Diversity, Conflict, and Leadership

M. Afzalur Rahim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351522007
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Current Topics in Management is an annual scholarly journal and this volume is divided into four major sections: Managing Conflict and Justice; Leadership, Social Capital, and Personality; Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management; and Ethics, Learning, and Change. These contributions seek an integration of theory, research, and practice, which is the essential goal of Current Topics in Management.The first section contains two empirical studies on organizational conflict and a theoretical work that addresses the application of organizational justice theory to consumer behavior. The second section contains three empirical studies relating to the leadership language used by senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the last presidential election, building social capital through leader-member exchanges, and the big-five personality and financial performance of fund managers. Section three contains an essay on revising Phelan's model on entrepreneurship and a case study on a small business organization. The fourth section contains three contributions, two theoretical papers and an empirical study of the administration of state governments.The contributions included are "The Moderating Role of Social Attitudes on the Relationship between Diversity and Conflict" "The Effects of Geographic Dispersion and Team Tenure" "Fairness and Consumer Behavior" "Obama vs. Clinton: Exploring the Impact of Leadership Language" "Social Capital Via Leader" "Financial Performance of Fund Managers" "A Conceptual Framework Linking Entrepreneurs to International New Venture Competitiveness" and "BSL Printing Company: A Case Study."

PART I

MANAGING CONFLICT AND JUSTICE

Current Topics in Management , Vol. 15, 2011, pp. 13-40

The Moderating Role of Social Attitudes in the Relationship between Diversity and Conflict

Nailah Ayub and Karen A. Jehn

Both diversity and conflict are defined in terms of differences. Diversity is differences in visible (Hicks-Clarke & Illes, 2000) or less visible characteristics (Thatcher & Jehn, 1998; Williams & O’Reilly, 1998) that are used by group members to differentiate themselves from one another. Conflict is often defined in terms of differences in ideas and opinions, which give rise to tension among the group members (De Dreu, Harinck, & van Vianen, 1999). While conflict is generally considered to have negative consequences (e.g., De Dreu & Weingart, 2003), research on diversity has struggled to find the ‘value-in-diversity.’ Williams and O’Reilly (1998) reviewed diversity research over 40 years and observed that research remains inconclusive as to whether diversity has positive or negative effects (also Milliken & Martins, 1996). They, however, concluded that the consequences of diversity depend upon type of diversity and other factors that moderate or mediate the effects of diversity (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). Although research has shown that diversity itself can be beneficial (e.g., Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999; McLeoad, Lobel, & Cox, 1996; Watson, Kumar, & Michaelson, 1993) or bad (O’Reilly, Caldwell, & Barnett, 1989; Mannix & Neale, 2005), the effects of diversity are noticeably associated with other factors that make it good or bad. Proponents of value-in-diversity endorse diversity through factors such as promoting beliefs or positive attitudes towards diversity (Homan, van Knippenberg, van Kleef, & De Dreu, 2007). Individual attitudes can possibly be one of the significant indicators of whether diversity will have positive or negative effects. In this chapter, we describe our research that aimed at studying how certain individual attitudes create tension among members of a workgroup characterized by specific type(s) of diversity. For empirical investigations, we selected national and racioethnic diversity and examined the moderating role of social attitudes of nationalism, national stereotypes, and social distance.

Through a series of studies, we contribute to the diversity, multinational workgroups, and conflict literature by examining social attitudes (nationalism, social distance, and national stereotypes) that influence relationships and behavior at workplaces. Our main contributions of this research were to determine influences of national diversity on workgroup processes (e.g., conflicts) and performance (e.g., efficiency); to determine the moderating role of social attitudes in the diversity to conflicts relationship; to explore the positive role of diversity in terms of numerical composition of workgroups; and to verify the generalization of theories and propositions across samples. Whereas diversity research often explores its negative aspects, we examined positive potentials of diversity and explored the positive elements of group culture in terms of perceived respect.

Nationalism in Workgroups

Depending on its characteristics and context, one diversity type can have a larger impact than others (Tsui, Egan, & O’Reilly, 1992). Nationality is observed to be an important demographic characteristic of group members (Ayub & Jehn, 2006; Earley & Mosakowski, 2000) indicating that national diversity will be impactful when present in a group. A nationally diverse workgroup is composed of members with different national backgrounds (Dahlin, Weingart, & Hinds, 2005). When a group includes members with diverse nationalities (i.e., nationally diverse), members tend to seek those who are from their own nationality group. This signifies the importance of national diversity in multinational setup where national similarity or differences are more salient beyond ethnicity or culture. We focused specifically on national diversity as an important diversity type in multinational workgroups. We began with proposing a multi-level theoretical framework to examine the moderating effect of nationalism on the relationship between national diversity and conflict (for details see Ayub & Jehn, 2006). We then proceeded with an empirical study to verify this model (Ayub & Jehn, 2010a).

