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r Academy of Management Journal 2018, Vol. 61, No. 1, 324–347. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0094
INTRODUCING TEAM MINDFULNESS AND CONSIDERING ITS SAFEGUARD ROLE AGAINST CONFLICT
TRANSFORMATION AND SOCIAL UNDERMINING
LINGTAO YU University of British Columbia
MARY ZELLMER-BRUHN University of Minnesota
The authors introduce the concept of team mindfulness, defined as a shared belief among team members that their interactions are characterized by awareness and at- tention to present events, and experiential, nonjudgmental processing of within-team experiences. Team mindfulness is examined as a safeguard against multilevel team conflict transformation processes. Results from three multi-wave field studies validate a team mindfulness instrument and indicate that team mindfulness (1) negatively relates to team relationship conflict, (2) reduces the connection between task conflict and re- lationship conflict at the team level, (3) and reduces the cross-level spillover of team relationship conflict to individual social undermining. The research contributes to the growing workplace mindfulness literature by conceptualizing mindfulness at the team level and demonstrating its positive effects for team functioning. Results also contribute to research on team conflict and social undermining, showing that team mindfulness is a promising intervention to reduce team conflict and its ill effects.
If you’ve seen the Three Peat by the Bulls, the Lakers’ championships. . . then you’ve seen the magic of mindfulness. . . I use it to help build both teams, as a buffer against tensions in teams. It’s so vital for a team to have this skill and to become mindful.
—Phil Jackson
Mindfulness has been defined as “a receptive at- tention to and awareness of present events and ex- perience” (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007: 212; see also Brown & Ryan, 2003). In 1989, National Bas- ketball Association coach Phil Jackson introduced mindfulness to the Chicago Bulls. Despite suspicion among players, including superstar Michael Jordan, Jackson insisted on using mindfulness to help team building, buffer against tensions, and ultimately
unite team members. As the opening quote illus- trates, the Chicago Bulls won six championships. Later, the Los Angeles Lakers won five champion- ships under Jackson’s methods. Since then, mind- fulness in teams has gone beyond the sports domain: organizations as varied as Google, Aetna, LinkedIn, and Ford have all used mindfulness to achieve more productive teams (Gelles, 2015).
Although practitioners and the media have con- sidered team mindfulness (e.g., David, 2015; Gelles, 2015), the scientific literature has mostly examined mindfulness as an individual-level, intrapsychic phenomenon (Glomb, Duffy, Bono, & Yang, 2011; Good et al., 2016), or as an organizational-level, in- terrelated set of practices (Sutcliffe, Vogus, & Dane, 2016; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999). Research has indicated that mindfulness affects employee and organizational performance (Dane, 2011), in- novation (Vogus & Welbourne, 2003), turnover (Dane & Brummel, 2014), decisions (Hafenbrack, Kinias, & Barsade, 2014), and quality and safety (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2007). Given broad effects across various social domains, some scholars have pro- vocatively called mindfulness a “root construct” that is critical to understanding human functioning (Good et al., 2016). Others have suggested that such
The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful di- rection of Associate Editor Daan van Knippenberg and three anonymous reviewers. The paper also benefitted greatly from comments by Randall Peterson, Theresa Glomb, and members of the Work and Organization De- partment seminar and the IESE Business School Barcelona seminar. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the WOrg Department’s Research Grant awarded to Lingtao Yu, and the Carlson School Dean’s Research Grant awarded to Mary Zellmer-Bruhn, which helped to enable and expedite this research. Authorship is alphabetical.
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a proclamation is premature because of many open issues, particularly regarding how mindfulness can be applied in organizational settings, and what mindfulness means at different construct levels (Sutcliffe et al., 2016).
Notably, “management scholars have not yet se- riously undertaken the challenge” of how mindful- ness affects teamwork (Good et al., 2016: 15; see also Hulsheger, 2015). Because modern organizations are so team-based, failure to consider whether and how mindfulness operates in teams limits conclusions about the full impact and value of the mindfulness concept. More important, without scientific in- vestigation, team mindfulness practices that man- agers already put into action could be an ineffective, costly fad (Glomb et al., 2011; Sutcliffe et al., 2016). Without evidence about its structure and function, we cannot evaluate the relative risks or benefits of team mindfulness. Developing and testing theory about team mindfulness is therefore necessary to advance both theoretical and practical knowledge about this captivating construct (Good et al., 2016; Hulsheger, 2015; Sutcliffe et al., 2016).
Our objectives are to introduce and validate a team mindfulness construct, and show its function and meaningfulness as a safeguard against dysfunctional aspects of team conflict. We suggest that team mindfulness is a shared perception among team members that their interactions are typified by present focused attention and awareness, and by experiential, nonjudgmental processing of team ex- periences. We propose that team mindfulness emerges as team members develop similar percep- tions about their interactions (Carter, Carter, & DeChurch, 2017).
We designed three multi-wave field studies to in- vestigate team mindfulness. In our first study, we develop and validate a team mindfulness measure. We designed the second and third studies to in- vestigate the meaningfulness of team mindfulness by exploring its function in team conflict. Although we expect team mindfulness to differ structurally from individual mindfulness (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999), we propose that it has similar functions in both teams and individuals (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Good et al., 2016), with present focused at- tention and awareness, and experiential, non- judgmental processing as “safeguard” functions affecting team conflict processes (Glomb et al., 2011; Good et al., 2016).
We focus on team conflict for several reasons. Team conflict is detrimental to teams; in fact, “positive effects of conflict have been largely
elusive” (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012; Todorova, Bear, & Weingart, 2014). Task conflict may have benefits (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; de Wit et al., 2012; Jehn, Greer, Levine, & Szulanski, 2008), but it is often tightly coupled with consistently problematic relationship conflict (de Wit et al., 2012; Yang & Mossholder, 2004). We fur- ther introduce the novel idea that relationship con- flict is problematic because it spills over to individual deviant behaviors, such as social under- mining. We explain how the team mindfulness functions of attention stability and control, and less reactive, open, nonjudgmental processing of expe- riences (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Good et al., 2016), interrupt the connection among conflict types and between conflict and individual deviant be- havior, so that team mindfulness safeguards against (1) relationship conflict, (2) the connection between task conflict and relationship conflict, and (3) team relationship conflict spilling over, cross-level, to in- dividual social undermining. We test the safeguard functions in two studies involving different socio- cultural contexts and team types, offering further construct validation for team mindfulness.
Our work answers the call for more empirical in- vestigations of collective mindfulness in manage- ment and organizations (Sutcliffe et al., 2016) by introducing team mindfulness, explaining its con- tent and structure, developing a psychometrically sound scale, and delineating its safeguard role in multilevel team conflict processes. Showing that mindfulness can be evaluated in teams and is related to interpersonal processes adds knowledge neces- sary for the ongoing consideration of the value of mindfulness in organizational behavior (Good et al., 2016; Hulsheger, 2015; Sutcliffe et al., 2016). Our research also has practical implications: teams taught mindfulness may have fewer negative in- terpersonal processes, suggesting that managers can derive value by implementing team mindfulness training.
We also contribute to research on team conflict and individual social undermining, two endemic negative interpersonal processes (de Wit et al., 2012; Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002). We identify team mindfulness as moderating the task conflict– relationship conflict connection. Although team trust has been shown to moderate this relationship (Choi & Cho, 2011; Simons & Peterson, 2000), iden- tifying other moderators is vital to refining team conflict theory (Rispens, 2012). Moreover, we dem- onstrate that team mindfulness can directly safe- guard against relationship conflict, as well asprevent
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a cross-level spillover effect on individual social undermining. Showing that team conflict spills over to individual social undermining adds to our un- derstanding of how relationship conflict harms teamwork, and adds insights to the social under- mining literature by identifying team relationship conflict as a contextual-level antecedent (Duffy, Scott, Shaw, Tepper, & Aquino, 2012). By demon- strating that team mindfulness can be a safeguard, we demonstrate a way in which to prevent conflict transformation and spillovers.
The centerpiece of our contribution, team mind- fulness, is a new construct. Thus, we begin by detailing its content, structure, and emergence.
TEAM MINDFULNESS
We define team mindfulness as a shared belief among team members that team interactions are characterized by awareness and attention to present events, and by experiential, nonjudgmental pro- cessing of within-team experiences. Team mindful- ness is a shared unit property emerging from team experience (Carter et al., 2017; Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001) which distinguishes it from individ- ual mindfulness. Individual and team mindfulness both include the same two elemental content di- mensions (present focused attention and experien- tial processing), but their structures and composition vary (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999).
