This study sets out to test the assumption that concepts of leadership differ as a function of cultural differences in Europe and to identify dimensions which describe differences in leadership concepts across European countries. Middle‐level managers (N = 6052) from 22 European countries rated 112 questionnaire items containing descriptions of leadership traits and behaviours. For each attribute respondents rated how well it fits their concept of an outstanding business leader. The findings support the assumption that leadership concepts are culturally endorsed. Specifically, clusters of European countries which share similar cultural values according to prior cross‐cultural research (Ronen & Shenkar, 1985), also share similar leadership concepts. The leadership prototypicality dimensions found are highly correlated with cultural dimensions reported in a comprehensive cross‐cultural study of contemporary Europe (Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). The ordering of countries on the leadership dimensions is considered a useful tool with which to model differences between leadership concepts of different cultural origin in Europe. Practical implications for cross‐cultural management, both in European and non‐European settings, are discussed.

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Research on diversity in teams and organizations has revealed ambiguous results regarding the effects of group composition on work group performance. The categorization-elaboration model (van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004) accounts for this variety and proposes two different underlying processes. On the one hand diversity may bring about intergroup bias which leads to less group identification, which in turn is followed by more conflict and decreased work group performance. On the other hand, the information processing approach proposes positive effects of diversity because of a more elaborate processing of information brought about by a wider pool and variety of perspectives in more diverse groups. We propose that the former process is contingent on individual team members' beliefs that diversity is good or bad for achieving the team's aims. We predict that the relationship between subjective diversity and identification is more positive in ethnically diverse project teams when group members hold beliefs that are pro-diversity. Results of two longitudinal studies involving postgraduate students working in project teams confirm this hypothesis.Analyses further reveal that group identification is positively related to students' desire to stay in their groups and to their information elaboration. Finally, we found evidence for the expected moderated mediation model with indirect effects of subjective diversity on elaboration and the desire to stay, mediated through group identification, moderated by diversity beliefs. Diversity, Identity, and Diversity Beliefs 3 Group diversity and group identification: The moderating role of diversity beliefsThe concept of work group diversity gains more and more attention in today's organizational life. The increase in demographic and functional diversity of the workforce has led to the question of whether diverse work groups perform better or worse than homogeneous groups. There is a bulk of studies that examine whether work groups diverse in attributes such as ethnic and educational background, gender, age, etc., perform better than homogeneous work groups or not (e.g., Pelled, 1996) yielding inconclusive empirical findings (for reviews, see van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007; Williams & O'Reilly, 1998).In an attempt to reconcile these contradictory empirical findings, van Knippenberg, De Dreu, and Homan (2004) propose the categorization-elaboration model (CEM). According to the CEM the negative effects of work group diversity are brought about by social categorization processes interrupting the elaboration -exchange, discussion, and integration -of taskrelevant information. Information elaboration in turn is proposed to bring about the positive effects of work group diversity on work group performance. Recent empirical evidence supports the CEM (Brodbeck, Guillaume, & Lee, 2007;Homan, van Knippenberg, Van Kleef, & De Dreu, 2007a, 2007b Homan, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, van Knippenberg, van Kleef, & Ilgen, in press; Kooij-De Bode, van Knippenberg, & van Ginkel, in pr...

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Previous research in group decision making has found that in situations of a hidden pro®le (i.e. the best choice alternative is hidden from individual members as they consider their pre-discussion information), unshared information is disproportionately neglected and sub-optimal group choices are highly likely. In an experimental study, three-person groups decided which of three candidates to select for a professorial appointment. We hypothesised that minority dissent in pre-discussion preferences improves the consideration of unshared information in groups and increases the discovery rate of hidden pro®les. As predicted, consideration of unshared information increased with minority dissent. The expectation of an improvement of group decision quality was partially supported. In diversity groups (i.e. each member prefers a different alternative) consideration of unshared information and group decision quality was signi®cantly higher than in simple minority groups. Results are discussed in the light of theories of minority in¯uence. The bene®ts of using the hidden pro®le paradigm with minority and diversity groups for theory development in the area of group decision making are highlighted.