Intragroup Conflict Research Articles

Big Hitters: Important Factors Characterizing Team Effectiveness in Professional Cricket.

While organizational psychology attests to the multidimensional nature of team effectiveness, insight regarding the most important factors contributing to the effectiveness of sports teams, especially elite teams, is lacking. An abductive method of qualitative enquiry was adopted to capture participants' construal of team effectiveness, drawing on the extant literature in both sport and organizational psychology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 players, coaches, and psychologists involved in elite cricket, with resultant data analyzed inductively initially, before being reanalyzed deductively. Although, the narratives endorsed the value of many of the deductively derived factors, other constructs more prominent in organizational psychology (e.g., trust and intra-group conflict) appeared to be more important than traditional sport psychology group factors. The results revealed six broad themes; culture and environment, values, communication, understanding, leadership, and unique individuals, with some gender differences apparent throughout. Based on our elite sample's construal of team effectiveness, we propose a new model representing a practical, parsimonious, and novel conceptualization of the most important attributes of team effectiveness in cricket, with conceivable transferability to other team sports.

Synergistic cooperation promotes multicellular performance and unicellular free-rider persistence

The evolution of multicellular life requires cooperation among cells, which can be undermined by intra-group selection for selfishness. Theory predicts that selection to avoid non-cooperators limits social interactions among non-relatives, yet previous evolution experiments suggest that intra-group conflict is an outcome, rather than a driver, of incipient multicellular life cycles. Here we report the evolution of multicellularity via two distinct mechanisms of group formation in the unicellular budding yeast Kluyveromyces lactis. Cells remain permanently attached following mitosis, giving rise to clonal clusters (staying together); clusters then reversibly assemble into social groups (coming together). Coming together amplifies the benefits of multicellularity and allows social clusters to collectively outperform solitary clusters. However, cooperation among non-relatives also permits fast-growing unicellular lineages to ‘free-ride’ during selection for increased size. Cooperation and competition for the benefits of multicellularity promote the stable coexistence of unicellular and multicellular genotypes, underscoring the importance of social and ecological context during the transition to multicellularity.

Goal interdependence, subgroup formation, and conflict in Teams

This research investigates subgroup formation as an important mediator in the goal interdependence-intragroup conflict linkage. Specifically, it proposes that subgroup formation will mediate the relationship between cooperative goal interdependence and intragroup conflict, but not for competitive goal interdependence and intragroup conflict. Further, competitive goal interdependence is posited to have direct, positive effects on intragroup conflict. Using structural equation modeling analyses with 79 student project teams, the findings revealed that subgroup formation fully mediated the relationship between cooperative goal interdependence and task and process conflict, but only partially mediated the relationship between cooperative goal interdependence and relationship conflict. As predicted, subgroup formation did not mediate the relationship between competitive goal interdependence and intragroup conflict; however, competitive goal interdependence was negatively, rather than positively, related to intragroup conflict.

Burning hearts in conflict

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between three conflict types, cognitive task conflict, emotional relationship conflict and emotional task conflict, and team effectiveness (team performance and team job satisfaction).Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a group-level ordinary least square regression analysis of 61 working teams to investigate the study variables, and possible interaction effects among them. In an auxiliary analysis (36 teams), they analyzed the role of mood dimensions (hedonic valence and general conflict activation) as mediators to the relationship between cognitive task conflict and team effectiveness.FindingsCognitive task conflict was negatively related to team performance, emotional relationship conflict was negatively related to team job satisfaction and emotional task conflict was positively related to team performance, all controlled for the effect of each other. The relationship between cognitive task conflict and team job satisfaction was negatively moderated by team size. Mood valence mediated the relationship between cognitive task conflict and team performance, and between cognitive task conflict and team job satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsSeveral possible research lines emanate from the current field study. First of all, the authors suggest that emotional task conflict may be of particular interest, as this is hypothesized and found to be incrementally positively related to team performance. Second, their auxiliary study of the mediating effect of mood valence on the relationship between cognitive task conflict and performance may spur curiosity concerning the role of mood as a mediator of the relationship between task or cognitive conflicts and team effectiveness.Practical implicationsThe practitioner should be advised to try to facilitate the distribution of intragroup conflict in their teams in the direction of an increased level of emotional task conflict (positive for performance) at the expense of cognitive task conflict (negative for performance) and emotional relationship conflict (negative for satisfaction). The practitioner should allow intragroup conflicts to be highly activated (intense), as long as the interactions are strictly directed to the task in hand, and not being personal. In addition, a positive mood in teams may significantly strengthen the team's resilience against adverse consequences of conflicts.Originality/valueThe three conflict types in this three-dimensional intragroup conflict model (3IC) have never been tested before, and the findings open for a conflict type – emotional task conflict – that may generally be conducive for the teams’ performance, evaluated by the teams’ supervisors. This is a conflict type where people simultaneously are emotional and yet task oriented. To the authors’ knowledge, this is a novelty, and they hope that it may encourage further research on this conflict type.

