과업갈등이 프로젝트 팀 성과에 미치는 영향: 팀 효능감의 조절효과 (The Influence of Task Conflict on Project Team Performance: The Moderating Effect of Team Efficacy)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국경영학회
· 수록지 정보 : 경영학연구 / 38권 / 6호 / 1599 ~ 1623페이지
· 저자명 : 심덕섭, 최지호, 양동민, 문연희, 허영호

초록

관계 및 과업갈등이 성과에 미치는 긍정적 혹은 부정적인 영향은 오랫동안 논쟁의 대상이 되어 왔다. 관계갈등의 부정적인 영향에 대해서는 어느 정도 합의가 이루어져 왔지만, 과업갈등과 성과 사이의 관계에 대한 연구는 일관된 결과를 보여주지 못하고 있고, 이러한 이유로 일부 연구자들은 상황적 관점(contingency perspective)을 도입할 필요성을 제기해왔다.
본 연구는 상황적 접근방법에 따라 79개 대학생 프로젝트 팀을 대상으로 수집한 실증 자료를 통해 팀 효능감이 과업갈등과 팀 성과 사이의 관계에 미치는 영향을 고찰하였다. 실증 분석결과 과업갈등은 교수 평가 및 자체 평가 모두와 부의 관계를 가지고 있는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 팀 효능감은 과업갈등과 팀 성과 사이의 관계를 조절하고 있음을 발견하였다.
과업갈등이 교수평가에 미치는 영향력은 팀 효능감이 높은 경우에는 차이가 없는 반면에 낮은 경우에는 유의한 차이를 보여주고 있는데, 구체적으로 과업갈등이 증가할수록 교수평가가 낮아지는 것으로 나타났다. 한편, 과업갈등이 학생들의 자체평가에 미치는 영향은 팀 효능감이 낮은 경우에는 차이가 없지만, 높은 경우에는 유의한 차이를 보여주고 있는데, 팀효능감이 높은 경우에는 과업갈등이 증가할수록 자체 평가는 낮아지고 있음을 발견하였다. 연구결과를 토대로 연구의 시사점과 향후 연구방향을 제시하였다.

영어초록

Team work to accomplish work-related activities in organizations is gaining the increasing popularity. However, for teams to realize their potential benefits, the challenges of working effectively as a team are considerable. One challenge is a conflict among team members due to the actual or perceived differences (Jehn, 1995). Even though a stream of research has been grown recently for an intragroup conflict and its potential effects on team performance and member satisfaction, the effect of intragroup conflict on team performance has been remained as a controversial topic. The search for the potential effects of conflict has been facilitated by distinguishing different types of conflict, task and relationship (Jehn, 1995, 1997; Pelled, 1996). A task conflict, sometimes referred as substantive or cognitive conflict, exists when team members differ in views and opinions about how particular aspects of tasks are accomplished, especially in procedural, policy, resource distribution issues (Amason, 1996; Simon and Peterson, 2000). In contrast, an affective or relationship conflict has an affective element at its core and involves perceived tension and frustration about personal differences such as interpersonal style, attitude and preference and personality.
A long-held notion in the conflict literature is that a task conflict may actually be beneficial to team effectiveness, as opposed to a relationship conflict that has been theorized as an exclusively negative factor for teams (Jehn, 1995, 1997; Pelled, 1996). Given the opposite effects of different types of conflict, it would seem easy to resolve this dilemma by simply minimizing a relationship conflict and maximizing a task conflict. However, while a certain amount of agreement exists on the negative effect of relational conflict, the findings concerning a task conflict are not consistent. While task conflicts is generally associated with positive outcomes for teams (Simon and Peterson, 2000), recent a research has indicated that a task conflict may be most beneficial at moderate levels but may have a detrimental impact at higher level (Jehn and Mannix, 2001). Alternatively, a recent meta-analysis examining task conflict impacts suggests that a task conflict may be negatively associated with both group performance and satisfaction outcomes (De Dreu and Weingart, 2002). To analyze the controversial role of a task conflict, some researchers such as Jehn (1997) propose a contingency perspective in the study of team conflict. One promising potential moderator is team efficacy, or the belief by a team that it can be effective (Campion, Medsker and Higgs, 1993; Guzzo and Shea, 1992). A number of studies argues that teams with a high sense of team efficacy are more committed and willing to work hard for the team(Zaccaro, Rittman, and Marks, 2001), and are more effective at managing uncertainty due to the differences or conflicts among team members (Levin and Cross, 2004; Olson, Parayitam, and Bao, 2007). However, to the best of our knowledge, few studies have investigated moderating impact of team efficacy on the relationship between a task conflict and team performance. Following this line of research, this study investigates the moderating effects of team efficacy on the relationship between a task conflict and team performance with a sample of 78 university student teams, comprising 341 respondents (on average 4.37 per team).
A series of multiple regression analyses are used to test the hypothesized relationships.
Hypothesis 1 predicts that a task conflict is positively related with team performance.
Hypothesis 1a, as a contrasting hypothesis, predicts that a task conflict is negatively related to team performance. Hypothesis 2 predicts that the association between a task conflict and team performance will be moderated by team efficacy.
The reliability coefficients for the variables are assessed by calculating Cronbach alpha coefficients. The reliability coefficients for all variables ranged from 0.89 to 0.95, which is considered to be satisfactory (Van de Ven and Ferry, 1980). To assess the convergent and discriminant validity, the exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation is conducted.
The result indicated that all items that constitute each variable clearly load on the intended factor, and that all factor loadings are significant. The level of analysis in this study is the team. To justify the aggregation of the responses of multiple respondents for obtaining measures at the team level, we used inter-rater agreement indices, rwg (James, Femaree, and Wolf, 1984). In all cases, the rwg score provided a support for combining team members’ perceptions to produce aggregated scores for the measures (i.e., the rwg indices exceeds 0.8).
The findings showed that a task conflict is negatively associated with team performance, both rated by professor and rated by the team members, in line with findings of De Dreu and Weingart (2002). Team efficacy had also a significant impact on team performance.
Furthermore, team efficacy had a moderating effect on the relationship between a task conflict and team performance. In teams with low level of team efficacy, a disagreement about the task was detrimental to team performance as rated by professor. In contrast, in teams with high team efficacy, a disagreement about the tasks did not have a detrimental effect. Contrary to expectation, while a disagreement about the task were detrimental to team performance as rated by the team members in teams with high level of team efficacy, a task conflict did not have a detrimental effect in teams with low level of team efficacy.
Overall, these patterns suggest a complete link between a task conflict and team functioning.
This findings suggest that it is necessary to be sensitive to the team efficacy that team members hold before choosing a intervention strategy.
Given the small number of samples from the student teams, this study is an exploratory attempt in nature. Caution must be warranted in attempting to interpret findings and to generalize the recommendations. The results proposed in this study must be validated by further research in diverse research settings. Causality could not be claimed due to the cross-sectional nature of the data. Longitudinal and experimental designs are needed to settle the dynamic relationships between a task conflict and performance. Several studies have called for more research on potential conditions such as intragroup trust (Simon and Peterson, 2000). Such contextual variables are not fully measured in this study but could be included in future research. This study has highlighted the need for further research that focuses on the development of valid and reliable contingency model.

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