Status Conflict and Team Creativity: The Roles of Depersonalization and Organizational Awareness

Abstract

Status – one’s position and influence within a social network – is a psych-social resource which fulfills one’s need for social esteem. Striving to gain status in a social setup, including organizational settings, can cause conflict and reduce employees’ positive work behavior. This study is aimed at discussing two questions: first, how status conflict in team, a newly established type of conflict, poses a threat toward individual wellbeing and affects team creativity; and second, to what extent organizational awareness, an individual characteristic, might act as buffer against the negative effects of status conflict. The data was collected from 245 healthcare professionals from 55 teams and analyzed through multilevel analysis, after achieving the model fit. The counterintuitive findings at team level revealed that status conflict does not impede team creativity but causes depersonalization that could undermine the overall team creativity. This multilevel study serves to widen the literature, responding to the recent call for new research by investigating the effects of depersonalization caused by status conflict on team creativity. Likewise, from a practical standpoint, it also emphasizes social competency as a moderator that can reduce the negative feelings caused by status conflict. Additionally, the study extends the job-demand resource model by introducing status as an individual requirement in organizational context, arguing that depletion of status creates negative feelings which are ultimately able to lower creativity.