School of Management, University of South Australia.
Department of Management, University of Texas at Austin.
J Appl Psychol. 2016 Jul;101(7):1045-55. doi: 10.1037/apl0000059. Epub 2016 Mar 7.
Task conflict has been the subject of a long-standing debate in the literature-when does task conflict help or hurt team performance? We propose that this debate can be resolved by taking a more precise view of how task conflicts are perceived in teams. Specifically, we propose that in teams, when a few team members perceive a high level of task disagreement while a majority of others perceive low levels of task disagreement-that is, there is positively skewed task conflict, task conflict is most likely to live up to its purported benefits for team performance. In our first study of student teams engaged in a business decision game, we find support for the positive relationship between skewed task conflict and team performance. In our second field study of teams in a financial corporation, we find that the relationship between positively skewed task conflict and supervisor ratings of team performance is mediated by reflective communication within the team. (PsycINFO Database Record
任务冲突一直是文献中长期存在的争议主题——任务冲突何时有助于或损害团队绩效？我们提出，通过更精确地观察团队如何感知任务冲突，可以解决这一争论。具体来说，我们提出，在团队中，当少数团队成员感知到高度的任务分歧，而大多数其他成员感知到低度的任务分歧时——即存在正向偏态的任务冲突，任务冲突最有可能符合其对团队绩效的预期好处。在我们对参与商业决策游戏的学生团队的第一项研究中，我们发现正向偏态任务冲突与团队绩效之间存在正相关关系。在我们对金融公司团队的第二项实地研究中，我们发现正向偏态任务冲突与主管对团队绩效的评价之间的关系是由团队内部的反思性沟通所中介的。