Elemental Content
Mindfulness involves “paying attention to what is happening in the moment, and observing stimuli without judgment or evaluation, and without assigning meaning” (Glomb et al., 2011: 118). Mindfulness thus has two elemental dimensions: (1) attention to, and awareness of, what is perceived in the present; and (2) receptive, open, and non- judgmental experiential processing (e.g., Brown & Ryan, 2003; Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Good et al., 2016).
The first dimension involves “sustained and con- centrated [attention] to see clearly what is arising in the present moment” (Shapiro & Carlson, 2009: 10). Present moment refers to what is going on right now, rather than future issues and demands or past expe- riences (Leroy, 2009; Smallwood & Schooler, 2015). Sustained and concentrated attention means that mindfulness involves paying attention on purpose (Dreyfus, 2011). For example, a person may realize she is eating, but not purposefully make herself
aware of her sensations about eating, or actively bring her attention back to eating if her mind wan- ders. The combination of present-moment attention and purposeful awareness distinguish mindfulness from related concepts emphasizing focused at- tention that occurs without conscious decision (e.g., absorption and flow [Good et al., 2016]).
The second dimension—receptive, open, and nonjudgmental experiential processing (Good et al., 2016; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006)—reflects the Bud- dhist origins of mindfulness not only as an atten- tional process but as open-minded curiosity and kind, compassionate intent (Weick & Putnam, 2006). Experiential processing treats “facts as observed without immediate judgment or labeling” (Good et al., 2016: 4), and is distinguished from conceptual processing (Good et al., 2016) involving thought- dominated categorizing, labeling, evaluating, mak- ing positive or negative attributions, or assuming implications (Weick & Putnam, 2006). For example, a driver may be cut off by a car rapidly changing lanes to exit in front of her. Conceptual processing would involve labeling the behavior (e.g., stupid move), categorizing the driver (e.g., incompetent), and projecting implications (e.g., they must have a lot of traffic violations). Experiential processing would instead involve simply noticing the behavior and letting it pass without spontaneously evaluating, analyzing, or reflecting upon why it happened.
Structure and Emergence
Individual mindfulness is intrapersonal, and has been considered a trait, a state, or a practice (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Glomb et al., 2011). The practice view equates mindfulness with meditation (Davidson, 2010; Good et al., 2016), whereas both the state and trait approaches consider individual mindfulness a “quality of mind,” with mind seen as a bundle of cognitive and perceptual processes (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006: 515). In our development of the team mindfulness construct, we follow the “quality of mind” view. In individual mindfulness, the “unit of agency” is the individual (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999), and, like similar individual psychological constructs such as ability, personality, or efficacy, mindfulness cannot be directly observed; it must be inferred from behaviors. State and trait individual mindfulness is commonly inferred from self-reports (Davidson, 2010).
Team mindfulness is a team-level property, not an aggregation of individual mindfulness. It is an emergent, shared cognitive state, which team
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members develop through experience in the team (Marks et al., 2001). Emergent states and processes are related, as emergent states are products of team interaction, and affect subsequent interactions (Marks et al., 2001; van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Homan, 2013). In teams, “mind” is an interpersonal (Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012; Weick & Roberts, 1993), collective cognition process occurring in in- teractions among team members. Team mindfulness is a shared perception about the qualities of team mind, emerging from team interaction.
As teams interact, members observe, experience, and learn how the team approaches its tasks, and what actions are admissible (Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991). Consider two teams. In one team, members regularly interact on the side; some members are unaware that participation is uneven or that the team has lost its task focus, so discussions must berepeated and work must beredone. Members may be prevalently critical and defensive, and quickly categorize and judge others’ positions or perspectives (e.g., as correct or incorrect, productive or unproductive). In another team, members stay focused and reunite the team if they sense activities and communication have veered off task. Discus- sions focus on exploring facts, ideas, and options, and avoid impulsive judgments about others’ ideas or feelings. These examples illustrate how collective action can involve qualitatively different attention and judgmental processing across teams.
Collective action involves mutual adjustment (Weick & Roberts, 1993); over time, interdependent interaction cycles reduce within-team variability, and interaction patterns become routinized (Gersick & Hackman, 1990). Shared experience of such pat- terned interaction exerts team-level influence on perceptions, supporting the emergence of team mindfulness (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; van Knippenberg et al., 2013), and teams with higher team mindfulness in turn display greater focused attention and experiential, nonjudgmental process- ing in subsequent interactions. Thus, mindful in- teraction and emergent state mindfulness operate in reinforcing cycles (van Knippenberg et al., 2013). We focus on mindfulness as an emergent state.
Related Concepts
Two literature streams in organization studies also use the term mindfulness. One stream focuses on “mindlessness,” or routine and automatic process- ing that prevents innovation and causes errors (e.g., Gersick & Hackman, 1990; Langer, 1989;
Zellmer-Bruhn, 2003). That research is related to, but distinct from, ours in that it aims to show that orga- nizations can be more adaptive if individuals use discriminatory attention and information processing to devise new, discrete categories and alternative actions (Langer, 1989). The second stream focuses on high-reliability organizations (e.g., Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006; Weick et al., 1999), where collec- tive mindfulness refers to “organizational processes or practices that help organizations detect, catego- rize, and respond to unexpected events and errors” (Weick et al., 1999: 88). That research has revealed interrelated practices that allow some organizations to better recognize unusual events, take action to counteract problems, and avoid processing rou- tinely, automatically linking observation to well- worn categories, or assuming normality (Weick & Putnam, 2006). Although that stream has a different focus, it lends credibility to our proposal that mindfulness can occur on a collective level (Sutcliffe et al., 2016).
Having detailed its conceptual elements, struc- ture, and emergence, we next consider the mean- ingfulness and value of the team mindfulness construct by illustrating how team mindfulness functions as a safeguard against dysfunctional effects of team conflict, which are largely due to opposi- tional intensity and negative emotionality. Mind- fulness theory emphasizes that its two dimensions offer cognitive and affective functions (Good et al., 2016) that ought to reduce oppositional intensity and negative emotionality, connecting team conflict and mindfulness through these concepts. Therefore, team conflict offers a valuable test of the function and meaningfulness of team mindfulness.
TEAM MINDFULNESS AS A SAFEGUARD
Team member incompatibilities and differences can generate intragroup conflict, which varies in content, with task and relationship conflict as the most common topics of team conflict research (Jehn, 1995). Task conflict involves disagreements about policies, work procedures, and resource distribu- tions; relationship conflict involves clashes over personal values, work habits, and interpersonal in- teractions (Jehn, 1995). Team conflict is consequen- tial: task conflict may enhance team performance, but is often instead harmful (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Schulz-Hardt, Jochims, & Frey, 2002), and re- lationship conflict is uniformly associated with poor team outcomes (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; de Wit et al., 2012).
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Effective teamwork requires isolating the benefits of task conflict and avoiding relationship conflict (Rispens, 2012; Todorova et al., 2014)—a difficult challenge because task conflict and relationship conflict are often closely associated (e.g., Greer, Jehn, & Mannix, 2008; Simons & Peterson, 2000; Tidd, McIntyre, & Friedman, 2004; Yang & Mossholder, 2004). Because of the person-focused content of re- lationship conflict (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; de Wit et al., 2012), we further theorize that relationship conflict often spills over to individual counterpro- ductive behaviors. Thus, reducing relationship conflict, disconnecting task conflict and relation- ship conflict, and blunting spillovers from rela- tionship conflict are essential to reducing the detrimental effects of conflict in teams.
Emotions activated in conflict determine whether conflict has productive or unproductive outcomes (Todorova et al., 2014; Weingart, Behfar, Bendersky, Todorova, & Jehn, 2015; Yang & Mossholder, 2004). Positive emotionality, at least in task conflict, in- creases cooperation (Ayoko, Callan, & Härtel, 2008), and supports positive proximal outcomes such as satisfaction with the team (Todorova et al., 2014). In contrast, negative emotionality distracts teams from their tasks, triggers competitive reactions (Van Kleef, 2010), fuels conflict spirals (Weingart et al., 2015), and facilitates dysfunctional transformation from task to relationship conflict (Yang & Mossholder, 2004). To prevent such problems, negative emotions need to be kept in check when conflict occurs.
Because “conflict and emotions are inextricably linked” (Nair, 2008: 369; see also Bodtker & Jameson, 2001), any type of team conflict activates emotions (Jehn et al., 2008; Todorova et al., 2014; Yang & Mossholder, 2004), but the level and valence of emotions is influenced by conflict content and ex- pression (Weingart et al., 2015). For example, task conflict is psychologically pressing and stressful, activating emotions. Depending on the circum- stances, these emotions may be positive and energiz- ing, or negative and disruptive (Todorova et al., 2014). Likewise, relationship conflict can be experienced with high or low emotionality (Jehn et al., 2008); however, while relationship conflict is not “emo- tional” conflict, due to its personally antagonistic content it is likely to activate negative emotions (Todorova et al., 2014: 459).
