O. B. Ayoko

The Influence of Team Emotional Intelligence Climate on Conflict and Team Members' Reactions to Conflict:

The authors seek to advance research on conflict and emotions by integrating features of conflict, reactions to conflict, and team emotional intelligence climate. They tested hypothesized links between variables with data collected from 528 employees in 97 organizational teams. Results revealed that teams with less-well-defined emotional intelligence climates were associated with increased task and relationship conflict and increased conflict intensity. In addition, team emotional intelligence climate, especially conflict management norms, moderated the link between task conflict and destructive reactions to conflict. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Charismatic leadership, change and innovation in an R&D organization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of the charismatic dimension of transformational leadership on team processes and innovative outcomes in research and development (R&D) teams.Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected by surveying 34 teams that totalled 178 participants. Surveys measured charismatic leadership style, team identity, cooperative strategies and team innovation.Findings – Results reveal the importance of managers assuming a charismatic style of leadership to encourage innovation. Charismatic leaders promote team innovation by supporting a sense of team identity and commitment, and encourage team members to cooperate through the expression of ideas and participation in decisions.Research limitations/implications – The study is conducted in a single R&D organization and future research should explore the influence of these factors in other settings. The measures of team innovation are based on the perceptions of the team members, and future research needs ...

Communication openness, conflict events and reactions to conflict in culturally diverse workgroups

Purpose – This research paper aims to advance the understanding of the circumstances under which diversity may be beneficial or detrimental for quality group process. Especially, the paper seeks to argue that communication openness is antecedent to the differing group members’ reactions to conflict events, which, in turn, are proposed to impact groups task and social outcomes in culturally diverse workgroups (CDWs).Design/methodology/approach – Using social identity theory as the springboard, we built on existing literature to hypothesize the proposed relationships among variables. These relationships were tested quantitatively using multiple regression.Findings – There are a couple of significant findings from the current research. Direct effects include groups with low levels of communication openness were linked with increased destructive reactions to conflict, bullying behaviors and emotional reactions to bullying; and destructive reactions to conflict were associated with emotional reactions to bull...

Transformational leadership and innovation in an R&D organization experiencing major change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to the understanding of how transformational leaders influence R&D team outcomes around being more innovative. In particular, the study aims to focus on the role of group identification in mediating innovative outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – In total, 104 participants in a large Australian R&D organization were surveyed twice during a 12 month period of major restructuring and change. These matched respondents came from 29 different teams.Findings – Results revealed that group identification and perceived support for creativity exerted equal independent effects in fully mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and team innovation.Research limitations/implications – The potential for leadership to influence innovation through identification raises interesting alternative possibilities. Future research may generate new insights by investigating alternative samples, leadership styles or using qualitative methods.Practical implications...

Cultural diversity and leadership: A conceptual model of leader intervention in conflict events in culturally heterogeneous workgroups

Purpose – To provide a new way of conceptualizing the leaders role in managing conflict for increased task and social outcomes in culturally heterogeneous workgroups (CHWs).Design/methodology/approach – The objectives of the paper can be met by hypothesizing the proposed relationships and testing them quantitatively using multiple regression.Findings – Finds that the effect of conflict in CHWs depends, in part, on the way the parties concerned manage it, and in particular the group leader.Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the current research is that it is theoretical. Future research will now need to test the propositions put forward in this paper.Practical implications – The paper conceptually identified some skills and behaviors that are pertinent to effective leadership in culturally heterogeneous workgroups.Originality/value – The model presented in the paper and the research emanating from it should assist in training leaders for these workgroups.

Leaders’ transformational, conflict, and emotion management behaviors in culturally diverse workgroups

Purpose – Previous research has shown that diversity is related to both task and relationship conflict in groups. The purpose of this paper is to posit that leadership is an important factor for maintaining high group performance and morale under conditions of conflict. Specifically, the paper argues that leader conflict management, emotion management, and transformational behaviors determine the impact of conflict on group outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 585 people in 89 workgroups from eight public service organizations in Australia. The authors used hierarchical regression to test the hypotheses regarding group performance and morale. To test mediation and moderation, the authors followed the procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny. Finally, they used the formulas provided by Preacher, Rucker and Hayes to test for moderated mediation.Findings – Results showed that diversity increased task conflict but was unrelated to relationship conflict. Both task and relationship confl...

