How do team conflicts impact knowledge sharing?

Abstract

Past studies have shown that conflict in teams is inevitable and even desirable for enhancing team performance. Conflict occurs due to perceived or real differences in teams and is often magnified by demographic and functional diversity. Given that software development teams reflect both types of diversity, it is important to investigate the impact of team conflict on critical team outcomes such as knowledge sharing. The results of the study show that while task conflicts impact knowledge sharing positively, only moderate levels of relationship conflict is good for knowledge sharing. Both high and low levels of relationship conflicts are not conducive for knowledge sharing. Further, high levels of relationship conflicts moderate the direct impacts of task conflicts on knowledge sharing adversely, while low levels of relationship conflicts magnify the impact of task conflicts on knowledge sharing. The complex interactions between task conflict, relationship conflict and knowledge sharing have useful implications for both practice and future research.