Conflict expression theory suggests that negative emotions are activated when conflict is perceived as oppositionally intense (Barsade, 2002; Todorova et al., 2014). Team members go through complex processes of attending to and interpreting its
expression (Weingart et al., 2015), and conflict is perceived as oppositionally intense when members interpret it as defensive positioning, conveying re- buttal, attacks, or threats (Weingart et al., 2015). Any type of conflict can be experienced as opposi- tionally intense. For example, if task conflict is expressed as disagreement (Jehn, 1995) teams will perceive more opposition (Tsai & Bendersky, 2016) compared to conflict expressed as debate (Tjosvold, 1983), because disagreement communicates lower receptivity to alternatives (Tsai & Bendersky, 2016). Likewise, if relationship conflict is expressed as clashes or personality differences (Jehn, 1995), as compared to differing styles, it will be perceived as more oppositional (Weingart et al., 2015: 243). Conflict states reflect the “shared perceptions among members of [a] team about the [conflict]” occurring in the team (Bradley, Anderson, Baur, & Klotz, 2015: 265). When conflict states tap perceived disagreement or clashes occurring in conflict, the level of conflict offers insights about oppositional intensity.
Oppositional intensity and negative emotions are tightly coupled (Ayoko et al., 2008; Bell & Song, 2005); thus, in order to reduce unproductive conflict outcomes, teams need to regulate oppositional in- tensity and negative emotionality (Curşeau, Janssen, & Raab, 2012). Through present focused attention and experiential, nonjudgmental processing, mind- fulness provides cognitive and affective functions that can limit the oppositional intensity and negative emotions experienced with conflict (Glomb et al., 2011; Good et al., 2016). As a result, we propose that team mindfulness provides a multipoint safeguard against dysfunctional conflict. If true, there ought to be less dysfunctional conflict outcomes in teams with higher mindfulness.
Team Mindfulness and Team Conflict
Team mindfulness disrupts the connection be- tween task and relationship conflict, as well as gen- erally reducing relationship conflict. Task conflict absorbs attentional resources (Yang & Mossholder, 2004), increases cognitive load (Carnevale & Probst, 1998), and narrows thinking, reducing members’ ability to separate task-related and personal stimuli (Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Simons & Peterson, 2000). Teams are prone to crossing task content stimuli with the individuals involved, and to interpret task con- flict as personal criticism (Choi & Cho, 2011; Greer et al., 2008; Simons & Peterson, 2000), personal dislike (Greer et al., 2008), or judgments about
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competency (Tidd et al., 2004). This changes the fo- cus of task conflict to relationships.
High levels of task disagreement increase percep- tions that team efforts and goals are being subverted (Choi & Cho, 2011; Greer et al., 2008), and lowers perceptions that members are receptive to dissenting opinions (Tsai & Bendersky, 2016). Likewise, if past experiences and conflicts influence current conflict appraisal, teams may interpret task conflict as an indication that conflict is entrenched, elevating op- positional intensity and associated negative emo- tions (Weingart et al., 2015). As a result, teams with high levels of task disagreement have increasing re- activity and escalating conflict. Since task and per- son stimuli are often crossed in conflict, the escalation target includes people, thereby increasing relationship conflict. Therefore, to benefit from task conflict, teams need to maintain attention to task content amid competing attentional demands from its source and expression, and keep negative emo- tions and associated reactions in check.
Mindfulness provides attentional stability and control, more positive emotional tone, and lower re- activity.Focusonthepresent(Smallwood&Schooler, 2015) provides attentional stability to keep task goals at the center, lowering distraction from off-task thoughts and activities (Good et al., 2016) and allow- ing teams to perceive greater nuance in member be- haviors (Morrison, Goolsarran, Rogers, & Jha, 2013; Slagter, Davidson, & Lutz, 2011). This prevents over- investment in irrelevant stimuli, such as the source or expression of task conflict (Slagter et al., 2011). Sim- ple misunderstandings and automatic, narrowed heuristic processing are lesslikely (Brown etal.,2007; Glomb et al., 2011; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006), making teams less susceptible to attribution errors and cor- respondence bias (Hopthrow, Hooper, Mahmood, Meier, & Weger, 2017), such that person and task stimuli are less likely to cross. As a result, intense team experiences are less likely to be interpreted as person-oriented.
Mindful teams process experiences in more open, nonjudgmental ways (Good et al., 2016), lowering personalization and reactivity (Glomb et al., 2011; Good et al., 2016). This may make mindful teams generally less susceptible to relationship conflict (Amason & Sapienza, 1997; Hackman, 1992). Open- ness enables disagreement without opposition (Jehn, 1995), so mindful teams may perceive less opposi- tion associated with task conflict. In mindful teams, task conflict is less imbued with meaning, instead processed as factual and neutral (Kross & Ayduk, 2011; Kross & Grossmann, 2012); thus, mindful
teams will experience lower oppositional intensity. In addition, even with the same level of expressed opposition, receptive, experiential processing limits its perceived intensity because opposition can be experienced without being characterized as threat- ening team identity, or judged as transgression, thereby reducing affect-based responses such as re- taliation (Brown et al., 2007; Glomb et al., 2011).
Mindfulness is associated with more positive emotional tone (Eberth & Sedlmeier, 2012; Good et al., 2016), allowing mindful teams to view task conflict as involving positive intent, and thus in- creasing positive and reducing negative emotions. Conflict is sustained and escalated in a negative emotional environment (Jones & Bodtker, 2001) be- cause negative emotions are viewed as something that needs to be controlled and resolved (Glomb et al., 2011). Even if negative emotions are acti- vated in conflict, because behaviors are viewed with openness and without spontaneous judgment mindfulness allows teams to simply observe them, lowering the need to resolve them (Glomb et al., 2011). This reduces reactivity, inhibiting escalation.
In sum, mindfulness creates an internal team en- vironment that is less prone to relationship conflict in general. It disrupts the connection between task conflict and relationship conflict by limiting the transfer of attention from task to person so that task conflict remains the focus of reactions, and limits oppositional intensity and negative emotions oc- curring with conflict, thereby limiting escalation. Therefore, we expect that team mindfulness safe- guards teams in two ways:
Hypothesis 1. Team mindfulness is negatively related to relationship conflict.
Hypothesis 2. Team mindfulness moderates the positive relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict: when team mindfulness is high (low), task conflict has a weaker (stronger) relationship with relationship conflict.
Team Relationship Conflict Spillovers to Individual Social Undermining
Relationship conflict presents homogenous situa- tional factors to members, leading to both individual and team response tendencies (Kozlowski & Hattrup, 1992). Theoretical explanations regarding the con- sequences of relationship conflict have largely fo- cused on the team-level outcomes (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn & Bendersky, 2003). This is
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unfortunate because relationship conflict is in- herently personalized, and likely to transmute to individual responses (de Jong, Curşeu, & Leenders, 2014; Jehn, 1995).
Relationship conflict generates a desire to assess personal relationships according to team expecta- tions regarding appropriate individual reactions (Jehn, 1995), causing members to focus on in- dividuals expressing conflict as the source of oppo- sition (Bettencourt, Talley, Benjamin, & Valentine, 2006). In addition, they may interpret relationship conflict as violating team social functioning, thus activating negative emotions (Weiss, Suckow, & Cropanzano, 1999) and further spurring person- focused reactions. When team members see others acting badly, oppositional behaviors are more cognitively accessible, thereby lowering inhibi- tions against similar behavior (Felps, Mitchell, & Byington, 2006) and encouraging “contagious ag- gression” (Glomb & Liao, 2003).
Negative interpersonal relationships can prompt individual deviant behaviors (Felps et al., 2006; Venkataramani & Dalal, 2007; Wu, Ferris, Kwan, Chiang, Snape, & Liang, 2015). Thus, team relation- ship conflict may spill over, with a particularly likely outcome being social undermining—that is, “behavior intended to hinder a worker’s ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, work-related success, and favorable reputation” (Duffy et al., 2002: 332). Social context affects social undermining (Duffy et al., 2012; Duffy, Shaw, Scott, & Tepper, 2006). Relationship conflict, being part of a team’s internal social context, may be particularly prone to elicit social undermining because it is a form of workplace aggression entangled with “relationships at work” (Hershcovis, 2011: 504).
