The Impact of Cognitive Conflict on Team Performance

Rebecca Mitchell ； Stephen Nicholas ； Brendan Boyle

《Asia Pacific Management Review》 13卷3期 (2008/09) Pp. 625-634

https://doi.org/10.6126/APMR.2008.13.3.05

並列摘要

The results of research on diversity in teams suggest that it offers both a great opportunity for organisations as well as an enormous challenge. However, current research is plagued by a lack of overall consistency, indicating that the relationship between diversity and team performance is not well understood. This study examines the components of cognitive conflict in order to assess whether construct operationalisation may explain this inconsistency. Analysis of the existing operationalisations of cognitive conflict reveals that it incorporates both disagreement about information and reasoning, and debate of rival hypotheses or recommendations. We propose that functional diversity leads to cognitive disagreement but not debate, and that debate enhances knowledge creation, with which cognitive disagreement shows no relationship. Our results support these hypotheses, which provide a powerful explanation for the contrary results found by researchers investigating cognitive conflict. Given that extant measures of cognitive conflict include scale items which measure both debate and cognitive disagreement, cognitive conflict may be viewed as an aggregate measure of these two distinct constructs. This study contributes to research on diversity and conflict by providing an explanation for contrary results, and by providing and a detailed operationalisation of cognitive conflict and its component constructs. It also contributes to research into creativity and innovation by providing insight into the dynamics underpinning knowledge sharing and creation.

並列關鍵字

Knowledge creation ； teams conflict

參考文獻

Amason, A. C.(1996).Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision making: Resolving a paradox for top management teams.Academy of Management Journal.39(1),123-148.

Ancona, D. G.,Caldwell, D. F.(1992).Demography and Design: Predictors of new Product Team Performance.Organization Science.3(2),321-341.

Armstrong, J. S.,Overton, T. S.(1977).Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys.Journal of Marketing Research.14,396-402.

Austin, J. R.(1997).A cognitive framework for understanding demographic influences in groups.International Journal of Organizational Analysis.5(4),342-359.

Bantel, K. A.,Jackson, S. E.(1989).Top management and innovations in banking - does the composition of the top team make a difference.Strategic Management Journal.10(Special Issue),107-124.