The role of regulatory focus and team mindfulness in megaproject conflicts

PurposeProject conflicts are inevitable. Megaproject conflicts need to be managed across different levels. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of individual-level regulatory focus and organization-level team mindfulness in managing megaproject conflicts.Design/methodology/approachBy combining the individual motivation basis and organizational background of conflict resolution, this study constructed a multi-level structural equation model. The hypothesis is tested based on data collected from 182 respondents.FindingsThe findings of this study show that project manager's promotion focus has a direct positive effect on task conflict and a negative effect on relationship conflict. Prevention focus has a positive effect on relationship conflict and a negative effect on task conflict and process conflict. Team mindfulness has a negative effect on relationship conflict and process conflict and a positive effect on task conflict. Task conflict was negatively affected by the interaction between team mindfulness and promotion focus. The interaction between team mindfulness and prevention focus had a positive effect on relationship conflict.Originality/valueThis study verifies the positive role of project manager's promotion focus and prevention focus in conflict management and clarifies the strengthening role of team mindfulness in constructive conflict and the prevention role in destructive conflict. This study also confirms that team mindfulness can act as a reinforcement and complementary factor of regulatory focus in megaproject conflict, contributing to the current understanding of the project manager's role in megaproject mindfulness contexts.

Modelling organizational conflict processes: the organizational value of employee commitment and the moderating role of transformational leadership

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to model the nature of intra-group conflicts and to show how conflict process phases that are beneficial to the organization can be supported and how disadvantageous conflict process phases can be prevented or managed. Task (process) and relationship conflicts can appear alternately in the same conflict process, so the overperformance cannot be estimated by the number of intra-group conflicts alone. By exploring the intra-group conflict processes, the author can identify patterns of employee commitment that can increase, mitigate or prevent certain phases of conflict processes. Design/methodology/approach The study presents three intra-group conflicts from the same multinational company using the narrative tool. Qualitative methods are particularly suitable for modeling feelings, thoughts, fears and workplace attitudes. The cases come from the immediate managers of the conflict-affected groups. Findings The process of intra-group conflicts can typically be divided into four phases: task (process) conflict; relationship conflict; task (process) conflict; end of conflict (end of teeming). Task conflict, which provides overperformance for the organization, is supported by the employees’ normative and professional commitment, while the prevention of relationship conflict, which is detrimental to performance, is supported by increasing the employees’ affective commitment. The relationship between affective commitment and relationship conflict is moderated by transformational leadership. Finally, the minimum of team performance is affected by both the degree of relationship conflict and the lack of affective commitment, while the maximum of team performance is positively affected by the degree of task (process) conflict and the employees’ normative and professional commitment. Research limitations/implications In the future, the results should be confirmed by researches using quantitative methods. Practical implications The results suggest to managers that enhancing employees’ affective commitment is primarily important for preventing the disadvantageous relationship conflicts, while enhancing their normative and professional commitment is important for fostering the performance-related task conflict. The results show that increasing commitment goes beyond the organizational value of employees’ loyalty alone, and also highlight the importance of training and development. Originality/value In the literature on intra-group conflicts, most studies treat task and relationship conflicts independently of each other in conflict processes. This paper shows that both conflicts can be part of the same process at the same time. In addition, little research had addressed how employee commitment reduces or increases the certain phase of a specific type of conflict process.

The Effects of Asymmetrical Guanxi Perception on Job Burnout: Task Conflict, Relationship Conflict, and Process Conflict as Mediators

In Chinese organizations, individuals benefit in many ways from having good guanxi. For employees, however, guanxi also comes with well-documented negative effects. Until recently, the guanxi investigated in these studies was always of a substantial nature. The negative effects of non-substantial guanxi (in effect, the absence of real guanxi), such as the guanxi of misunderstandings for those who lack good guanxi, have not been examined. This study investigates how the existence of asymmetrical guanxi perception for an employee (i.e., when other people believe that good guanxi exists between a manager and an employee, but the employee disagrees with the belief that he/she has good guanxi with his/her supervisors) contributes to job burnout for that employee due to task conflict, relationship conflict, and process conflict. A cross-sectional data sample was collected from 363 employees of 10 hotels in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling results suggest that relationship conflict is the most powerful mediator affecting the relationship between asymmetrical guanxi perception and job burnout. The results provide insights for researchers interested in the mechanism of how asymmetrical guanxi perception induces employee job burnout while generating useful implications for managers charged with reducing such burnout.

