When Task Conflict Becomes Personal

Although potentially beneficial, task conflict may threaten teams because it often leads to relationship conflict. Prior research has identified a set of interpersonal factors (e.g., team communication, team trust) that help attenuate this association. The purpose of this article is to provide an al...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSmall group research Vol. 47; no. 5; p. 569
Main Authors Guenter, Hannes, van Emmerik, Hetty, Schreurs, Bert, Kuypers, Tom, van Iterson, Ad, Notelaers, Guy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Thousand Oaks SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC 01.10.2016
Subjects
Communication
Conflict
Group performance
Health care
Health services
Identity theory
Interpersonal conflict
Interpersonal factors
Social identity
Task conflict
Teams
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Summary:Although potentially beneficial, task conflict may threaten teams because it often leads to relationship conflict. Prior research has identified a set of interpersonal factors (e.g., team communication, team trust) that help attenuate this association. The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative perspective that focuses on the moderating role of performance-related factors (i.e., perceived team performance). Using social identity theory, we build a model that predicts how task conflict associates with growth in relationship conflict and how perceived team performance influences this association. We test a three-wave longitudinal model by means of random coefficient growth modeling, using data from 60 ongoing teams working in a health care organization. Results provide partial support for our hypotheses. Only when perceived team performance is low, do task conflicts relate with growth in relationship conflict. We conclude that perceived team performance seems to enable teams to uncouple task from relationship conflict.
ISSN:1046-4964
1552-8278
DOI:10.1177/1046496416667816