Intragroup Conflict: Unique Perspectives and New Questions

Abstract

Intragroup conflict has received an immense amount of research attention in the past few decades (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; De Wit, Greer & Jehn, 2012). However, many questions and inconsistencies remain (cf. De Wit et al., 2012). To better understand the phenomenon of intragroup conflict, scholars have called for researchers to explore alternate ways of capturing the multi-level dynamic nature of intragroup conflict (Korsgaard et al., 2008), to better understand how conflicts transforms (e.g., De Wit et al., 2012), and to explore other types of conflicts within teams beyond task, relationship and process (e.g., Bendersky & Hays, 2012). Together, these different perspectives can provide valuable insight for understanding the effects, and management, of intragroup conflict. In this symposium, we present four papers that address these important new research directions. The first two papers respond to the call for more multi-level studies of intragroup conflict, and show how social network analysis can be applied to enable a more comprehensive understanding of the multi-level nature of intragroup conflict. The third paper responds to calls to better understand the inter-relationships among the conflict types by exploring when and how task conflict can be misinterpreted as relationship conflict. Finally, the fourth paper responds to calls for investigations of new and emerging types of intragroup conflict by providing rich qualitative and quantitative data to support the existence of three distinct types of hierarchical conflicts within teams. Following the presentations, Laurie Weingart, a prolific contributor to the conflict literature will lead an interactive group discussion. Misinterpreting Task conflict as Relationship Conflict:Damaging Effects on Group Decision Making Presenter: Frank De Wit; Leiden U. A Social Network Approach to Measuring Intragroup Conflict: Involvement vs. Perceptions Presenter: Ruchi Sinha; Indian School of Business Impact of Task Conflict Network Density on Team Performance:The Role of Transactive Memory Systems Presenter: Anthony C. Hood; U. of Alabama at Birmingham Presenter: Daniel Gregory Bachrach; U. of Alabama Presenter: Elliot Bendoly; Emory U. A Multi-method Investigation of the Types and Consequences of Hierarchical Conflicts in Teams Presenter: Maartje E. Schouten; Erasmus U. Rotterdam Presenter: Lindred L. Greer; Erasmus U. Rotterdam Presenter: Daan van Knippenberg; Erasmus U. Rotterdam