Things Are Not Always What They Seem: The Origins and Evolution of Intragroup Conflict*

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Shah, Priti Pradhan; Peterson, Randall S.; Jones, Stephen L.; Ferguson, Amanda J.
• 署名单位: University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of London; London Business School; University of London; London Business School; University of Washington; University of Washington Bothell; Northern Illinois University
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.1177/0001839220965186
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 426-474
• 关键词: WORK GROUP; MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES; TEMPORAL PERSPECTIVE; EMERGENT STATES; social identity; TEAM PROCESSES; PIVOTAL ROLE; diversity; performance; DYNAMICS

摘要

Teams scholars have historically conceptualized and measured intragroup conflict at the team level. But emerging evidence suggests that perceptions of intragroup conflict are often not uniform, shared, or static. These findings suggest important questions about the microfoundations of intragroup conflict: Where does conflict within teams originate? And how does it evolve over time? We address these and other questions in three abductive studies. We consider four origination points-an individual, dyad, subgroup, or team-and three evolutionary trajectories-conflict continuity, contagion, and concentration. Study 1, a qualitative study of narrative accounts, and Study 2, a longitudinal social networks study of student teams, reveal that fewer than 30 percent of teams experience team-level conflict. Instead, conflict more commonly originates and persists at individual, dyadic, or subgroup levels. Study 2 further demonstrates that traditional psychometric intragroup conflict scales mask the existence of these various origins and trajectories of conflict. Study 3, a field study of manufacturing teams, reveals that individual and dyadic task conflict origins positively predict team performance, whereas traditional intragroup task conflict measures negatively predict team performance. The results raise serious concerns about current methods and theory in the team conflict literature and suggest that researchers must go beyond team-level conceptualizations of conflict.