Cultural diversity and group dynamics in a professional women’s volleyball team

Abstract In this study, we explored athletes’ perceptions of cultural diversity regarding teammate interactions and team functioning. Specifically, we explored cultural diversity in relation to national and racio-ethnic diversity. A constructivist qualitative case study approach was employed with a professional women’s volleyball team comprising 11 athletes (Mage = 27, SD = 3.13) representing six nationalities and four racio-ethnicities. The athletes completed demographic and social network questionnaires intended to contextualize our case and to inform follow-up semi-structured interviews. The interviews involved conversations pertaining to team composition, member interactions, and team functioning. Generally, the results indicated that within this professional team, players’ perceptions of cultural diversity were mainly formed around subgroups and perceptions of dissimilarity between the self and the team. The subgroups were largely based on nationality and shared collective experiences with national stereotypes. The athletes also discussed factors such as language and various task and socially related behaviors associated with cultural diversity that impacted teammate interactions and the social dynamic within the team. Our results can serve to guide athletes and coaches interested in capitalizing on the strengths of multicultural professional sport teams.  Lay summary: We examined perceived cultural diversity (i.e., national and racio-ethnic) embedded within a multicultural context of a professional women’s volleyball team. Participants described a natural divide based on nationalities, and how individual behaviors matched their perceptions of national stereotypes. Athletes were generally hesitant to discuss cultural diversity and positioned the topic as “good under certain conditions.” IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE The results from this research can help team managers and coaches to consider the impact that cultural diversity can have on team functioning and recognize the potential for the formation of national subgroups and biased perceptions of teammates’ behaviors. Our findings can reiterate to applied sport psychology professionals and coaches the importance of purposefully considering players’ perceptions of the cultural diversity within a team to identify ways to benefit from their team’s composition.