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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between cultural diversity in teams and team members' individual well-being. The paper further explores the relationship between social resources, social stressors, team member well-being and the influence of the type of team individuals are working in (mono- vs. multicultural), gender and individualism/collectivism (IC).Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected via an online survey, the authors analyzed 659 responses from individuals working in mono- and multicultural work teams. A theoretical model explaining the influence of social stressors, social resources, and social and demographic variables was proposed and tested using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicate that members of multicultural work teams perceive significantly more social stressors and lower levels of social resources than do members of monocultural teams. Higher levels of social stressors suggest decreased psychological well-being, while social resources have an indirect positive effect on psychological well-being. Furthermore, personal characteristics, namely, individualism and gender, have direct effects on the perception of social stressors and indirect effects on team member well-being.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates that cultural diversity in teams can influence the social stressors and resources that individual team members experience. Moreover, the pivotal role of social resources in the facilitation of team member well-being is highlighted primarily through its direct effect on social stressors and its concomitant indirect effect on well-being.

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It is empirically found that cultural diversity can influence group dynamics and social resources and demands. This study aims to explore if and how the effects of social demands and resources vary across teams of different levels of cultural diversity in the form of team compositions. This study proposes a research model to examine the associations between social demands (i.e., a lack of trust and accountability, misunderstanding and disagreement), social resources (i.e., managerial support and a positive team environment) and wellbeing impairments and empirically tests the model across three different team compositions. The sample is composed of 1049 participants who completed an online survey, working in either monocultural teams (i.e., one nationality only), bicultural teams (i.e., two nationalities), or multicultural teams (i.e., three or more nationalities). Multigroup structural equation modelling (SEM) was adopted to analyze the data and to perform cross-group comparison. The results show that the cultural composition of the team does influence the relationship between social demands and individual team members’ wellbeing. A lack of trust and accountability was found to be a significant predictor of wellbeing impairments in only mono- and bicultural teams, not in multicultural teams. Misunderstanding and disagreement was found to be positively associated with wellbeing impairments only in multicultural work teams, not in bi- or monocultural teams. No differences were found when comparing the effects of social resources on individual team members’ wellbeing between the three different types of teams.

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