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It is commonly believed that demographic factors that hold Korean society together, such as kinship, birthplace and educational background, will be the most important elements underpinning the cohesiveness of a team.

The results of this study suggest that these factors are not necessarily the most important in team-building. Rather, managers should consider the similarities in knowledge and perspectives (shared mental model) between team members.

The length of time a person works in a team was also seen to have contributed to a better fit to the overall team's 'mental model'.

Therefore, managers should consider ways to ensure new members of a team (chosen because they have superior knowledge) are quickly made familiar with the team's shared knowledge, skills and capabilities.

Factors in team effectiveness: cognitive and demographic similarities of
software development team members
Hye-Ryun Kang, Hee-Dong Yang and Chris Rowley
Human Relations, Vol 59 No 12, December 2006