As team members try to make sense of why relationship conflict happened, they may make moral judgments that their teammates should or could have acted differently (Duffy et al., 2006). As a result, oppositional intensity is elevated because they are likely to perceive subversive intent behind relationship conflict (Weingart et al., 2015), thereby elevating negative emotions such as antagonism. The desire to ease negative emotions (Van Kleef, 2010), along with “action readiness” produced by negative emotionality (Frijda, 2007), generates greater impulsiveness, and more automatic re- actions. Negative relationships attract attention (Gersick & Hackman, 1990) and become the target of hostile, impulsive actions, such as social under- mining (Lee, Kim, Bhave, & Duffy, 2016).
Overriding impulsive temptations in favor of maintaining good relationships requires effort (Muraven, Baumeister, & Tice, 1999). As a result, team members experiencing relationship conflict are less able to recognize and systematically process moral issues, and less able to respond in morally desirable ways. Therefore, team members experi- encing relationship conflict may simply “get back at” their teammates (Carver & Hi Harmon-Jones, 2009; Van Kleef, 2010). Indeed, social undermining may be motivated by a desire to punish those perceived to generate the negative interpersonal experiences (Duffy et al., 2002). Consequently, we propose:
Hypothesis 3. Team relationship conflict is positively associated with individual social undermining.
Team Mindfulness and Relationship Conflict Spillovers
As a contextual element for team members, team mindfulness affects how members perceive and evaluate each other’s behaviors, and how they react (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007), thereby influencing the cross-level connection between relationship conflict and social undermining. Present focused attention makes members more aware of circumstances that generated behaviors, thus lowering attribution to personal attributes (Simons & Peterson, 2000), so mindful teams are less likely to evaluate relationship conflict as evidence that team members are pur- posefully hurtful (Heppner & Kernis, 2007). Experi- ential processing disrupts automatic judgment (Chaiken, 1980), so relationship conflict is less likely to be categorized as subversiveness. As a result, mindfulness should reduce the oppositional in- tensity associated with relationship conflict.
Experiential processing also buffers negative emotional reactions to social challenges (Heppner, Adams, Vidrine, & Wetter, 2017; Leary, Tate, Adams, Batts, & Hancock, 2007), and allows more rapid re- covery following emotional events such as relation- ship conflict (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Good et al., 2016). Particularly, mindfulness mitigates anger (Wright, Day, & Howells, 2009), tendencies toward hostility (Krishnakumar & Robinson, 2015), and contagious aggression (Glomb & Liao, 2003). To- gether, these functions encourage more flexible cop- ing strategies (Weinstein, Brown, & Ryan, 2009), so mindful teams are more likely to let relationship conflict pass without person-targeted escalation through social undermining. Sinceteam mindfulness
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minimizes person-focused appraisals, reduces nega- tive emotionality, and prevents contagious aggres- sion, we expect:
Hypothesis 4. Team mindfulness moderates the positive relationship between team relationship conflict and individual social undermining: when team mindfulness is high (low), team re- lationship conflict has a weaker (stronger) re- lationship with individual social undermining.
We draw on the cumulative arguments to propose a final, integrative hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5. Team mindfulness moderates the relationship between task conflict and individ- ual social undermining via relationship con- flict: when team mindfulness is high (low), both the task conflict–relationship conflict link and relationship conflict–individual social under- mining link is weaker (stronger).
Our theoretical model is summarized in Figure 1.
METHODS
To test our theoretical model and hypotheses, we designed and conducted three studies. Study 1 was created to develop a team mindfulness scale and establish its content validity. We then conducted two field studies with differentsamples and team typesto examine the function and meaningfulness of team mindfulness and further establish its nomological network. Specifically, Study 2 tested the overall
model using a multi-wave study of U.S. MBA stu- dent teams. Study 3 was a constructive replication providing generalizability evidence in a multiwave study of teams in a healthcare organization in China.
Study 1: Scale Development
Before we could test our theoretical model and hypotheses, we had to develop a reliable and construct-valid measure of team mindfulness. Fol- lowing Hinkin’s (1998) scale development pro- cedures, weadoptedadeductivemultistageapproach to develop a measure of team mindfulness. To gener- ate potential scale items, we reviewed individual mindfulness scales and literature (e.g., Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004; Brown & Ryan, 2003), and identified 63 statements that could be modified to be succinct, easily comprehended, and consistent with the two dimensions in our definition of team mindfulness (awareness and attention to present events, and ex- periential, receptive, and nonjudgmental processing regarding team experiences). Two researchers were highly consistent in sorting the statements based on the representativeness (average r 5 .92). The re- searchers resolved their few sorting disagreements and reached consensus. As a result, we retained 30 statements with the highest average ratings; the dropped items largely represented different ways to frame retained statements.
In our study, the team is the construct level for team mindfulness, but the individual is the source of
FIGURE 1 Theoretical Model
Team Mindfulness
Task Conflict Relationship
Conflict
Social Undermining
Level 2: Team Level
Level 1: Individual Level
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data (Chan, 1998; Rousseau, 1985). It is important to specify how lower-level data generate a higher-level construct (Chan, 1998). Drawing on Chan’s (1998) framework, our conceptualization of team mindful- ness reflects a referent-shift consensus model, which occurs when team-level aggregations begin with in- dividual assessments of group experiences. The original construct, individual mindfulness, pro- vided the basic content for perceptions of team mindfulness, but we changed the referent from the individual to the team. Thus, the attributes being assessed for consensus are conceptually distinct, but derived from the original individual-level construct. We modified the 30 retained statements so that par- ticipants rated the team as a whole, rather than rating themselves. After modification, two HR managers who were unaware of our hypotheses reviewed and further clarified the statements. In this approach, survey participants are treated as “informants” about team mindfulness and instructed to answer with reference to their team as a whole (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999: 261). Our view of team mindfulness as a shared perception of the typical group experi- ence is consistent with other research introducing team constructs (e.g., Guzzo, Yost, Campbell, & Shea, 1993; Hofmann & Jones, 2005). We thus represent team mindfulness with the team mean (Carter et al., 2017), as social interaction should produce uniform, but not necessarily perfectly homogenous, percep- tions (Bliese, 2000).
We explored the factor structure of the state- ments by surveying 263 undergraduates in a large U.S. Midwest university. Based on their team expe- riences, participants rated their reactions to state- ments using a five-point Likert scale (1 5 strongly disagree to 5 5 strongly agree). We received 241 re- sponses. Using exploratory factor analyses (EFAs), a two-factor structure with five items for each factor emerged and explained 74% of the total variance (see Appendix A). In line with our conceptualization, the five items for factor 1 represent present-moment at- tention and awareness, and have factor loadings larger than .79 (a 5 .93). Factor 2 indicates receptive, open, and nonjudgmental experiential processing, and consists of five items with factor loadings larger than .80 (a 5 .94). The two dimensions had high intercorrelation (r 5 .78, p , .01; a 5 .93).
We next performed a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs). We administered a questionnaire survey to 201 MBA students in a large Midwest university and received 176 returned question- naires, representing an 88% response rate. An ex- cellent fit was found for a two-factor model with
a second-order factor (x2 5 157.68, df 5 33, CFI 5 .94, RMSEA 5 .05). Additionally, the model fit the data significantly better than did an alternative model with the two components as separate indicators (Dx2 5 183.68, Ddf 5 2, CFI 5 .89, RMSEA 5 .13). Because our interest was overall team mindfulness rather than its subdimensions, we averaged items into a single score to represent team mindfulness.
Related constructs and nomological network. For team mindfulness to make inroads into man- agement and organizational behavior, construct validation and specification of the nomological net- work for team mindfulness are essential (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955; Sutcliffe et al., 2016). Developing the nomological network for team mindfulness involves examining the relation of team mindfulness with similar (i.e., convergent validity) and dissimilar (i.e., discriminant validity) constructs. Team mind- fulness might share conceptual space with other team-level constructs, and should be differentiated conceptually and empirically. To support construct validation, we included psychological safety, team learning behaviors, and constructive controversy.
