SGR44610.1177/1046496413507609Small Group ResearchBradley et al. 507609research-article2013 Article Small Group Research 44(6) 680 –711 Team Players and © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: Collective Performance: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1046496413507609 How Agreeableness sgr.sagepub.com Affects Team Performance Over Time Bret H. Bradley1, John E. Baur1, Christopher G. Banford1, and Bennett E. Postlethwaite2 Abstract Previous research on teams has found that agreeableness is one of the strongest personality predictors of team performance, yet one of the weakest personality predictors of individual-level job performance. In this study, we examined why teams with more agreeable members perform better. Data were collected across 4 months at 5 points in time from 107 project teams. We found that agreeableness affects performance through communication and cohesion and that communication precedes cohesion in time. Furthermore, we found that virtualness moderated the relationships between agreeableness and communication, as well as between agreeableness and team performance, such that teams only benefitted from high levels of agreeableness when interacting face-to-face. Keywords agreeableness, team performance, communication, cohesion, virtual teams 1University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA 2Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, USA Corresponding Author: Bret H. Bradley, University of Oklahoma, 307 West Brooks, Room AH6A, Norman, OK 73019, USA. Email:
[email protected] Downloaded from sgr.sagepub.com at UNIV OF OKLAHOMA on January 20, 2016 Bradley et al. 681 The increasingly important role of teams in organizations has led to a height- ened need to understand how to help teams become more effective (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). One focus of performance research is on the composition of teammates’ characteristics such as their knowledge, skills, abilities, or per- sonalities (J.