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Skewed task conflicts in teams: What happens when a few members see more than the rest?
Skewed task conflicts in teams: What happens when a few members see more than the rest?
Journal of Applied Psychology.
2016, Vol. in press
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 - i.e. 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.