Buffering Against the Detrimental Effects of Demographic Faultlines: The Curious Case of Intragroup Conflict in Small Work Groups

AbstractGroup faultline literature suggests that subgroups impede group functioning. We propose that team conflict may buffer the detrimental effects of faultlines on group performance. We draw on social categorization and group process theories suggesting that the negative effects of fault‐lines are due to increased competition and decreased communication across subgroups and can be diminished with cross‐subgroup information exchange and elaboration. We propose that intragroup conflict in small groups will decrease negative effects of demographic faultlines because detecting conflict and engaging in conflict management require cross‐subgroup communication and information elaboration. In Study 1, using student groups we found that relationship, task, and process conflict buffered the negative effect of demographic faultline strength on group performance. In Study 2, we manipulated conflict and group faultlines (ethnic faultlines vs. no faultlines) and found that group conflict buffered the negative effect of faultlines on group performance. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

The Façade of Voice Opportunity and Intragroup Conflict

The Façade of Voice Opportunity and Intragroup Conflict

The Façade of Voice Opportunity and Intragroup Conflict

The positive consequences of offering employees opportunities to express their opinions about the matters, concerns, and decisions related to their roles have been largely recognized (Bellavance, Landry, & Schiehll, 2013). These include a sense of ownership, inclusion, fairness of decisions, respect, and increased decisions acceptance by employees. However, rarely do any write about the potential negative outcomes of such organizational policies, specifically if they are deceitfully implemented. This research argues that under conditions where managers disregard the appropriate benefits of such policies, but implement them anyway for an apparent semblance of employee-consideration or due to organizational policy directives, this may lead their employees to be distrustful of such actions and consequently of the managers who implement them. This perceived deception of managers will lead to negative effects of these opportunities where employees are given a chance to voice their opinions, rather than foster positive benefits they have been designed for. In this research we studied the negative effects of such dubious implementation of this useful managerial strategy among the employees and managers of selected industries. We developed a survey to gather data from 317 respondents. Our findings suggest that the perceived negative effects of such mock opportunities results in employees’ increasingly lowered participative behaviour in such opportunities and increasingly higher conflict within organization.

Are eyewitness accounts biased? Evaluating false memories for crimes involving in-group or out-group conflict

ABSTRACTEyewitness testimony has been shown to be unreliable and susceptible to false memories. Whether eyewitness memory errors are influenced by the victim’s group membership (relative to both the eyewitness and perpetrator) is underexplored. The current study used complementary behavioral and neuroimaging approaches to test the hypothesis that intragroup conflict heightens participants’ susceptibility to subsequent false memories. Healthy young adults witnessed and later answered questions about events in which the perpetrator and victim were either 1) identified as in-group members relative to each other and the eyewitness, 2) out-group members relative to the eyewitness, but not each other, or 3) out-group members relative to each other (Experiments 1a and 1b). When perpetrators and victims were in-group members (intragroup conflict), participants showed heightened false memory rates. Moreover, false memories increased upon crime realization. Neuroimaging data analysis revealed that salient (as compared to ambiguous) intragroup conflict elicited heightened activation in neural regions associated with resolving cognitive conflict (anterior cingulate cortex; ACC). Increased functional connectivity between the ACC and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with subsequent false memories (Experiment 2). Results suggest that the social salience of the intragroup conflict may have been associated with participants’ increased susceptibility to false memories.