One construct connected to team mindfulness is psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). Like team mindfulness, psychological safety is an emergent state. It reflects a shared sense among members that the team context allows for making mistakes, asking for help, and bringing up problems, without pun- ishment or retribution (Edmondson, 1999). Psycho- logical safety most aligns with the experiential, nonjudgmental processing dimension of team mindfulness, but also focuses on whether the team favors specific actions, and does not address present- moment attention and awareness. As a result, mindfulness allows teams to create cognitive “space” between what members observe or share, and less-biased attributions about the associated knowledge, beliefs, and opinions. We expect that team mindfulness may support an environment of psychological safety (Good et al., 2016) and thus be related to, albeit distinct from, psychological safety. Team mindfulness should also relate to team learn- ing behaviors involving examining actions and outcomes for opportunities to enhance team perfor- mance (Edmondson, 1999). Awareness, central to team mindfulness, allows members to identify suc- cessful procedures and ascertain opportunities for improvement. However, team learning behaviors do not involve the experiential, nonjudgmental pro- cessing component. Thus, we expect that team mindfulness is related to, but distinct from, team learning. Finally, team mindfulness should relate to
332 FebruaryAcademy of Management Journal
constructive controversy in that members can openly express opposing views, explore and un- derstand others’ perspectives, and integrate different ideas and information (Tjosvold, 1983). Acceptance of others, openness to influence rather than in- sistence on dominance and control, and viewing problems as challenges to solve are central to con- structive controversy (Tjosvold, 1983). We expect that mindfulness should support constructive con- troversy. Therefore the two constructs should be re- lated but distinct.
To empirically examine the nomological network of team mindfulness, we surveyed 103 MBA stu- dents at a Midwest U.S. university. Psychological safety (a 5 .78) and team learning (a 5 .82) were assessed using Edmondson’s (1999) measures. Con- structive controversy was assessed using a validated scale (Alper, Tjosvold, & Law, 1998) (a 5 .93). Be- cause individual mindfulness was the basis for our referent-shift conceptualization of team mindful- ness, it was included and assessed using the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Team mindfulness was significantly related to psychological safety (r 5 .60, p , .01), constructive controversy (r 5 .63, p , .01), and in- dividual mindfulness (r 5 .23, p , .01) but unrelated to team learning behaviors (r 5 .18, p . .10). Because of their significant correlation coefficients, we con- ducted CFA to ensure that team mindfulness is separable from psychological safety, constructive controversy, and individual mindfulness. We assessed whether a single-factor model (covariance between the latent team mindfulness and other construct factor was set to 1.0) provided a better fit to the data than did a two-factor model for which the latent team mindfulness and other construct factor were allowed to covary freely. Team mindfulness would be distinguishable from the other construct when the x2 was significantly worse for the single- factor model than for the two-factor model (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). For the three con- structs, a two-factor model provided a significantly better fit than did a model where the variance be- tween the two latent factors was set to 1.0: psycho- logical safety, Dx2 (1, n 5 103) 5 117.3; constructive controversy, Dx2 (1, n 5 103) 5 134.9; and individual mindfulness, Dx2 (1, n 5 103) 5 87.4, indicating that team mindfulness is related to, but distinct from, psychological safety, constructive controversy, and individual mindfulness.
Study 1 provides initial evidence for the re- liability, content-related, and construct-related val- idity of team mindfulness. We now turn to Study 2 to
investigate its function and meaningfulness and to further establish its criterion-related validity by ex- amining three safeguard roles of team mindfulness in multilevel team conflict processes.
Study 2: Field Study with U.S. MBA Teams
Sample and procedures. Study 2 took place at a large, public U.S. Midwest university. Before the semester started, the MBA program office assigned full-time MBA students to teams, where they remained for the semester. We recruited those teams. To achieve a sufficient sample size, we collected data from two incoming MBA classes (224 individuals; 44 teams). Teams included four to six members; 86% had five members. In our final sample, 198 in- dividuals (89.19%) and 44 teams (100%) responded to all surveys (all teams had 75% or more responding members); 68% were Caucasian, 30% were Asian, and 2% were Hispanic; 27% were women; the av- erage age was 28 (SD 5 3.53); and average work ex- perience was 6.45 years (SD 5 5.62). Participants were given a $5 coffee shop gift card for completing each survey.
Measures. Unless noted, ratings were derived using a seven-point Likert-type scale (1 5 strongly disagree to 7 5 strongly agree).
Task conflict (T1, two weeks after the semester started) was assessed using three items adapted from Jehn’s (1995) scale (Pearson, Ensley, & Amason, 2002) and aggregated to the team level (rwg(j) across teams 5 .94, ICC(1) 5 .21, F(43, 231) 5 3.16, p , .01; ICC(2) 5 .63). A sample item is: “Team members frequently disagree about the content of our team’s work.”
Relationship conflict (T2, six weeks after T1) was assessed using three items adapted from the scale developed by Jehn (1995; Pearson et al., 2002) and aggregated to the team level (rwg(j) across teams 5 .95, ICC(1) 5 .24, F(43, 231) 5 3.22, p , .01; ICC(2) 5 .67). A sample item is: “Personality clashes are evident in this team.”
Team mindfulness (T2, 6 weeks after T1) was measured using the 10-item scale developed in Study 1 (for “present-focused attention” factor, a 5 .89, and for “experiential, nonjudgmental process- ing” factor, a 5 .91). The two dimensions had high intercorrelation (r 5 .76, p , .01; a 5 .90). An ex- cellent fit was found for a two-factor model with a second-order factor (x2 5 187.35, df 5 33, CFI 5 .96, RMSEA 5 .06). Additionally, the model fit the data significantly better than did an alternative model with the two components as separate indicators
2018 333Yu and Zellmer-Bruhn
(Dx2 5 198.24, Ddf 5 2, CFI 5 .86, RMSEA 5 .15). The rwg(j) across teams was .93; ICC(1) was .22; F(43, 231) was 3.19, p , .01; ICC(2) was .65, indicating appropriate aggregation. We thus calculated the mean value across team members to create the team mindfulness score.
Social undermining (T3, 8 weeks After T2) was assessed with a six-item measure from Duffy et al. (2006), adapted to have team members as the referent for each item. Participants reported their perceived social undermining over eight weeks since the T2 survey was completed. A sample item is: “(Team members) looked at me in a negative way.”
We included a number of control variables (T1) in our analyses. To establish whether relationships hold between team mindfulness and outcomes, above and beyond individual mindfulness (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999), we controlled for individual mind- fulness using the 15-item MAAS (Brown & Ryan, 2003). In addition, to support our theory that team mindfulness (composition) is distinct from aggregate individual mindfulness (compilation), we included average individual mindfulness as a control. Fur- thermore, age, gender, and negative affective dispo- sition may be related to mindfulness and social undermining (Duffy et al., 2006; Good et al.,2016) and were therefore controlled. Negative affectivity was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Finally, we controlled for team size as larger teams experience more conflict (de Wit et al., 2012).
Analytic strategy. We used multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) via Mplus to test the overall model because MSEM can capture the nested nature of multilevel data while simultaneously test- ing mediation and moderation effects proposed in a theoretical model (Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010). Furthermore, the conditional indirect effects described in the hypotheses require calculation of nonnormally distributed compound coefficients. We therefore employed the RMediation program (Tofighi & MacKinnon, 2011) to obtain the bias- corrected confidence intervals (CIs) to justify the significance of the indirect effects (Liu, Zhang, & Wang, 2012).
Results. Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics and correlations among the variables. Among the controls, individual mindfulness (r 5 2.21, p , .01) and aggregate individual mindfulness (r 5 2.15, p , .05) were negatively related to social undermining. No other controls were related to key model vari- ables. Including these controls in our analyses had no substantive effect on the results, so we excluded them in our report of results (Becker, 2005).
We first conducted a series of CFAs to confirm the dimensionality and the discriminant validity of our multiitem measures. Results showed that our hy- pothesized four-factor model (i.e., task conflict, re- lationship conflict, team mindfulness, and social undermining) was a better fit to the data (x2 5 1169.42, df 5 203, CFI 5 .97, RMSEA 5 .06) than were the following, more parsimonious, models:
TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Study Variables in Study 2
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Age 28 3.53 2. Gender .27 0.54 0.08 3. Negative affectivity 1.80 0.78 0.10 0.04 0.88 4. Individual
mindfulness 3.54 1.01 0.11 0.03 –0.14* 0.85
5. Aggregate individual mindfulness
2.41 0.93 0.06 0.02 –0.07 0.19*
6. Team size 4.36 0.31 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.01 7. Team task conflict 2.35 0.68 0.07 –0.03 0.06 –0.08 –0.04 0.10 0.83 8. Team mindfulness 2.76 0.56 0.03 0.05 –0.05 0.18* 0.14 –0.06 –0.09 0.90 9. Team relationship
conflict 2.79 0.77 0.08 0.11 0.12 –0.09 –0.06 0.07 0.27** –0.22** 0.85
10. Individual social undermining
3.21 10.03 0.04 0.07 0.14 –0.21** –0.15* 0.03 0.15* –0.19** 0.28** 0.96
Notes. For individual-level, n 5 198; for group-level, n 5 44. Gender coded 1 for “female” and 0 for “male.” a reliability coefficients appear on the main diagonal in italics.