Conflict and trust: the mediating effects of emotional arousal and self‐conscious emotions

Purpose – Researchers suggest that trust building may be challenging in the face of conflict. However, there is an emerging proposition that conflict is critical for trust. Using affective events and attribution theories as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of the mediating effects of positive emotional arousal and self‐conscious emotions in the relationship between conflict and trust.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 325 students enrolled in varied postgraduate programs in a large business school. The authors employed Preacher and Hayess bootstrapping SPSS macros to test the direct and mediation effects of the connection between conflict, emotions and trust.Findings – Results showed that task, relationship and process conflict were associated with differing aspects of positive emotional arousal (enthusiasm, excitement) and self‐conscious emotions (guilt and shame). Similarly, behavioural guilt was linked with trust while emotions mediated the link between ...

The Role of Space as Both a Conflict Trigger and a Conflict Control Mechanism in Culturally Heterogeneous Workgroups

The diversity literature is replete with examples of poor outcomes in Culturally Heterogeneous Workgroups (CHWs) caused by relational difficulties. Although it is widely recognised that culture shapes peoples interpretation of behavior and their style of interaction with others in the workplace, what is ill understood is what the specific conflict triggers of these conflicts are. In this paper, we argue that differences in cultural norms and views of physical and psychological space are major triggers of conflict in CHWs. Findings from a field study support the proposition that different viewpoints regarding the use of space, the inability to retreat from exposure to others, decreased interpersonal space, and privacy invasion moderate the relationship between cultural diversity in the workgroup and the type, frequency, and duration of conflict events in CHWs. The paper represents a first step in elucidating the role of space in cross-cultural interactions in the workplace and how space may be a potentially important conflict control mechanism for managers of culturally diverse workgroups.

The mediating and moderating effects of conflict and communication openness on workplace trust

Purpose – Although a great deal of research has focused on the effect of trust on conflict, little research has examined the impact of conflict on trust. The purpose of this paper is to present a model that investigates the relationship between conflict types (task, relationship and process), conflict features (intensity and duration), communication openness (CO) and workplace trust. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 510 employees from public sector organizations. The authors tested the direct effects of the hypothesized links with linear regressions while the mediation effects were tested using the Sobel test. Finally, the authors followed Kenny and Barons procedure to test the moderation effects. Findings – Results from the regression analyses confirm that conflict features (intensity and duration) fully mediated the link between conflict types (task, relationship and process) and trust, while CO moderated the relationship between conflict features and trust. In addition, prolonged conflict duration was linked with trust. Implications of the findings are discussed. Research limitations/implications – The study is cross sectional and some of our scales have few items. In future, more robust scales in a longitudinal study should be used to further deepen our understanding of the association between the variables in our model. In addition, we have studied the concept of trust as perceived by the employees without distinguishing between high- and low-trust perceptions. Future studies should compare levels of trust associated with the different types of conflict and especially varying magnitude of conflict intensity (e.g. low, mid and high) at different times. Originality/value – The study provides new insights into the influence that conflict (task, relationship and process) may have on trust and the moderating role of CO in the link between conflict and trust. The paper also offers a practical assistance to group members and leaders that are interested in building trust especially in the presence of conflict.

The Importance of Transformational Leadership Behaviors in Team Mental Model Similarity, Team Efficacy, and Intra-Team Conflict

Using data from 36 combat teams, we examined how transformational leadership is connected with team mental model (TMM) similarity. In addition, we investigated the mediating role of TMM similarity and team efficacy in the link between transformational leadership and intra-team conflict. Data analysis revealed that well-defined transformational leadership behaviors were positively associated with TMM similarity, whereas TMM similarity was positively connected with team efficacy. Results also indicated that higher levels of team efficacy were associated with lower levels of intra-team conflict (task, relationship, and process). In addition, both TMM similarity and team efficacy mediated the link between transformational leadership and intra-team conflict. Implications of findings are discussed.