The Role of Psychological Capital and Intragroup Conflict on Employees' Burnout and Quality of Service: A Multilevel Approach.

Previous studies have found a negative association between intragroup conflict and both employees' health and performance, including the quality of service that employees provide. However, some authors have indicated that such negative effects of intragroup conflict depend on how conflict is managed. In addition, at individual level, research is increasingly emphasizing the role of psychological strengths (i.e., psychological capital) as predictors of health and performance. Thus, this research addresses both a main effect at individual level (psychological capital on burnout/quality of service) and a moderated cross-level model (2-2-1: intragroup conflict, conflict management climate and burnout/quality of service) in a cross-sectional survey study (N = 798 workers nested in 55 units/facilities). Results revealed a main effect of psychological capital on both burnout (r = −0.50) and quality of service (r = 0.28). Also, there was an association between intragroup relationship conflict and burnout (r = 0.33). Finally, there was an interaction effect in which conflict management climate buffers the negative association between intragroup conflict and quality of service. Practical implications of these results for developing positive and healthy organizations that prevent potential psychosocial risks at group level while promote individual strengths are discussed.

A Price Paid for Our Internal Strife: Escalated Intragroup Aggression and the Evolution of Ingroup Derogation.

From evolutionary reasoning, we derived a novel hypothesis that ingroup derogation is an adaptation to a special ecological condition in which the greater threat of aggression is incurred by ingroup members. This hypothesis was tested and supported across five studies. Specifically, the computational modeling found that ingroup derogation could easily evolve if the chance of death incurred by intragroup conflicts was no less than 10%. Further behavioral experiments on Chinese participants showed that the ingroup derogation mechanism responded to heuristic social category cues and it responded more strongly when participants subjectively felt more vulnerable to interpersonal aggression, or when there were contextual cues of aggression in the immediate environment. Additional results showed that Chinese participants responded more strongly to aggression cues originating from ingroup members and that they endorsed more ingroup derogation attitudes even when the ingroup and outgroup members were both displaying cues of aggression. In addition, the results also revealed that the Chinese participants perceived more intentions of aggression from ingroup members than from outgroup members even in the absence of any clear signs of those intentions, and such a bias was positively correlated with ingroup derogation attitudes. Taken together, these results suggest that ingroup derogation is related to the evolved response of intragroup aggression management system.

Cross-Cultural Sex Differences in Post-Conflict Affiliation following Sports Matches

The nature of ancestral human social structure and the circumstances in which men or women tend to be more cooperative are subjects of intense debate. The male warrior hypothesis proposes that success in intergroup contests has been vital in human evolution and that men therefore must engage in maximally effective intragroup cooperation [1-3]. Post-conflict affiliation between opponents is further proposed to facilitate future cooperation [4], which has been demonstrated in non-human primates [5] and humans [6]. The sex that invests more in post-conflict affiliation, therefore, should cooperate more. Supportive evidence comes from chimpanzees, a close genetic relative to humans that also engages in male intergroup aggression [7]. Here we apply this principle to humans by testing the hypothesis that among members of a large community, following a conflict, males are predisposed to be more ready than females to repair their relationship via friendly contact. We took high-level sports matches as a proxy for intragroup conflict, because they occur within a large organization and constitutesemi-naturalistic, standardized, aggressive, and intense confrontations. Duration or frequency of peaceful physical contacts served as the measure of post-conflict affiliation because they are strongly associated with pro-social intentions [8, 9]. Across tennis, table tennis, badminton, and boxing, with participants from 44 countries, duration of post-conflict affiliation was longer for males than females. Our results indicate that unrelated human males are more predisposed than females to invest in a behavior, post-conflict affiliation, that is expected to facilitate future intragroup cooperation.