*p , .05 **p , .01, two-tailed
334 FebruaryAcademy of Management Journal
a three-factor model collapsing task conflict and re- lationship conflict (Dx2 5 698.24, Ddf 5 3, CFI 5 .83, RMSEA 5 .13), a three-factor model collapsing rela- tionship conflict and social undermining (Dx2 5 725.21, Ddf 5 3, CFI 5 .84, RMSEA 5 .11), and a one-factor model with all variables loaded on a single factor (Dx2 5 1025.21, Ddf 5 6, CFI 5 .76, RMSEA 5 .17).
Table 2 provides the MSEM results for simulta- neous testing all hypotheses. All control variables and variables of interest were mean centered before being entered into the model, and the interaction terms were created with the products of the mean- centered variables (Aiken & West, 1991). Team mindfulness had a significant negative association with relationship conflict (b 5 2.19, p , .05), sup- porting Hypothesis 1. The interaction term for task conflict and team mindfulness had a negative and statistically significant relationship with relation- ship conflict (b 5 2.29, p , .01), supporting Hy- pothesis 2. Relationship conflict was positively related to social undermining (b 5 .27, p , .01), supporting Hypothesis 3. The interaction term for relationship conflict and team mindfulness was negatively related to individual social undermining (b 5 2.28, p , .01), supporting Hypothesis 4.
We used bootstrapping methods to construct bias- corrected CIs on the basis of 1,000 random samples for the indirect effects (Liu et al., 2012). As the upper part of Table 3 shows, the indirect effect of task
conflict on social undermining through relationship conflict was significant and stronger for low team mindfulness (CI95 5 [.004, .130], excluding zero), but not for high team mindfulness (CI95 5 [–.016, .042], including zero). Figure 2 shows differences in simple slopes for high and low team mindfulness in pre- dicting relationship conflict (first stage) and indi- vidual social undermining (second stage). Both task conflict and relationship conflict, and relationship conflict and individual social undermining, had steeper relationships for low team mindfulness, supporting Hypothesis 5.
Discussion. Study 2 provides initial support for our theoretical model and hypotheses. Team mindfulness was negatively related to relationship conflict, reduced the connections between task conflict and relationship conflict, and between re- lationship conflict and individual social under- mining. The results indicate that team mindfulness has function, meaningfulness, and predictive val- idity, offering a safeguard against multilevel conflict processes. Importantly, the results held with indi- vidual mindfulness and average individual mind- fulness in the models. This supports our proposal that team mindfulness is a share unit property, dis- tinct from individual mindfulness. In addition, the finding that team relationship conflict is posi- tively connected to individual social undermining extends reasons to prevent relationship conflict whenever possible.
TABLE 2 MSEM Results for Testing Hypotheses in Study 2
Relationship Conflict Individual Social Undermining
Estimate SE Estimate SE
Control variables Individual mindfulness –0.11 0.10 –0.12* 0.11 Aggregate individual mindfulness –0.08 0.04 –0.10* 0.10 Independent variable Task conflict 0.21* 0.14 0.15 0.12 Moderator Team mindfulness –0.19* 0.10 –0.19* 0.07 Interaction terms Task conflict 3 team mindfulness –0.29** 0.11 Mediator Relationship conflict 0.27** 0.13 Interaction terms Relationship conflict 3 team mindfulness –0.28** 0.11
Note. For individual-level, n 5 198; for group-level, n 5 44. Standardized coefficients were reported. SE 5 Standard error. *p , .05
**p , .01, two-tailed
2018 335Yu and Zellmer-Bruhn
Despite the compelling results, Study 2 has limi- tations. First, the MBA student teams had the same short-term start and end point. Student teams are more homogenous than many workplace teams, particularly in age and education level. Team members had no prior relationships, and familiar- ity may be important in conflict (Davis & Todd, 1985) and affect the ability to disagree with one another (Gruenfeld, Mannix, Williams, & Neale, 1996). In addition, participants may have realized that they are unlikely to work together again, so social undermining would be less interpersonally risky. Thus, the workplace might show quite dif- ferent relationships. Second, although Study 2 provides encouraging initial support for our theo- retical predictions, concerns about replicability are natural when testing complex multilevel models,
particularly those involving new constructs. Overall, it was essential to constructively replicate Study 2 to rule out whether the results were sample or context specific, and to better gauge the value of team mindfulness as a safeguard against negative in- terpersonal processes in teams.
Study 3: Field Study with Chinese Healthcare Teams
Sample and procedures. Study 3 was conducted in a Chinese healthcare organization. With senior management approval and assistance, we were able to access all 50 teams, consisting of a total of 318 employees. We recruited participants through the HR office and informed them that the purpose of the study was to examine individual characteristics,
TABLE 3 Indirect Effects of Task Conflict on Individual Social Undermining (via Relationship Conflict) at Low and High Levels
of Team Mindfulness in Study 2 and Study 3
Moderators Path a (SE) Path b (SE) Indirect effect via mediator a * b [95% CI]
Study 2 High team mindfulness 0.08 (00.02) 0.14 (00.17) 0.01 [–0.016, 0.042] Low team mindfulness 0.22* (00.08) 0.25** (00.11) 0.06** [0.004, 0.130]
Study 3 High team mindfulness 0.10 (00.02) 0.13 (00.09) 0.01 [–0.005, 0.033] Low team mindfulness 0.24** (00.07) 0.35** (00.13) 0.04** [0.017, 0.175]
Notes. In study 2, for individual-level, n 5 198; for group-level, n 5 44. In study 3, for individual-level, n 5 292; for group-level, n 5 48. Path a refers to the path from the independent variable (task conflict) to the mediator (relationship conflict); path b refers to the path from the mediator (relationship conflict) to the dependent variable (individual social undermining) while including the independent variable in the model; low andhigh conditionsare 1 standarddeviationaboveand belowthe mean. 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals forindirect effects computed with the RMediation distribution-of-the-product method. SE 5 standard error; CI 5 confidence interval.
*p , .05 **p , .01, two-tailed
FIGURE 2 Moderation Plots Study 2
Low Team Mindfulness
Low Team Mindfulness
2
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1
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High Team Mindfulness
Low Relationship Conflict
High Relationship Conflict
Low Task Conflict High Task Conflict
336 FebruaryAcademy of Management Journal
behaviors, and group dynamics. We matched team numbers and members’ responses through organi- zational records. Participants were assured of con- fidentiality and were paid 60 Yuan (about $10).
Excluding cases with missing data, our response rate was 92% for individual participants (n 5 292) and 96% for teams (n 5 48). Management facilitated the high response rate by allowing research assis- tants to distribute the surveys during monthly man- datory meetings. Teams in our sample were ongoing and diverse, representing all major functions such as technical support, internal monitoring, family care, pharmacy, marketing, and customer service. Teams ranged from five to eight members (mean of 6). The average team member was 38 years old (SD 5 4) and had worked in their team for 26 months (SD 5 12); 59% were women; and 78% held bachelor’s degrees while 22% held master’s degrees or higher.
Measures. All survey instruments were adminis- tered in Chinese following translation and back- translation procedures (Brislin, 1990).
Task conflict (T1) was assessed with four items developed by Jehn (1995). Results suggest appro- priate aggregation of individual responses to the team level (rwg(j) across teams 5 .95, ICC(1) 5 .24, F(47, 246) 5 3.07, p , .01; ICC(2) 5 .66).
Relationship conflict (T2, two months after T1) was assessed with four items developed by Jehn (1995). Results suggest appropriate aggregation of individual responses to the team level (rwg(j) across teams 5 .96, ICC(1) 5 .25, F(47, 246) 5 2.98, p , .01; ICC(2) 5 .69).
The 10-item scale developed in Study 1 was used to measure team mindfulness (T2, two months after T1, for “present-focused attention” factor, a 5 .91, and for “experiential, nonjudgmental processing” factor, a 5 .92). The two dimensions had high intercorrelation (r 5 .76, p , .01; a 5 .91). An excellent fit was found foratwo-factormodelwithasecond-orderfactor(x2 5 235.42, df 5 33, CFI 5 .94, RMSEA 5 .05). Addi- tionally,themodelfitthedatasignificantlybetterthan did an alternative model with the two components as separate indicators (Dx2 5 304.52, Ddf 5 2, CFI 5 .83, RMSEA 5 .17). As in Study 2, given our focus on overall team mindfulness, we averaged the compo- nents into a single score. The rwg(j) across teams was .93; ICC(1) was .22; F(43, 231) was 3.19, p , .01; ICC(2) was .65, indicating appropriate aggregation.
