Professor Andrew Knight explained to business professionals, fellow faculty, and guests at the recent Olin Award luncheon what drives interpersonal influence in teams and connects patterns of influence to team performance. His latest research finds that individuals in teams defer to others based on specific attributes, either affinity based or task/skill based. The research concludes that the make-up of the team and patterns of deference determine the level of team performance and productivity.

Dr. Andrew Knight presents winning paper

Knight presented findings from his paper, “Who Defers to Whom and Why? Dual Pathways Linking Demographic Differences and Dyadic Deference to Team Effectiveness”. He is a co-winner of the 2015 Olin Award for this work that was co-authored with Aparna Joshi at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University.

The Olin Award, was created by Dick Mahoney, former CEO of Monsanto, in 2007. The competition encourages and rewards research generated by faculty of the Olin Business School that has the greatest potential to enhance business results. This year we received 20 submissions from Olin faculty members. For the first time, the judging resulted in a tie with Knight and Professor Anne Marie Knott as honorees.

Watch video of Prof. Knight talking about his research.