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The purpose of this paper is to build theory and present a model of the development of conflicts in teams.

The paper develops a conceptual model based on past theory and research.

The model brings a multi-level perspective to the process of intragroup conflict by showing the mechanisms by which an interpersonal, dyadic conflict can spread to other team members over time through a process of conflict contagion.

This study provides a new model for conflict escalation and it sheds light on factors which can either ameliorate or exacerbate the speed and extent of conflict contagion. The repercussions of different degrees of conflict involvement within a team are discussed.

In this chapter, we attempt to better understand the mechanisms underlying the effects of process conflict on team performance by exploring the role of negative affect in explaining the negative effects of process conflict on performance. Our findings show that negative affect does fully mediate the relationship between process conflict and group performance. Additionally, we investigate a set of conditions relating to fairness concerns and group context, which may have an influence on the relationship between process conflict and negative affect. We find that when voice is high and perceived goal obstruction and subgroup existence are low, the relationship between process conflict and negative affect is ameliorated, thus allowing for more positive effects of process conflict to emerge.

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.

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.

The results suggest that trust partially mediates the effect of task conflict and fully mediates the effect of relationship conflict on performance. Furthermore, trust is less affected by task conflict when group members are highly cognitively connected and less affected by relationship conflict when group members are highly task connected.

This research implies that task and cognitive connectedness decrease the negative effect of conflict on trust, and hence, performance. Shortcomings include discussing the causality between conflict and trust, and the possibility of different perceptions among group members regarding group phenomena.

The findings suggest that managers can help to provide circumstances in which conflict is not necessarily destructive for intragroup trust and performance.

Provides one of the first empirical examinations of the mediating role of trust in the relationship between task and relationship conflict and perceived group performance. Additionally, examines if connectedness (the level of active involvement of group members with each other) buffers the negative effects of conflict on trust.

This chapter is about how leaders attempt to move from traditional to shared leadership and why they often cannot. We develop a new theoretical framework to examine whether leaders are willing to shift control from themselves to their followers and thus promote shared leadership in their teams. We argue that control shifts, while necessary for shared leadership, are particularly difficult for leaders to enact. This is because leadership is often closely bound with power and status in the organization, a reality of organizational life that is often overlooked in the quest for new forms of leadership, such as shared leadership. Our contribution lies in examining leaders’ ability to enact shared leadership through the lenses of primary and secondary control, and situating control shift in the context of global leadership including selected cultural dimensions, complexity, and paradoxes.