The Concept of Intragroup Conflict in Relation to Gender and Well-Being in Women-Dominated Work

Abstract

This chapter reviews the current state of the science on intragroup conflicts and its impact on employee well-being. It also explores how task, relationship and process conflicts relate to gender perceptions and practices among welfare workers in women-dominated work. The analysis, guided by the theory of intragroup conflict, uses qualitative interviews with 26 managers and their employees at three workplaces in Sweden. The review concludes that, although conflicts are emotional, not all of them affect welfare workers’ well-being over time. Only relationship conflicts seem to be hurtful to employee well-being. The empirical analysis suggests that intragroup conflicts are inherently emotional, with workers putting their emotions aside during their professional efforts to raise standards and improve the quality of practice at work. Task conflicts emerge both horizontally and vertically, whereas process and relationship conflicts are, to a high degree, related to status and power, that is, produced vertically. The empirical analyses reveal no differences between the ways in which men and women in welfare occupations perceive or practise intragroup conflict, calling into question the societal discourse that women are not very good at fighting and that they fight more than men.