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increase.28 Increased team conflict also leads teams to unintentionally restructure them- selves inefficiently. When teams experience conflict, they have lower trust, which leads them to reduce individual autonomy and loosen task interdependencies in the team.29

PERSONALITY & CONFLICT

One investigation examined three “dark personality” traits—manipulativeness, narcis- sism, and secondary psychopathy. Teams whose members were higher in secondary psychopathy were more likely to have poor conflict resolution strategies which led to lower task performance.30 Conversely, when team members are high in openness or emotional stability, task conflict has a positive impact on performance. However, when team members are low in openness or emotional stability, task conflict has a negative impact on performance.31

TEAM IDENTIFICATION

Task and relationship conflict tend to be positively correlated: task conflict often can be associated with relationship conflict and vice-versa in a team. To the extent that team members have a high level of team identification however, task conflict can be de-coupled from relationship conflict.32

POWER & CONFLICT

Team power refers to the control of resources that enables a team to influence others in the organization. Process conflict is higher in high-power teams, as compared to low-power teams, thus rendering teams higher in power to underperform relative to teams lower in power.33 The type of conflict behavior (constructive vs. destructive) in teams depends on the power of the team, as well as the likelihood that power determines victory and defeat. In one investigation, teams who were low in power became more constructive when power would not determine victory and the threat of defeat was low, as compared to high-power teams.34 However, when power determines victory and defeat, powerless groups tend to behave more unconstructively.

28Peterson, R. S., & Behfar, K. (2003). The dynamic relationship between performance feedback, trust, and conflict in groups: A longitudinal study. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 92, 102–112. 29Langfred, C. W. (2007). The downside of self-management: A longitudinal study of the effects of conflict on trust, autonomy, and task interdependence in self-managing teams. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 885–900. 30O’Neill, T. A., & Allen, N. J. (2014). Team task conflict resolution: An examination of its linkages to team personality composition and team effectiveness outcomes. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 18(2), 159. 31Bradley, B., Klotz, A., Postlethwaite, B., & Brown, K. (2013). Ready to rumble: How team personality composition and task conflict interact to improve performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 385–392. 32Schaeffner, M., Huettermann, H., Gebert, D., Boerner, S., Kearney, E., & Song, L. J. (2015). Swim or sink together: The potential of collective team identification and team member alignment for separating task and relationship conflicts. Group & Organization Management, 40(4), 467–499. 33Greer, L. L., Caruso, H. M., & Jehn, K. A. (2011). The bigger they are, the harder they fall: Linking team power, team conflict, and performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116(1), 116–128. 34Kamans, E., Otten, S., Gordijn, E. H., & Spears, R. (2010). How groups contest depends on group power and the likelihood that power determines victory and defeat. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 13(6), 715–724.

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