When Members See Their Team Differently: How Asymmetric Perceptions Undermine Team Success

Drawing from literatures on teams and psychology, we examine the antecedents and consequences of asymmetric perceptions -- the extent to which team members differ in their perceptions of team processes and outcomes. For example, members may perceive themselves as more interdependent during team processes than other members perceive them. And members may perceive team outcomes such as performance as better than other members perceive the team outcomes. While there is an emerging body of research on asymmetric perceptions in teams, the multilevel effects of these asymmetries remain unexplored. Using field data from 2,193 members across 311 teams in a large corporation, we test hypotheses from a multi-level model of asymmetric perceptions and team success. At the member level of analysis, we focus on four antecedents (leader role, time allocation, tie duration, and physical proximity) of task interdependence asymmetry and team performance asymmetry. At the team level of analysis, we analyze whether variation...