Prior research has scarcely examined the role of social dominance orientation (SDO) at the team level in organizational settings and has often overlooked its potential downsides. This omission is notable because SDO is fundamentally a group phenomenon, making it essential to understand how collective dominance tendencies shape team functioning, particularly team members' commitment to team goals, and ultimately team outcomes.
This study addresses this gap by examining SDO as a team-level construct and identifying the conditions under which it may hinder innovation, as well as the mechanisms driving these effects. Grounded in social identity theory, we propose that team goal commitment serves as a mediator and ethnic diversity as a moderator in the relationships between the two dimensions of team SDO—Dominance (SDO-D) and Anti-egalitarianism (SDO-E)—and team innovation. Specifically, we argue that at high levels of ethnic diversity, SDO-D and SDO-E undermine members' commitment to team goals, thereby reducing team innovation.
To test these hypotheses, we conducted a three-wave, multilevel study of 82 teams (616 employees and their supervisors) across public government departments. As expected, ethnic diversity moderated the indirect effects of team SDO-D and SDO-E on innovation via team goal commitment. When ethnic diversity was high, SDO-D and SDO-E negatively affected goal commitment, which, in turn, impaired innovation. These negative effects were mitigated when ethnic diversity was low. Overall, this research highlights the critical role of team goal commitment in explaining how social dominance tendencies impair innovation in diverse teams.