Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Why won’t task conflict cooperate? Deciphering stubborn results

Why won’t task conflict cooperate? Deciphering stubborn results Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest why the theoretically positive relationship between task conflict and team performance has received mixed empirical support. Design/methodology/approach – We review the literature on task conflict and offer explanations for findings that contradict the expected positive relationship between task conflict and team performance. Findings – High levels of correlation among task, relationship and process conflict, and measurement and data analysis issues make it difficult to isolate the effects of each type of conflict. Group-level moderators, including values congruence, goal alignment, norms for debate and the group’s performance history and conflict history affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. The complex relationship between conflict and trust may cause task conflict to have mixed effects on performance. Individual differences and conflict management approaches also affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. Temporal issues and stages of group development are other relevant influences. Practical implications – To better achieve the theorized performance benefits of task conflict, a context characterized by trust is needed. Then norms fostering task conflict can be cultivated and employees can be trained in conflict management. Individual differences that affect team members’ ability to confidently accept task conflict can be considered in selection. Originality/value – Suggestions are presented for future research that may explain discrepant findings in the past empirical literature. In particular, it may be difficult for some team members to perceive task conflict in well-functioning teams. Measures of task conflict that avoid the use of words with a negative connotation should be tested. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Conflict Management Emerald Publishing

Why won’t task conflict cooperate? Deciphering stubborn results

Download PDF
26 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/why-won-t-task-conflict-cooperate-deciphering-stubborn-results-uz6e20Udr2

References (93)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1044-4068
DOI
10.1108/IJCMA-01-2014-0005
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest why the theoretically positive relationship between task conflict and team performance has received mixed empirical support. Design/methodology/approach – We review the literature on task conflict and offer explanations for findings that contradict the expected positive relationship between task conflict and team performance. Findings – High levels of correlation among task, relationship and process conflict, and measurement and data analysis issues make it difficult to isolate the effects of each type of conflict. Group-level moderators, including values congruence, goal alignment, norms for debate and the group’s performance history and conflict history affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. The complex relationship between conflict and trust may cause task conflict to have mixed effects on performance. Individual differences and conflict management approaches also affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. Temporal issues and stages of group development are other relevant influences. Practical implications – To better achieve the theorized performance benefits of task conflict, a context characterized by trust is needed. Then norms fostering task conflict can be cultivated and employees can be trained in conflict management. Individual differences that affect team members’ ability to confidently accept task conflict can be considered in selection. Originality/value – Suggestions are presented for future research that may explain discrepant findings in the past empirical literature. In particular, it may be difficult for some team members to perceive task conflict in well-functioning teams. Measures of task conflict that avoid the use of words with a negative connotation should be tested.

Journal

International Journal of Conflict Management – Emerald Publishing

Published: Oct 7, 2014

There are no references for this article.