Conflicts Whether in Relationship, Task or Process Does Impact the Team Performance of Adults

This study aims to determine intragroup conflict factors that could be found within teams in an organization, the relationship between intragroup conflict, and team performance, which included relationship conflict, task conflict, and process conflict. SPSS is used to analyze the regression on the proposed model. The data has been collected from the education sector, with the sample size of 150 target population. This study proposed a positive relationship between task conflict, process conflict, and team performance; therefore, a negative relationship was examined for relationship conflict.

IMPACTS OF CONFLICTS ON TEAM TRUST AND TEAM PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON UNIVERSITY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH TEAMS IN JIANGSU PROVINCE, CHINA

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impacts of conflicts on team trust and team performance at the University Scientific Research Teams in Jiangsu Province, China. This study considers three types of conflicts as independent variables, team success as a dependent variable, and team confidence as the mediating variable (task conflict, relationship conflict and process conflict). The survey of questionnaires is used to gather raw data: the survey of questionnaires. The questionnaire refers to a method that allows researchers to gather information on a specific target group to compare, explain or characterise an event / situation, attitudes, expertise, habits, and/or socio-demographic characteristics, and ultimately 140 respondents were considered as a final sample for this analysis. This research contributes to the existing information assembly in recognising the success of the team as this is the primary study with the arrangement of such factors. In the case of University Scientific Research Teams in Jiangsu Province, this study seeks to broaden the understanding of the link between task and relationship conflict, learning ability, accessibility of information, process conflict, team confidence, workforce optimization and team efficiency. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0710/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

The vicious cycle of unfairness and conflict in teams

Purpose Teams often cannot fulfill their managers’ expectations due to unfairness issues and dysfunctional conflicts with teammates. This paper aims to create a fair team environment, it is important to analyze the interrelationship between unfairness and conflict. However, only a few studies have done this and reported inconsistent results. Using negative reciprocity research as a theoretical foundation, this paper analyzes the interconnection between unfairness and conflict dimensions in the team context. This paper further integrates conflict management research to show employees and managers how to handle unfairness and conflict in teams. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a longitudinal survey study (three points in time) with 237 employees from different German organizations. Findings The results of cross-lagged structural equation modeling provide some evidence that interpersonal, procedural and informational unfairness predict relationship conflict and process conflict. Several of these effects become non-significant over time. Further, relationship and process conflict have several significant relationships with the unfairness dimensions, while task conflict did not have any significant relationship. The results also suggest that employees can break up the vicious cycle of unfairness and conflict by using a cooperative conflict management approach. Research limitations/implications This paper focuses on members of autonomous, interdependent and existing teams and the interpersonal relationship of a team member with her or his teammates. Future research could analyze leader-member relationships in different team types. Practical implications The application of cooperative conflict management enables employees to break up the vicious cycle of unfairness. Originality/value This paper clarifies the interrelationship between unfairness and conflict and shows that a team member can apply a cooperative conflict management style to handle effectively unfairness and conflict.

Entrainment2Vec: Embedding Entrainment for Multi-Party Dialogues

Entrainment is the propensity of speakers to begin behaving like one another in conversation. While most entrainment studies have focused on dyadic interactions, researchers have also started to investigate multi-party conversations. In these studies, multi-party entrainment has typically been estimated by averaging the pairs' entrainment values or by averaging individuals' entrainment to the group. While such multi-party measures utilize the strength of dyadic entrainment, they have not yet exploited different aspects of the dynamics of entrainment relations in multi-party groups. In this paper, utilizing an existing pairwise asymmetric entrainment measure, we propose a novel graph-based vector representation of multi-party entrainment that incorporates both strength and dynamics of pairwise entrainment relations. The proposed kernel approach and weakly-supervised representation learning method show promising results at the downstream task of predicting team outcomes. Also, examining the embedding, we found interesting information about the dynamics of the entrainment relations. For example, teams with more influential members have more process conflict.

How does strength of ties influence project performance in Chinese megaprojects?

