Workgroup Conflict and Network Analysis

One area of research within the instru­mental perspective that has also received increasing attention is that of a workgroup positioned within a larger network. This research still proceeds from the idea that conflict can be productive or destructive and focuses on public conflict from a rational perspective.

Balkundi, Barsness, and Michael (2009) studied 19 workgroups in a manufacturing organization and examined how the group leader’s position in a network shaped conflict in the group and the group’s viability (group members’ willingness to remain part of the group). The network antecedents of conflict in this study include a leader’s prestige (mea­sured by the number of people who approach him or her for advice or “indegree centrality”) and the leader’s role as a bridge between two people who are unconnected otherwise (also called betweenness centrality). Balkundi et al. found that leaders with high prestige were typically part of a group with less conflict and higher group viability than groups with lower prestige, while leaders who served as bridges between subordinates who were otherwise unconnected typically led groups higher in conflict and lower in viability. It is possible that a leader’s prestige may keep competing interests in check within a group, thus leading to less conflict. The leader who serves as the only connection between two subordinates may be stretched too thin or may get caught up in the group’s factions and politics so that group members fight for the leader’s recogni­tion or support.

Although not strictly from network analy­ses, three other studies examine connectedness and its instrumental effect on workgroup conflict. Steinel et al. (2010) examined how intragroup norms regarding conflict may be projected onto intergroup relations using stu­dent groups. They measured whether group members would conform to group conflict norms while representing the group in inter­group negotiations. They found that periph­eral group members would only conform to group norms regarding conflict when they felt a high need to belong, while more central members almost always conformed to group norms. Rispens, Greer, and Jehn (2007) also looked at conflict and how various types of conflict are affected by connectedness. In a study of 27 telecommunications workgroups, they found that although conflict was nega­tively related to trust, connectedness mitigated negative relationships between both task and relationship conflict and trust. Finally, Rau (2005) analyzed data from top management teams at 111 banks and found that conflict moderated the relationship between transac­tive memory and group performance such that in a low-conflict condition transactive mem­ory was positively connected to performance, while the relationship became nonsignificant in a high-conflict condition.