ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2020, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (3): 345-356.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.00345

• 研究报告 • 上一篇    下一篇

冲突对绩效的影响:个体、团队宜人性的调节作用

魏薇1, 房俨然2, 李剑南3, 施俊琦4, 莫申江4()   

  1. 1 中山大学岭南学院, 广州 510275
    2 佛罗里达大学沃灵顿商学院, 盖恩斯威尔 FL32611 美国
    3 中山大学国际金融学院, 珠海 519082
    4 浙江大学管理学院, 杭州 310058
  • 收稿日期:2019-05-14 发布日期:2020-01-18 出版日期:2020-03-25
  • 通讯作者: 莫申江 E-mail:mosj@zju.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    * 国家自然科学基金项目资助(No. 771772158);国家自然科学基金项目资助(No. 71425004)

The impact of conflict on performance: The moderating effects of individual and team agreeableness

WEI Wei1, FANG Yanran2, LI Jiannan3, SHI Junqi4, MO Shenjiang4()   

  1. 1 Lingnan College, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
    2 Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, US
    3 International School of Business & Finance, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
    4 School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
  • Received:2019-05-14 Online:2020-01-18 Published:2020-03-25
  • Contact: MO Shenjiang E-mail:mosj@zju.edu.cn

摘要:

以往个体和团队冲突研究主要考察了个人特征或团队特征对冲突结果的影响, 而尚未充分关注冲突管理过程中个体特征与团队特征间的交互效应。基于个人-团队匹配理论, 本研究探讨了个体层面宜人性与团队层面宜人性异质性对团队中个体冲突(关系冲突、任务冲突)和工作绩效间关系的影响。基于来自64个银行服务团队(包含339名下属和64名主管)的多来源、多时点纵向数据, 本研究所得结果显示:(1)关系冲突显著负向影响工作绩效, 任务冲突对工作绩效的影响不显著。(2)个体宜人性能够显著减弱关系冲突对工作绩效的负面影响, 而增强任务冲突对工作绩效的正向影响。(3)关系/任务冲突、个体宜人性和团队宜人性异质性间存在着三重交互效应, 共同影响工作绩效。具体而言, 当团队宜人性异质性水平较低时, 个体宜人性对关系/任务冲突与工作绩效间关系的调节作用更加显著。

关键词: 个体宜人性, 团队宜人性异质性, 关系冲突, 任务冲突, 工作绩效

Abstract:

Based on the nature of conflict, conflict within teams can be categorized as relationship conflict and task conflict. It is inevitable for team members to experience these two types of conflict with each other through daily interactions. As such, how dispositions of team members interact with intra-team conflict to minimize its harm and maximize its benefit appears to be an important research question. Prior research has primarily focused on how individual’s traits or team traits would affect the outcomes of conflict. According the Person-Group Fit theory, it’s necessary to study the interaction effect of the traits on both the individual and team level. Distinct from other personality factors in the Five Factor Model, agreeableness involves the motives for maintaining harmony and positive interpersonal relationship, which fundamentally determine the propensity for individuals to deal with others in social interactions. In conflict management scenarios, individuals with high agreeableness are more likely to adopt agreeable conflict management, characterized as integrating one another’s ideas and seeking to satisfy all members’ expectations, thus leading to more effective conflict resolution. Taking a multilevel perspective, this study investigated how individual-level agreeableness interacts with team-level agreeableness heterogeneity to impact the relations between task/relationship conflict and job performance.
Hypotheses were tested using multisource and time-lagged data collected from 64 teams. Data were collected from client service teams of a large state-owned bank located in South China. A total of 75 service teams of the bank (394 subordinates and 75 supervisors) were contacted and invited to participate. All participants were told that the data were used only for research purpose only, and their responses would be kept confidential and anonymous. Participants filled out the questionnaires during morning meetings, and research assistants then collected their responses after they completed the survey. The data were collected at three time points with two-month intervals. At Time 1, subordinates reported their levels of agreeableness as well as demographic information. Their immediate supervisors were also asked to report their demographic information. At Time 2 (two months after Time 1), subordinates were asked to report their perceptions of relationship conflict and task conflict within the team. At Time 3 (four months after Time 1), subordinates’ job performance was rated by their immediate supervisors. To ensure that the responses of participating team members reflect the whole team, we only included teams with at least 70% of members participating in the survey. In total, we collected 339 valid subordinate responses and 64 valid supervisor responses from 64 teams.
Most of the hypotheses were supported by data analysis. Results demonstrated that relationship conflict was negatively related to job performance, but the relationship between task conflict and job performance was not significant. Further, individual agreeableness both buffered the negative effect of relationship conflict and enhanced the positive effect of task conflict on job performance. Specifically, when individual agreeableness was high, the negative relationship between relationship conflict and job performance was non-significant. By contrast, when individual agreeableness was low, such relationship became negative and significant. As far as task conflict is concerned, when individual agreeableness was high, the positive relationship between task conflict and job performance was significant. However, when individual agreeableness was low such relationship was negative and significant. In addition, there were three-way interactions among individual conflict, individual agreeableness, and team agreeableness heterogeneity on job performance, such that the two-way interactions between task/relationship conflict and individual agreeableness were stronger when team agreeableness heterogeneity was low.
This study contributions to the current literature in several ways. First, our study moves beyond the single level perspective of intra-team conflict to examine the individual-team interface in conflict managing using person-group fit theory. Second, the current study highlights the essential role of agreeableness in the process of conflict management by examining the roles that individual agreeableness and team agreeableness heterogeneity play in shaping the relations between conflict and job performance. Third, by studying relationship conflict and task conflict simultaneously, this study reflected the effect of agreeableness in managing different types of conflict. Practically, our research informs the professional managers about managing team conflict in an effective manner. Based on our findings, when assigning new work teams or selecting new members for existing teams, it is beneficial to select similar team members with high agreeableness, especially when the team tasks involve frequent social interactions that are likely to trigger intrateam conflict.

Key words: agreeableness, team agreeableness heterogeneity, task conflict, relationship conflict, job performance

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