What's the difference? Insider perspectives on the importance, content, and meaning of interpersonal differences

Authors: Oosterhof, Aad1; Van der Vegt, Gerben S.1; Van de Vliert, Evert1; Sanders, Karin2; Kiers, Henk A. L.1

Source: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Volume 82, Number 3, September 2009 , pp. 617-637(21)

Publisher: British Psychological Society

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Abstract:

This study presents a new approach to examine how team members experience interpersonal differences. This approach offers a way to examine how team members experience their differences with specific other individuals, and how these differences are related to the amount of perceived conflict with these individuals in an organizational context. Data from a non-profit governmental institution in The Netherlands were analysed, including 80 participants from 15 diverse teams. Five types of differences were salient to the individuals in this sample: differences related to extraversion; work pose; approach to work; task-related expertise; and seniority. Furthermore, individuals tend to contrast positive and negative evaluations of differences related to extraversion and approaches to work, but to conceptualize positive and negative evaluations of task-related expertise, seniority, and work pose as more mutually independent phenomena. Moreover, we found that differences related to task-related expertise were negatively related to both task and relationship conflict. In contrast, differences related to extraversion were positively related to both task and relationship conflict. Finally, the approach-to-work cluster was positively related to only task conflict.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/096317908X342909

Affiliations: 1: University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 2: University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

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