Swim or Sink Together : The Potential of Collective Team Identification and Team Member Alignment for Separating Task and Relationship Conflicts

Abstract

This article investigates collective team identification and team member alignment (i.e., the existence of short- and long-term team goals and teambased reward structures) as moderators of the association between task and relationship conflicts. Being indicators of cooperative goal interdependence in teams, both moderators are hypothesized to mitigate the positive association between the two conflict types. Findings from 88 development teams confirm the moderating effect for collective team identification, but not for team member alignment. Moreover, the moderating role of collective team identification is found to be dependent on the level of task conflict: It is more effective in decoupling task and relationship conflicts at medium as compared with high or low levels of task conflict.