Workplace fun for better team performance: focus on frontline hotel employees

PurposeThe aim of this study is to reveal how workplace fun promotes team performance in the hotel business context.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual model of this study was tested based on responses from 271 frontline hotel employees (including managers) in the USA, who had full-time work tenure of more than three months in a three-star or above-rated hotel.FindingsThis study revealed that workplace fun activities enhance team performance by promoting employees’ workplace fun experience and by facilitating interpersonal trust and group cohesion, which, in turn, reduce intra-group conflict and stimulates interpersonal citizenship behaviors, respectively.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, this study adopted subjective team performance measures. Although it can be exaggerated unconsciously, the literature suggests that how team members perceive their team’ performance is also an important indicator of team effectiveness. Second, the conceptual model of this study was tested in the US context. So, in a more collectivistic culture, the model might generate somewhat different results from those of this study.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study indicate that workplace fun initiatives by the management are an effective means to promote the performance of frontline work teams at a hotel. Discussions are extended to incorporating fun elements into existing organizational cultures.Originality/valueBy adopting the input–process–outcome framework, this study shows how workplace fun, as a critical input, creates positive group processes and, thereby, promotes positive group outcomes in the hotel business context.

Using Performance Improvement “Tools” Effectively

Using Performance Improvement “Tools” Effectively

Team Cognition Conflict: A Conceptual Review Identifying Cognition Conflict as a New Team Conflict Construct

This article introduces a new conceptual model that adds to the previous intragroup conflict model by introducing a new construct—cognition conflict. In addition, it provides the defining characteristics for this new construct and presents how cognition conflict should be incorporated into the intragroup conflict literature. This conceptual review addresses the call to researchers from Song, Dyer, and Thieme (2006) by presenting cognition conflict as a new intragroup conflict construct.

The importance of cultural aspects in impact assessment and project development: reflections from a case study of a hydroelectric dam in Brazil

Failure to consider the cultural and social factors of projects can lead to situations where mitigation does not effectively address the impacts they were intended to alleviate, and can even create other impacts. We critically analyse the processes of designing and implementing a social and environmental compensation program for the Lajeado Hydroelectric Dam in the Amazon region of central-northern Brazil. This mitigation program caused a wide range of social and environmental impacts on the Xerente Indigenous people, such as intra-group conflict, and changes in agricultural practices and food regime. Based on qualitative fieldwork and an extensive document analysis, we present a contextualization of the region, the project, the Xerente people, and their cosmological understandings. We consider the perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders about the compensation program and its outcomes, and demonstrate how traditional cultural practices and values played a role in the unfolding of the program. Better comprehension of sociocultural aspects through the use of ethnography, ongoing consultation, and meaningful community participation in the planning and implementation of mitigation measures are recommended.

The Usefulness of Assessing and Identifying Workers' Temperaments and Their Effects on Occupational Stress in the Workplace.

The relationship between temperaments and mental disorders has been reported in previous studies, but there has been little attention to temperaments in the occupational safety and health research. The aim of this study was to clarify the effects of temperaments on occupational stress among local government employees. The subjects were 145 Japanese daytime workers in local government. Temperaments were assessed by the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego-Auto questionnaire (TEMPS-A). Occupational stress was assessed using the Generic Job Stress Questionnaire (GJSQ). Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was used. Hyperthymic temperament predicted a higher level of job control, and a lower level of role ambiguity and job future ambiguity. Irritable temperament predicted a lower level of social support from supervisors and a higher level of role conflict, variance in workload and intragroup conflict. Anxious temperament predicted a lower level of social support from coworkers and a higher level of job future ambiguity. The sample size was small. Only Japanese local government employees were surveyed. Hyperthymic temperament played a protective role, and irritable, anxious temperament played a vulnerable role against one’s own occupational stress and recognizing the roles they play in work life would lead to self-insight. Additionally, recognition of the temperaments and temperament-related stressors by one’s supervisors or coworkers would facilitate provision of social support.

