Social class diversity, ubiquitous in organizations, is typically associated with intergroup biases, as social class is a highly salient characteristic, and social class differences are associated with disparities in material resources and social rank. Drawing on team diversity research, we argue that due to class-related biases, social class diversity has a negative effect on team performance. However, while management researchers have recently explored individual-level effects of social class, team-level effects of social class diversity on performance have been neglected. Contrary to other diversity dimensions, people regularly transfer between social classes and should therefore identify with different social class categories. Hence, we hypothesized that transitioners engage in stimulating information elaboration in class-diverse teams, which ultimately translates into higher team performance. In an online experimental study including 235 teams à 3 members, we found that as compared to non-diverse teams, diverse teams performed better, if they included a transitioner than if they did not include a transitioner. Moreover, transitioners’ stimulation of information elaboration accounted for said effects. By investigating the critical role of social class transitioners in diversity effects on team performance, we contribute to team diversity literature that has mainly focused on stable diversity categories as well as on team-level moderators.
