Abstract for: Modeling the Dynamic Aspects of Team Diversity – A Comparison of System Dynamics and Agent-based Modeling

Empirical studies investigate the effects of diversity on creativity, innovativeness, and performance in teams. The results of those studies show evidence of contradicting effects of diversity, dynamic change over time, and nonlinear behavior of diversity attributes. Empirical studies might not be able to capture those aspects in whole, therefore, we suggest to use simulation as a complementary method to study the effects of diversity in teams. In this paper we start by a brief literature review, listing and categorizing the effects of diversity on creativity, innovativeness, and performance in teams. We than discuss if and how System Dynamics and agent-based modeling are able to represent the complex, dynamic, and nonlinear effects of team diversity. We show the main focus of each simulation method as well as advantages and disadvantages with respect to this problem. This paper provides researchers with some guidance regarding which simulation method – System Dynamics or agent-based modeling – to choose when investigating a specific research question in the field of team diversity.