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This paper presents results into gender differences and potential adverse impact on Belbin's original BTRSPI. Based on a sample of 311 sales and customer service representatives (208 females, 103 males), a series of descriptive statistics, parametric and non-parametric tests are reported. Findings suggest significant differences between genders in response patterns favouring males on the team roles of Chair, Shaper, and Plant. Conversely, females scored significantly higher on the role of Team Worker. Implications for potential adverse impact, Four-Fifths Rule differences, and the use of Belbin's questionnaire for selection, particularly into team leader positions, are raised.
Beibin's (1981, 1993a) model of team types has been used extensively in organizations as a typology of teamwork behaviour and work group effectiveness. Its derivative measure, the Belbin Team Role Self-Perception Inventory (BTRSPI, 1981, 1993b), has become widely known and utilized for selection of individuals into teams, despite concerns expressed in the occupational literature over aspects of its psychometric properties and criterion-related validity (e.g. Dulewicz, 1995; Furnham, Steele, & Pendleton, 1993a; Huczynski, 1997). Not only has the BTRSPI been widely used as a 'stand alone' self-report selection measure, Belbin's model of team types has spurned a number of secondary measures of team roles using dimension equations on popular personality inventories (e.g. 16PF version 5, OPQ). Surveys indicating precise figures for the use of the BTRSPI and its personality inventory derivatives by British organizations have not been published, but reviews have suggested a continued widespread use for both selection and teambuilding (e.g. Senior, 1998; Walley & Smith, 1998). One important issue has been left unresearched across these studies, however; that of gender differences on profile scores on Belbin's measure. This is a particular shortcoming in the extant research, as sex differences in employee selection contexts are of concern practically, legally and professionally (Salgado, Viswesvaran, & Ones, 2001).
Belbin's model and the BTRSPI
Belbin (1981) originally argued that there are eight discrete team types, that each individual possesses a primary and secondary preferred team role, and that more successful teams exhibited both a pattern of balanced team roles and an appropriate leadership profile. Table 1 describes the eight team types.
The BTRSPI comprises seven blocks of items, with eight items per block, where the respondent is required to distribute 10 points...