Chapter 2: Personal and Social Functional Background Identity and Individual Performance as a team Member: The Moderating Role of Identity Salience

In this chapter, we discuss a gap in existing research on functional background personal and social identity (the level of importance one’s functional background represents to an individual and the degree to which an individual identifies with others from the same functional background, respectively) and outline how that body of theory would benefit from consideration of functional background identity salience. Specifically, we argue that high levels of functional background identity salience will strengthen the relationship between functional background personal and social identity and individual performance in cross-functional teams. Academic and practitioner implications are discussed.