Are we really better together? A bottom-up aggregation of communal orientation and its effect on interdependent decision-making

Abstract

Though communal orientation impacts how people interact, and members’ interactions influence interdependent decision-making, communal orientation’s impact on interdependent decision-making has received little attention. We address this by applying interdependence theory to take a bottom-up approach across three studies. We find that individuals who are higher on communal orientation are less likely to use prohibitive voice. We also show that dyadic communal orientation harms interdependent decision performance by lowering the amount of prohibitive voice used. At the team level, we find that team communal orientation is negatively related to interdependent decision performance unless the team is also high on relationship orientation diversity, which has a positive effect on interdependent decision performance. Combined, these studies contribute to the communal orientation literature by extending it to an important context—interdependent decision-making—and helping it be more balanced by demonstrating communal orientation’s downside.