Research methods for studying team composition tend to employ either a variable-centered or person-centered approach. The variable-centered approach allows scholars to consider how patterns of attributes between team members influence teams, while the person-centered approach allows scholars to consider how variation in multiple attributes within team members influences subgroup formation and its effects. Team composition theory, however, is becoming increasingly sophisticated, assuming variation on multiple attributes both within and between team members—for example, in predicting how a team functions differently when its most assertive members are also optimistic rather than pessimistic. To support this new theory, we propose an attribute alignment approach, which complements the variable-centered and person-centered approaches by modeling teams as matrices of their members and their members’ attributes. We first demonstrate how to calculate attribute alignment by determining the vector norm and vector angle between team members’ attributes. Then, we demonstrate how the alignment of team member personality attributes (neuroticism and agreeableness) affects team relationship conflict. Finally, we discuss the potential of using the attribute alignment approach to enrich broader team research.

研究团队构成的研究方法倾向于采用以变量为中心或以人为中心的方法。以变​​量为中心的方法允许学者考虑团队成员之间的属性模式如何影响团队，而以人为中心的方法允许学者考虑团队成员内部多个属性的变化如何影响子群的形成及其效果。然而，团队组成理论正变得越来越复杂，假设团队成员内部和之间的多个属性存在差异——例如，当最自信的成员也乐观而不是悲观时，预测团队的运作方式会如何不同。为了支持这个新理论，我们提出了一个属性对齐该方法通过将团队建模为其成员及其成员属性的矩阵来补充以变量为中心和以人为中心的方法。我们首先演示如何通过确定团队成员属性之间的向量范数和向量角度来计算属性对齐。然后，我们展示了团队成员个性属性（神经质和宜人性）的一致性如何影响团队关系冲突。最后，我们讨论了使用属性对齐方法来丰富更广泛的团队研究的潜力。