Does status stability benefit or hurt team creativity? the roles of status legitimacy and team conflict

Abstract Status stability, which refers to the stability of team members’ relative status levels, has a profound effect on effectiveness, but this may be either constructive or destructive; literature failed reach consensus topic. To reconcile two contradictory views based differentiating between different types conflict, we constructed comprehensive theoretical model mechanism underlying stability; features relationship conflict and task as mediators, legitimacy moderator, creativity an outcome variable. We also proposed four hypotheses basis analysis. In study, used SPSS 23.0, AMOS 24.0 R software conduct empirical analysis testing 369 valid questionnaires collected from 83 teams using two-stage measurement method. The results revealed that negatively affects via positively conflict. However, under influence legitimacy, negative is restrained, while positive enhanced. This study thus expands research process boundary conditions associated with can serve useful reference for design structure modern enterprises.