Dear Faculty and Fellow Ph.D. Students,

I cordially invite you to attend my dissertation proposal scheduled on Thursday, August 24, from 10:45 AM to 12:15 PM. The location will be Scheller College of Business, Room 312.

You are also welcome to join remotely via this Zoom link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/92475920102

The abstract is included below, and copies of the proposal are available upon request.

Thank you,

Yufei Zhong | Ph.D. Candidate

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Area: Organizational Behavior

Committee Members: Dr. Huisi (Jessica) Li (co-chair), Dr. Katie Badura (co-chair), Dr. Terry Blum, Dr. Eugene Kim, and Dr. Eric Anicich (University of Southern California)

Title: Survival of the Flattest: Team Status Differentiation Influences How Team Failure Impacts High-Status Member Addition and Team Performance

Abstract: Despite the prevalence of teams failing to perform, limited management research has revealed how teams overcome poor performance. This dissertation seeks to explore this understudied area by focusing on team status dynamics. Integrating research on status hierarchy conflict and team membership change, I propose that teams are more likely to add high-status new members after failure and that the tendency of failed teams to add these members varies depending on the extent of status differentiation within the team. I contend that failed teams with greater status differentiation may perceive the addition of high-status members as a threat to the existing status dynamics, making them less inclined to adopt this approach. In contrast, teams with lower status differentiation are more likely to add high-status members, which leads to better later performance. To support my hypotheses, I will analyze a dataset containing 5,283 teams from a social networking company. This research helps advance research on team hierarchy, membership change, and performance.