expansion, most empirical studies have focused on faultlines based on demographic attributes such as race, sex, age, education level, functional background, and tenure. We use the term demographic faultlines to refer to faultlines based only on demographic attributes and the term faultlines to refer to faultlines based on any attribute, including demographic attributes. The concept of demographic faultlines differs from that of diversity because demographic faultlines takes into account the alignment of multiple attributes (Bezrukova et al., 2009). Consider two teams: Team A has six people, three men who have high school diplomas and three women who have college degrees. Team B also has six people, two men and one woman with high school diplomas and one man and two women with college de- grees. From a demographic diversity perspective, Teams A and B are identical, as the dispersion of sex and education level in each team is exactly the same. From a demographic faultline perspec- 1 The terms groups and teams are used interchangeably in this literature. Because task interdependence is central to the definition of teams (Arthur, Edwards, Bell, Villado, & Bennett, 2005; Baker & Salas, 1997) and task interdependence is an important reason why demographic faultlines influ- ence a team, we use the term team throughout the paper. This article was published Online First June 20, 2011. Sherry M. B. Thatcher, Department of Management and Entrepreneur- ship, College of Business, University of Louisville; Pankaj C. Patel, Department of Management, Miller College of Business, Ball State Uni- versity. We acknowledge Likoebe Maruping for help on earlier drafts of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sherry M. B. Thatcher, Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, Col- lege of Business, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292. E-mail: smthat01@louisville.edu Journal of Applied Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association 2011, Vol. 96, No. 6, 1119 –1139 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024167 1119