On the relationship between intragroup conflict and social capital in teams: A longitudinal investigation in Taiwan

SummaryIn response to the prevalent deployment of teams in organizations, there is a need to jointly consider conflict and social capital within the teams to offer novel ways to understand group process. This study proposes that the association between intragroup conflict and group social capital may be dynamic and reciprocal. Specifically, this study investigates longitudinally how intragroup conflict influences group social capital within cross‐functional teams and recognizes whether the teams with high group social capital can further produce intragroup conflict. The two‐year longitudinal study sampled 527 individuals in 90 teams across two time periods. This study finds that when teams are formed (Time 1), task conflict relates positively to structural social capital, and relationship conflict relates negatively to cognitive social capital. There is an inverted U‐type relationship between task conflict at Time 1 and social capital at Time 2. Established teams (Time 2) with higher levels of social capital experience higher levels of task conflict and lower levels of relationship conflict than teams with lower levels of social capital. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Behavioural Contexts of Red Langur (Presbytis rubicunda) Loud Calls in the Wehea Forest, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Researchers hypothesize that male loud calls play several roles in primate societies including in the context of intergroup spacing and spatial coordination. Field studies examining the behavioural correlates of vocalizations are essential to evaluate the function of these calls. This preliminary study, from July 2011 to January 2012, explores the behavioural contexts and correlates of male loud calls in a habituated group of red langurs (Presbytis rubicunda) in the Wehea Forest, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. In analysing 418 h of data collection, we find a total of 87 vocal behaviours, including bouts of multiple calls in rapid succession (i.e. calling events) and individual loud calls. In this sample, most vocal behaviour takes place in the morning with 59% of calling events occurring before 8.00 h. The mean rate of calling events is 0.12 events/h, and the mean rate of individual loud calls is 0.20 calls/h. The mean number of calling events per day is 1.31 (range: 0-4), and the mean number of individual loud calls per day is 2.81 (range: 0-13). The rate of calling events is highest in the context of intragroup conflict, followed by intergroup encounters, predator threat, group travel, and the highest number of individual loud calls occurred during intergroup encounters. Although these results are preliminary, they suggest that adult male loud calls among red langurs at Wehea may play a role in both intergroup spacing and social coordination, supporting the hypothesis that these calls can serve different functions.

Bargaining over Australian public service cuts: Do forcing strategies work?

AbstractAlthough a Labor government fiscal stimulus had helped Australia weather the 2008 global financial crisis, budget deficits increased, and the public service was targeted for economies. The Liberal/National (Coalition) opposition won office in 2013, promising public sector cuts. In this context, the Walton et al. concept of a forcing strategy helps analyse the 2014–2016 bargaining round in the Australian Public Service. A forcing strategy involves three negotiating processes: distributive bargaining to achieve concessions in pay and working conditions, the structuring of attitudes to heighten animosity between the negotiating parties, and the management of internal differences to minimise intragroup conflicts. The Liberal/National (Coalition) government adopted elements of these approaches, requiring Australian Public Service agencies to reduce a range of employment conditions to justify pay increases. Interactions between Australian Public Service management and the principal Australian Public Service trade union, the Community and Public Sector Union became increasingly hostile over the course of the bargaining round. In addition, internal differences emerged between the Australian Public Service Commission, which oversaw the bargaining process, and individual Australian Public Service agencies. We consider the efficacy of this forcing strategy in light of the potential for the Community and Public Sector Union to mobilise its membership to resist such an approach to pay negotiations.

The effect of team empowerment on team performance

Purpose– Based on extant literature on empowerment and team management, this paper aims to examine the effect of power distance and collectivism on the relationship between empowerment and team performance through the mechanisms of knowledge sharing and intra-group conflict.Design/methodology/approach– This paper conceptualizes a model depicting the relationship between team empowerment and team performance across cultures.Findings– The authors argue that team empowerment can increase both knowledge sharing and intra-group conflict in working teams. Knowledge sharing facilitates team performance, while intra-group conflict impairs team performance in the long run. Team empowerment yields different team performance across cultures due to the respective moderating effects of power distance and collectivism.Originality/value– This paper explicates the moderating roles of power distance and collectivism on the relationship between empowerment, knowledge sharing, intra-group conflict and team performance. The authors suggest that the effectiveness of team empowerment is contingent on the cultural context that the team operates in.