The purpose of this study was to analyze the potential positive and negative effects of team cohesion on team performance in a sport organization. Unbalanced panel data of 10 teams for the past 22 years (1997 season through the 2017–2018 season) from the Korean Basketball League were collected. A social network analysis approach was employed to measure network density as a proxy variable to measure team cohesion. The panel analysis results indicated team cohesion was shown to have a positive influence on team performance in the linear model as well as a negative influence on team performance in the quadratic model. The interaction effect of manager-player density did not influence team performance. In this study, the pattern of the relationship between team cohesion and performance was an inverted U-shape. Summarily, the density of a player’s school network could negatively influence team performance when it exceeds an optimal density level.
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