It could be worse: A study on the alleviating roles of trust and connectedness in intragroup conflicts

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and test a model of group processes (e.g. conflict), emergent states (e.g. trust), and group context (e.g. connectedness) to better understand the mechanisms that underlie the traditionally negative effects of conflict. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 27 workgroups of a Dutch telecommunications company participated in a survey. To assess trust as a mediator between conflict and performance bootstrapping analysis was used. In addition, the moderating role of the three connectedness types was investigated with hierarchical regressions. Findings: The results suggest that trust partially mediates the effect of task conflict and fully med..