Team leader’s conflict management styles and innovation performance in entrepreneurial teams

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how a team leader’s conflict management style (CMS) affects team innovation performance (TIP) in entrepreneurial teams using a team emotion perspective. Design/methodology/approach It is proposed in this study that team passion mediates the impact of team leader’s CMSs on team performance, which is further moderated by team emotional intelligence (TEI). Then this study collected paired data from 105 teams including 105 team leaders and 411 team members to test the proposed model. Findings The results show that a team leader’s cooperative CMS has a significant positive impact on TIP and team passion further mediates the relationship between the team leader’s CMSs and TIP. The results also show that TEI moderates the relationship between the leader’s CMSs and team passion. Originality/value This study helps enriches the literature of conflict management by exploring the mechanisms through which a team leader’s CMSs affect team performance in entrepreneurial activities, and the findings of this study highlight the important role of team passion in this process. In addition, this study integrates the research on conflict management and the research on team passion in entrepreneurial teams to provide a new perspective to explore the dynamic process of entrepreneurial activities, which sheds light on the investigation of the important implications of effective conflict management in the entrepreneurship.

Relationship between Team Conflict and Performance in Green Enterprises: A Cross‐Level Model Moderated by Leaders’ Political Skills

“…is result supported the conclusions of Shi and Chen [59], namely, that political skills are positively related to proactive personality and in-role performance, and it also extended the application of political skills to the team and leadership perspective, which is conducive to understanding the effectiveness of political skills more thoroughly. e results were also in accord with a basic contention of conflict management, which proposes that a leader has an important influence on the outcomes of team conflict, such as in the leader's conflict management style and its correlation to innovation performance [13] and the relationship between teams' reactions to conflict and teams' task and social outcomes, which is moderated by transformational and emotional leadership [60]. is empirical study from green enterprises also implicated the importance of effective conflict management and the very important role of team leaders' political skills which suggested that environment leadership was positively correlated to environment culture and performance [61].…”

“…Employment of an effective conflict management strategy or reduction of the relationship between team relationship conflict and the negative emotions of team members can limit the negative impact of team relationship conflict on individual and team performance [6]. Studies have shown that leaders play an important role in choosing effective methods of managing conflict and weakening the negative side of relationship conflicts [13]. As noted, leaders with high political skills are adept in the flexible use of suggestive behaviors and can recognize and classify others' motivations in a timely and accurate fashion through observation.…”

“…At the team level, leaders with high political skills have a high sense of social acuity, and they both recognize the negative feelings of team members and hostile relationships among them and take timely and effective communication and facilitation measures to minimize the impact on team performance [7,13]. First, leaders with high political skills exert a strong interpersonal influence, leading their teams to correctly appraise their different opinions, which can help them approach these opinions rationally and guide them to accepting others' opinions to bring inspiration and new thought that improves team performance.…”

“…Few studies have examined how the positive effects of task conflict could be enhanced and the negative effects of relationship conflict could be reduced. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to moderating factors between team conflict and team output in different aspects, such as the interactions between team members, team management, team members' emotions, and other aspects [13]. In practice, the leadership and coordination ability of team leaders are very important to the management of team conflict in green enterprises due to their particularity.…”

“…According to the leadership theory, leaders can effectively take their advantages to influence subordinates' attitudes and behaviors by using abilities, skills, talents, or professional knowledge that their subordinates have recognized, so as to achieve excellent performance of the organization or team [14]. A large number of scholars have discussed the important role of leadership in organization and team management from the theoretical perspectives of leadership traits, leadership behaviors, and leadership contingency [13]. With the increasing uncertainty in organizations especially in green enterprises, political behavior plays an increasingly important role, and leaders' political skills become important skills to effectively manage organizations and teams [7].…”