Social undermining (T3, two months after T2) was measured using Duffy et al.’s (2002) 13-item scale. We adapted the scale to reflect team members’ self- reports of perceptions of social undermining over the previous two months.
Following the inclusion arguments described in Study 2, we controlled for age, gender, negative af- fectivity using PANAS (Watson et al., 1988), and individual mindfulness using MAAS (Brown & Ryan, 2003) at the individual level, and team size at the team level. In addition, we controlled for team performance because poor performance has been positively associated with relationship conflict (Jehn & Mannix, 2001) and social undermining (Duffy et al., 2002). Team leaders rated their team performance using the scale developed by Carson, Tesluk, and Marrone (2007). A sample item is: “This team is effective in meeting my expectation in terms of the quality of their final output.” Finally, research considering team trust as a moderator of the re- lationship between task conflict and relationship conflict has been conducted in both a student setting (Choi & Cho, 2011) and an organization setting (Simons & Peterson, 2000). Therefore, an investiga- tion of whether team mindfulness can counter con- flict transformation above and beyond team trust is warranted. We controlled for team trust by retrieving archival data from the organization’s records. Spe- cifically, an annual companywide survey was ad- ministered about the time of our survey (T2), and that survey included a trust scale adapted from Simons and Peterson (2000).
Analytic strategy and results. We followed the same analytical strategy as that described in Study 2 to test our hypotheses. In Study 3, we were able to include the long version of the social undermining scale and additional control variables. Table 4 dis- plays descriptive statistics and correlations.
Again, results of a series of CFAs showed that our hypothesized four-factor model (i.e., task conflict, relationship conflict, team mindfulness, and social undermining)wasabetterfittothedata(x2 5 1503.42, df 5 428, CFI 5 .97, RMSEA 5 .08) than were the following, more parsimonious, models: a three- factor model collapsing task conflict and relation- ship conflict (Dx2 5 814.24, Ddf 5 3, CFI 5 .84, RMSEA 5 .14), a three-factor model collapsing re- lationship conflict and social undermining (Dx2 5 836.56, Ddf 5 3, CFI 5 .86, RMSEA 5 .13), and a one- factor model with all variables loaded on asingle factor (Dx2 5 1368.21, Ddf 5 6, CFI 5 .75, RMSEA 5 .18).
Table 5 summarizes the MSEM results for testing the hypotheses simultaneously. Team mindfulness had a significant negative association with relation- ship conflict (b 5 2.29, p , .01), again supporting Hypothesis 1. The interaction between task conflict and team mindfulness was negatively related to relationship conflict (b 5 2.35, p , .01), again
2018 337Yu and Zellmer-Bruhn
T A B L E 4
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338 FebruaryAcademy of Management Journal
supporting Hypothesis 2. Relationship conflict was positively related to individual social undermining (b 5 .30, p , .01), again supporting Hypothesis 3. Relationship conflict and team mindfulness were negatively related to individual social undermining (b 5 2.31, p , .01), again supporting Hypothesis 4. Following the same procedures as those described in Study 2, the lower part of Table 3 shows a signif- icant and stronger indirect effect for low team mindfulness (CI95 5 [.017, .175], excluding zero), but a nonsignificant effect for high team mindful- ness (CI95 5 [–.005, .033], including zero). Figure 3 illustrates simple slope differences for high and low team mindfulness in predicting relationship con- flict (first stage) and individual social undermining (second stage). The relationship between task con- flict and relationship conflict and the relationship between relationship conflict and individual social undermining appear steeper in the presence of low team mindfulness, again supporting Hypothesis 5.1
GENERAL DISCUSSION
In three studies, we present evidence for the construct validity, function, and meaningfulness of team mindfulness. Results are consistent with our theory that mindfulness safeguards against multi- level team conflict transformation processes by re- ducing relationship conflict, disconnecting the association between task conflict and relationship conflict, and preventing relationship conflict from spilling over to social undermining. Our studies extend mindfulness research, with added implica- tions for team conflict and social undermining research.
Implications for Theory and Research
Our paper contributes to the literature on mind- fulness implications for organizational behavior (Davidson & Kaszniak, 2015; Glomb et al., 2011; Good et al., 2016). Our results reinforce views that mindfulness is more than an individual-level phe- nomenon (e.g., Gersick & Hackman, 1990; Sutcliffe et al., 2016; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006), and capture team-level mindfulness, in which team members form collective perceptions of their interactions. Team mindfulness has predictive validity, safeguards against negative interpersonal team processes, and has effects above and beyond individual-level or ag- gregate measures of mindfulness, suggesting that it is worthy of future consideration in both mindfulness and teams research.
TABLE 5 MSEM Results for Testing Hypotheses in Study 3
Relationship Conflict Individual Social Undermining
Estimate SE Estimate SE
Control variables Individual mindfulness –0.13 0.07 –0.14* 0.06 Aggregate individual mindfulness –0.10 0.11 –0.08 0.11 Team trust –0.13* 0.09 –0.12* 0.10 Independent variable Task conflict 0.21* 0.10 0.15 0.12 Moderator Team mindfulness –0.29** 0.12 –0.23* 0.12 Interaction terms Task conflict 3 team mindfulness –0.35** 0.11 Mediator Relationship conflict 0.30** 0.10 Interaction terms Relationship conflict 3 team mindfulness –0.31** 0.16
Notes. For individual-level, n 5 292; for group-level, n 5 48. Standardized coefficients were reported. SE 5 Standard error. *p , .05
**p , .01, two-tailed
1 In both Studies 2 and 3, we also collected data on team mindfulness at T3. The results suggested that across two studies, there is no significant difference between team mindfulness measured at T2 and T3 (for Study 2, Mt2 5 2.76, Mt3 5 2.80, t(43) 5 211.42, p . .10; and for Study 3, Mt2 5 2.55, Mt3 5 2.58, t(47) 5 29.63, p . .10). As a ro- bustness check, we reran the analyses with T3 team mindfulness substituting for T2 team mindfulness in the interaction term predicting social undermining, and our findings held. Details are available from the corresponding author.
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Our findings are consistent with individual- level mindfulness research in that higher levels of team mindfulness are beneficial to teams. Impor- tantly, our test of Hypothesis 5, which considered the simultaneous effects of team mindfulness on multilevel conflict transformation processes, shows how high team mindfulness is preemptive. Specifi- cally, when team mindfulness is high, the connec- tions between task conflict and relationship conflict and relationship conflict and social undermining are weakened. Drawing on research about the cog- nitive functions of mindfulness (Glomb et al., 2011), we argued that present-focused attention reduces cross-contamination of task and personal cues, and limits interpretations of conflict being dis- positional, defensive, and ego-driven (Hopthrow et al., 2017), thereby lowering oppositional in- tensity. The affective functions of mindfulness increase positive emotional tone and lower re- activity (Good et al., 2016), thus limiting negative emotionality. Our results are consistent with re- cent advances in the conflict literature indicating that reducing oppositional intensity and negative emotionality are key to blunting conflict spirals and transformation (Todorova et al., 2014; Weingart et al., 2015).
Beyond introducing team mindfulness, we offer insights about why team conflict continues to be a vexing problem (Greer et al., 2008; Jehn & Bendersky, 2003). Particularly, we found that con- flict transformation is a multilevel process. In addi- tion to the well-known team-level link between task and relationship conflict, we found that when re- lationship conflict is elevated, it is associated with higher levels of interpersonal aggression in the form of social undermining. Thus, conflict may be a
multilevel phenomenon, further complicating its remedies. By showing that mindfulness simulta- neously safeguards against relationship conflict, task conflict transformation, and relationship conflict spilling over to individual social undermining, our paper illustrates that team mindfulness is a particu- larly potent defense.
When combined with research showing that trust limits conflict transference (Choi & Cho, 2011; Simons & Peterson, 2000), mindfulness offers an additional mechanism to help teams avoid negative repercussions of task conflict. While there may be a number of moderators of the task conflict– relationship conflict relationship, it is valuable to establish additional contingency factors (Rispens, 2012). Future research should evaluate which mod- erators are the most important, or whether there are complementary or compensatory relationships among moderators. For example, team mindfulness may safeguard teams with low trust, because mind- fulness is amenable to short-term inducement (Hafenbrack et al., 2014), so mindfulness inter- ventions in low-trust teams may prevent conflict transformation.
