Reciprocated relational preferences and intra‐team conflict

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore the effects of the interaction between team diversity and reciprocated relational preferences on task and relationship conflict in teams.Design/methodological approach – The paper reports the results of an empirical study conducted on 66 teams, of which 32 were randomly created, while 34 teams were formed through a pair matching strategy (team dating).Findings – The results show that mutual positive preferences attenuated the positive impact of team diversity on relationship conflict within teams.Research limitations/implications – The results support the theoretical distinction between task and relationship conflict and show that close interpersonal relations within teams have a differential impact on the two types of conflict.Practical implications – The results reported in the study support the use of the team dating strategy for team design in different organizational settings.Originality/value – The paper introduces a new method for team formation b...

[1]  Kathleen M. Carley,et al.  Choosing Work Group Members: Balancing Similarity, Competence, and Familiarity. , 2000, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.

[2]  S. Jackson,et al.  Recent Research on Team and Organizational Diversity: SWOT Analysis and Implications , 2003 .

[3]  Kristin Behfar,et al.  The dynamic relationship between performance feedback, trust, and conflict in groups: A longitudinal study , 2003 .

[4]  R. Peterson,et al.  Task Conflict snd Relationship Conflict in Top Management Teams:The Pivotal Role of Intragroup Trust. , 1998 .

[5]  H. Ibarra.  Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in network structure and access in an advertising firm. , 1992 .

[6]  H. Tajfel.  Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology , 1981 .

[7]  Helen M. Williams,et al.  Measuring Gender Composition in Work Groups: A Comparison of Existing Methods , 2004 .

[8]  Robin L. Pinkley,et al.  Dimensions of conflict frame: Disputant interpretations of conflict. , 1990 .

[9]  E. Mannix,et al.  The Dynamic Nature of Conflict: A Longitudinal Study of Intragroup Conflict and Group Performance. , 2001 .

[10]  S. West,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. , 1994 .

[11]  Allen C. Amason,et al.  Don't Take it Personally: Exploring Cognitive Conflict as a Mediator of Affective Conflict , 2007 .

[12]  Ezra W. Zuckerman,et al.  Networks, Diversity, and Productivity: The Social Capital of Corporate R&D Teams , 2001 .

[13]  J. T. Polzer,et al.  Capitalizing on Diversity: Interpersonal Congruence in Small Work Groups , 2002 .

[14]  Ezra W. Zuckerman,et al.  How to Make the Team: Social Networks vs. Demography as Criteria for Designing Effective Teams , 2004 .

[15]  Dustin K. Jundt,et al.  Teams in organizations: from input-process-output models to IMOI models. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[16]  K. Jehn.  A Multimethod Examination of the Benefits and Detriments of Intragroup Conflict , 1995 .

[17]  Charles Carson,et al.  Performance gains through diverse top management teams , 2004 .

[18]  P. V. Marsden,et al.  Homogeneity in confiding relations , 1988 .

[19]  Charles A. O'Reilly,et al.  Being different: Relational demography and organizational attachment. , 1991 .

[20]  C. D. De Dreu,et al.  Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: a meta-analysis. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[21]  K. Eisenhardt,et al.  Exploring the Black Box: An Analysis of Work Group Diversity, Conflict and Performance , 1999 .

[22]  Ulrik Brandes,et al.  Experiments on Graph Clustering Algorithms , 2003, ESA.

[23]  C. Dreu.  When Too Little or Too Much Hurts: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship Between Task Conflict and Innovation in Teams , 2006 .

[24]  Jeffrey T. Polzer,et al.  Finding Value in Diversity: Verification of Personal and Social Self-Views in Diverse Groups , 2004 .

[25]  Clinton F. Fink.  Some conceptual difficulties in the theory of social conflict , 1968 .

[26]  Sandra Schruijer,et al.  The effects of groups' variety and disparity on groups' cognitive complexity , 2007 .

[27]  L. Smith-Lovin,et al.  Homophily in voluntary organizations: Status distance and the composition of face-to-face groups. , 1987 .

[28]  L. H. Pelled.  Demographic Diversity, Conflict, and Work Group Outcomes: An Intervening Process Theory , 1996 .

[29]  L. Pondy.  Organizational conflict: Concepts and models. , 1967 .

[30]  K. Jehn.  ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS: AN INVESTIGATION OF ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF VALUE‐BASED INTRAGROUP CONFLICT , 1994 .

[31]  G. Northcraft,et al.  You have printed the following article : Why Differences Make a Difference : A Field Study of Diversity , Conflict , and Performance in Workgroups , 2007 .

[32]  H. Ibarra.  Race, Opportunity, And Diversity Of Social Circles In Managerial Networks , 1995 .

[33]  Frances J. Milliken,et al.  Searching for Common Threads: Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups , 1996 .

[34]  C. D. De Dreu,et al.  Work group diversity and group performance: an integrative model and research agenda. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[35]  Michael Sunnafrank,et al.  At First Sight: Persistent Relational Effects of Get-Acquainted Conversations , 2004 .

[36]  M. Higgs,et al.  Influence of team composition and task complexity on team performance , 2005 .

[37]  Petru Lucian Curseu,et al.  Emergent states in virtual teams: a complex adaptive systems perspective , 2006, J. Inf. Technol..

[38]  N. Ambady,et al.  Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. , 1992 .

[39]  D. Harrison,et al.  What's the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. , 2007 .

[40]  K. Jehn.  A qualitative analysis of conflict types and dimensions in , 1997 .

[41]  K. Bezrukova,et al.  A field study of group diversity, workgroup context, and performance , 2004 .

[42]  J. Teachman.  Analysis of Population Diversity , 1980 .

[43]  L. James,et al.  Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. , 1984 .

[44]  You-Ta Chuang,et al.  ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, GROUP DIVERSITY AND INTRA-GROUP CONFLICT , 2004 .

[45]  W. R. Evans,et al.  A social capital explanation of the relationship between functional diversity and group performance , 2005 .

[46]  David Lazer,et al.  Network Theory and Small Groups , 2004 .