Purpose This study aims to investigate how the strength of ties (i.e. strong ties and weak ties) in megaproject networks influences project performance in terms of types of conflicts. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey was undertaken with professionals in Chinese megaprojects and 445 valid responses were received. A conflict-based theoretical model was developed and tested with structural equation modeling. Findings The results indicated that task conflict had a constructive effect on project performance, whereas relationship conflict and process conflict had destructive effects. Both strong and weak ties positively affected project performance, and that weak ties exerted greater effects on performance. The introduction of conflicts significantly weakened the effect of strong ties on project performance. Strong ties indirectly affected project performance via task conflict and relationship conflict, whereas weak ties affected performance only through task conflict. Task conflict had a constructive effect on project performance, whereas relationship conflict and process conflict had destructive impact. Research limitations/implications This study identified the positive effect of strength of ties on project performance as well as the constructive and destructive roles of conflicts. Furthermore, the findings provided evidence that strength of ties and conflicts were critical factors for project performance. While, there are still limitations. There are other attributes of megaproject networks, such as network nodes’ characteristics and network structure, which may influence conflicts and project performance. Future research would be conducted to explore the role of these variables. Meanwhile, because different types of conflicts may mutually transform under certain conditions, future research would also address this issue in megaprojects. Practical implications As for the management strategies, project stakeholders should know the existence of project networks, exactly assess their resource endowment, especially their external and internal relationship network. In accordance with changes of the project network, stakeholders should share knowledge and learn techniques about how to respond to relationship disturbances, thus reducing relationship conflict and process conflict. Furthermore, stakeholders should place an emphasis on fostering and reinforcing communication and trust, thus effectively resolving task conflict, ambiguity and uncertainty engendered from network ties in a megaproject network. Originality/value The main contribution of this study is threefold. First, this study will enrich the literature on strength of ties by accentuating the roles of conflicts in megaproject context. Second, this study contributes to the theoretical development of a conceptual model for explaining the interrelationships among strength of ties, conflicts and project performance. Third, this study will respond to the call “which dimension, i.e. strong ties or weak ties, is more influential” by exploring the direct and indirect effects of strength of ties on project performance.

Place of Mediation in the Monitoring of the Educational Process Conflict Factors in the Conditions of Modern Risks

This article deals with the role of mediation in conflict management and especially in the monitoring of conflict factors of education activities. In the article the authors analyse the system of monitoring and its principles and methods. Special attention is paid to the integration of monitoring and mediation. Recently, the mediation institution has been developing quite actively in Russia. Mediation is a negotiation with a third neutral party. It differs from negotiations by the removal of responsibility for carrying out procedures from representatives of the parties. It is one of the ways of conflict prevention and regulation. The article shows different models of embedding of mediation into the conflict management system in high school. Mediation and monitoring are considered as important parts of this management

Process conflict and employee well-being

PurposeThe primary objective of this paper is to extend the Activity Reduces Conflict Associated Strain (ARCAS) model. To test the ARCAS model, the study aims to examine the effect of process conflict on employee well-being and the role of negative affect as an intrapersonal mechanism linking process conflict and employee well-being. Further, to extend the emerging ARCAS model, the study examines whether the assumed indirect effect of process conflict on employee well-being through negative affect is conditional upon levels of conflict management styles.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 554 software engineers working in information technology firms responded to the administered questionnaire and hypothesised relationships were tested using Process Macros.FindingsThe findings indicate that process conflict is negatively related to employee well-being and the negative affect state mediates the relationship between process conflict and employee well-being. As hypothesised, it was found that the indirect effect of process conflict on employee well-being through the negative affect state is conditional upon levels of conflict management styles of the employees.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes to the conflict literature by establishing the detrimental effect of process conflict on employee well-being. The study also established the explanatory mechanism linking process conflict and employee well-being. Further, the study extended the emerging ARCAS model by establishing the moderating role of conflict management styles as well as the conditional indirect effect.Practical implicationsThe study highlighted the within-individual effect of process conflict in deteriorating employee well-being. The study provides valuable insights to the managers and practitioners about how individuals’ conflict management styles influence well-being.Originality/valueThe study specifically examined the effect of process conflict, which was omitted from conflict literature considering it the same as task conflict, on employee well-being. The study established the within-individual mechanism through which process conflict diminishes employee well-being. Also, the study extended the ARCAS model by examining the effect of conflict management styles with the aid of Affective Events Theory.