Understanding antecedents of social undermining is essential (e.g., Duffy et al., 2002, 2006). Organiza- tional research has offered various theoretical ex- planations for individual-level predictors of social undermining, including envy, moral disengagement (Duffy et al., 2012), bottom-line mentality, and social learning (Greenbaum, Mawritz, & Eissa, 2012), but they have not sufficiently explored social-contextual predictors such as team conflict, which limits theory development because much work happens in teams where conflict is a common occurrence. More im- portant, social undermining occurs interpersonally
FIGURE 3 Moderation Plots Study 3
2
1
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Low Team Mindfulness
High Team Mindfulness
High Team Mindfulness
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High Relationship Conflict
R el
a ti
o n
sh ip
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fl ic
t
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ce iv
ed s
o ci
a l
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High Task Conflict
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in social contexts (Duffy et al., 2002, 2006, 2012). By demonstrating a cross-level spillover, we identify team conflict as a contextual determinant of social undermining in teams (Duffy et al., 2002, 2012). In doing so, we clarify and extend knowledge of why relationship conflict is detrimental in teams. Task and relationship conflict are likely to provoke so- cial undermining among individual team mem- bers, but mindful teams are less likely to show cross-level transference, thus revealing how group-level contextual factors prevent team-level conflict from transferring to individual social undermining.
Interestingly, our results suggest that low mind- fulness may exacerbate team conflict transforma- tion. In both studies, plotted results indicated that when team mindfulness was low, the connections between task conflict and relationship conflict, and between relationship conflict and social undermining were strengthened. Future mind- fulness research should further explore the role mindfulness plays in conflict expression and consequences, considering whether low mind- fulness is harmful, rather than neutral, to team- level processes. As mindfulness theory continues to develop, contingencies like these will be an important area for further work. We explain and support that team mindfulness is conceptually distinct from aggregate individual mindfulness. Even so, more research would be beneficial to understand team mindfulness emergence and the possible relationship between team member traits and team mindfulness development, particularly using the controlled conditions of laboratory re- search designs.
Finally, we tested and replicated our hypotheses in project teams in an MBA program and teams in a healthcare program, in two different national cul- ture contexts. This further strengthens the validity of our results, and conclusions that team mindfulness can be applied in a wide variety of workplace settings.
Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research
Like other studies, our research has limitations. Our study uses single-source data and a correla- tional design. While the use of single-source data raises the possibility that common method biases influenced our results (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), self-reported data are ap- propriate for constructs such as mindfulness,
conflict, and undermining (Berry, Carpenter, & Barratt, 2012), and, following recommendations (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we assessed key variables at different times, mitigating some concern. In addition, within limitations of correlational re- search, we improved the validity of our findings by using multi-wave designs and temporally sepa- rating collection of the independent variables from dependent variables. Even so, this suggests some caveats to our results. Our theoretical model states that team mindfulness can reduce the occurrence of relationship conflict in teams directly. Team mindfulness and relationship conflict measures were collected at the same time. Therefore, while our theory suggests that team mindfulness lowers relationship conflict, this finding must be inter- preted with caution until further research is con- ducted to address the causal order in this relationship.
Next, we invoke the term “conflict trans- formation” (Choi & Cho, 2011; Simons & Peterson, 2000), which implies a causal order. While we did collect measures of task conflict in an earlier pe- riod than the measures of relationship conflict, there is ongoing debate in the team conflict liter- ature about transformation versus cooccurrence of conflict types (Rispens, 2012). Recent conceptual developments in conflict expression theory have suggested that the processes involved in conflict spirals—situations within a conflict type where conflict increases in frequency and intensity— occur in complex, interdependent microexchanges that may be difficult to sort out temporally (Weingart et al., 2015). It is possible that rather than relation- ship conflict being caused by task conflict, task and relationship conflict are bound by a similar set of mutually reinforcing processes and experiences, generating high or low levels of the two (Choi & Cho, 2011; Simons & Peterson, 2000). This view, however, is less helpful in explaining situations where one is high and the other is low, particularly when there is high task conflict and low relation- ship conflict. Distinctions between conflict types, conflict frequency, conflict events, and conflict expression are all valuable avenues for future research.
As a final point related to the correlational design, although our theoretical model states that team re- lationship conflict spills over to individual social undermining, individual social undermining may lead to team relationship conflict. This is unlikely to be a concern because we measured individual team members’ social undermining after they completed
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the survey assessing team relationship conflict. Nevertheless, future research should adopt experi- mental methods or longitudinal designs to facilitate stronger causal inferences.
We invoked recent theoretical developments to suggest that the mechanisms linking task conflict and relationship conflict, and connecting relation- ship conflict and social undermining, are opposi- tional intensity and negative emotions (Todorova et al., 2014; Weingart et al., 2015; Yang & Mossholder, 2004). Because we measured task and relationship conflict using Jehn’s (1995) constructs as their basis, which emphasize disagreement and clashes, we argued that higher levels of conflict provide some indication of oppositional intensity and negative emotions associated with conflict; however, cutting-edge research (Weingart et al., 2015) has suggested that as team conflict research moves ahead, scholars should develop and include separate measures of content and expression. Our empirical findings are consistent with our theory, but future research should directly test the proposed mechanisms.
We focused on team mindfulness effects on team conflict only; however, we strongly encourage scholars to consider potential effects on other im- portant outcomes, such as multilevel performance effects, considering that both individual and team performance are essential to team effectiveness and organizational success (Carter et al., 2017). Fur- thermore, performance may affect conflict levels in teams (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). Future research should theoretically and empirically examine whether, how, and when team mindfulness and individual mindfulness may jointly influence group and individual performance in teams, and employ more complex longitudinal designs to an- alyze the cycles of team mindfulness, conflict, and performance.
Beyond those specific limitations, future research could further explore the validity and importance of team mindfulness. For instance, while Study 1 in- cluded various related constructs, providing initial evidence about the nomological network for team mindfulness, there are two limitations to this evi- dence. First, our design prohibited an evaluation of whether team mindfulness generates, or simply correlates with, states such as team cohesion and psychological safety. Teasing apart these relation- ships could offer important insights. Second, the emergent states included in our nomological net- work analysis were all cognitive emergent states. Given the emotion regulation role team mindfulness
is proposed to play, it is important for future research to explore how team mindfulness relates to affective emergent states.
Practical Implications
A primary goal of organizational research has been to prevent costly interpersonal work outcomes (de Wit et al., 2012; Duffy et al., 2012). Considering mindfulness at the team level and examining its role in countering conflict transference in teams has implications for practitioners. Research showing benefits from individual mindfulness mediation has suggested that mindfulness may be teachable (Good et al., 2016). Team mindfulness training may help team members and leaders support highly success- ful teamwork. For example, training, meditation, or activities aimed at enhancing team mindfulness may offset negative influences of interpersonal conflict.
CONCLUSIONS
We add to increasing interest in mindfulness by introducing a new collective-level construct— team mindfulness—and shed light on its influence on teams and their members. Our studies suggest that mindfulness could safeguard teams against negative interpersonal processes. We hope our research sparks further interest in mindfulness, motivates more nuanced inquiries into the full impact of mindfulness in organizations, and generates mindfulness-related practical solutions that preempt negative interpersonal processes at work.
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Lingtao Yu (lingtao.yu@sauder.ubc.ca) is an assistant professor in the Sauder School of Business at the Univer- sity of British Columbia. He received his PhD in business administration from the University of Minnesota. His current research interests include leadership and ethics, abusive supervision, workplace deviance, emotions, and mindfulness.
Mary Zellmer-Bruhn (zellm002@umn.edu) is associate professor of organizational behavior at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. She completed her PhD in organizational behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Zellmer-Bruhn’s current research focuses on context and teaming, team diversity, and knowledge processes and learning in teams.
APPENDIX A
TABLE A1 Exploratory Factor Analysis Factor Loadings for Team Mindfulness Scale
Items
Factor
1 2
1. It is difficult for the team to stay focused on what is happening in the present. (R) 0.92 0.45 2. The team rushes through activities without really being attentive to them. (R) 0.86 0.34 3. Within the team, we listen to each other with one ear while doing something else at the same time. (R) 0.84 0.43 4. The team is preoccupied with the future or the past. (R) 0.79 0.39 5. The team does things without paying attention. (R) 0.85 0.32 6. The team criticizes members for having irrational or inappropriate thoughts or emotions. (R) 0.36 0.87 7. Some of the team’s thoughts or emotions are inappropriate. (R) 0.28 0.88 8. The team is aware of thoughts and feelings without over-identifying with them. 0.41 0.91 9. This team is friendly to members when things go wrong. 0.42 0.92
10. The team experiences moments of peace and ease, even when things get hectic and stressful. 0.37 0.80
Notes. Dominant factor loadings are presented in boldface. Factor 1 5 present-focused attention; Factor 2 5 experiential, nonjudgmental processing. R 5 reverse scored.
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