Do Smarter Teams Do Better

This study reports the results of several meta-analyses examining the relationship between four operational definitions of cognitive ability within teams (highest member score, lowest member score, mean score, standard deviation of scores) and team performance. The three indices associated with level yielded moderate and positive sample-weighted estimates of the population relationship (.21 to .29), but sampling error failed to account for enough variation to rule out moderator variables. In contrast, the index associated with dispersion (i.e., standard deviation of member scores) was essentially unrelated to team performance (-.03), and sampling error provided a plausible explanation for the observed variation across studies. A subgroup analysis revealed that mean cognitive ability was a much better predictor of team performance in laboratory settings (.37) than in field settings (.14). Study limitations, practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.