The Effects of Cross-Level Conflict: The Moderating Effects of Conflict Culture on the Group Faultlines - Performance Link

We examine how task, relationship, and process conflicts arise from group faultlines. We define group faultlines as hypothetical dividing lines that split a group into subgroups based on the group members’ attributes (adapted from Lau & Murnighan, 1998). We further link group conflict to performance, and predict different effects for individual performance, group performance, and employee satisfaction. We also examine the moderating effect of the organizational conflict culture on the relationship between group faultlines and group conflict. We define conflict culture as employees’ beliefs about the amount and intensity of a certain type of conflict (i.e. task conflict, relationship conflict, process conflict) in their work environment. We use data from 78 groups in a Fortune 500 computer firm. Future research directions and implications for managers are discussed.