Brief et al., (2005) noticed the significance of attitudes from the communities that are introduced to workgroups through the workgroup members. These social attitudes are yet to be substantially explored by organizational studies on diversity and conflict. As discussed above, we were interested in studying social attitudes in nationally diverse groups. We propose that members from different nationalities in nationally diverse groups will likely hold attitudes related to their national background that would guide their behavior within the group. Every social group safeguards its existence by inculcating certain attitudes in its members in defense of the group’s ideology and existence. This nationalism will be activated in relevant contexts, such as nationally diverse workgroups, for interpersonal behavior within these groups. Since nationalism is a negative attitude by definition, intragroup communication and exchange may be stressful when members exhibit or perceive nationalism and thus, we predict will experience conflict.

National Diversity and Conflict

Before establishing the moderating effect of nationalism, we first develop the direct relationship between national diversity and types of conflict. Jehn (1997; Jehn & Mannix, 2001) identified three types of conflict. Relationship conflict is defined as interpersonal incompatibilities among group members that are not directly related to the tasks that individuals and groups have to do. Task conflict is disagreements about the content of the tasks, such as differences in viewpoints, ideas, and opinions. Thirdly, process conflict is arguments about handling and distribution of responsibilities or resources or coordinating an agenda. We propose that national diversity will lead to relationship conflict due to decreased relationship quality (Brief et al., 2005), decreased group integration (O’Reilly, Caldwell, & Barnett, 1989; Triandis, 1994), and increased categorization processes (Bayazit & Mannix, 2003). National diversity is thus related to relationship conflict which may negatively affect the group. On the other hand, national diversity could be helpful in task accomplishment if it acts as informational diversity (Jehn, 1997) by combining the experience and expertise of members who belong to different national backgrounds and social networks. National diversity, in this sense, can be beneficial to the group through its association with task conflict (Jehn et al., 1999).

In addition to relationship and task conflicts, national diversity is proposed to be positively related to process conflict as well (Ayub & Jehn, 2006). Process conflict may arise due to (self) exclusion from procedural decision making and misunderstandings due to stereotypical biases as well as misunderstandings due to communication issues. Dissimilarity among nationally diverse members will decrease workgroup involvement as some members may be excluded from information and opportunity networks (Mor-Barak, Cherin, & Berkman, 1998). Perception of such biased behavior will cause some members to withdraw from the group (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) and thus contribute less to the task performance (Kirchmeyer, 1993; Kirchmeyer & Cohen, 1992). This will negatively effect communication among group members as well (Zenger & Lawrence, 1989). We, therefore, propose that when members perceive national diversity in their workgroup they will likely experience more process conflict than the members of a workgroup perceiving low national diversity.

Nationalism as a Moderator

After establishing the direct relationships between national diversity and conflict types, we introduce nationalism as the moderator. We propose that the presence of members with nationalistic attitudes (e.g., ingroup favoritism and outgroup rejection) in nationally diverse workgroups will strengthen the positive relationship between national diversity and relationship and task conflicts and will weaken the national diversity to task conflict relationship. Relationship conflict can be exaggerated due to differences in attitudes (such as nationalism) of group members (cf. Earley & Mosakowski, 2000). Group members may avoid each other due to their nationalistic attitudes or perception of these attitudes. This will also disrupt information sharing (Armstrong & Cole, 1995; Milliken & Martins, 1996). That is, we propose that nationalism will moderate the positive relationship between national diversity and task conflict such that any task conflict due to national diversity will be decreased in the presence of nationalism. Nationalistic attitudes may also disturb the group processes such as communication (Cramton & Hinds, 2005) regarding how to accomplish group tasks. Roles and resource allocations may be biased in favor of the ingroup or against the outgroup members that could incite fighting and cheating (Dennen, 1987). Nationalism may lead to blaming group members for unfair distribution and behavior or hold them responsible for failure at working towards task accomplishments (Brewer, 2000). Accordingly, we propose that the positive relationship between national diversity and process conflict will be strengthened in the presence of nationalistic group members.

Study 1: Nationalism as a Moderator of National Diversity to Conflict Relationship. After developing the basic model, we designed an empirical study to test our theoretical model (for details see Ayub & Jehn, 2010a). We distinguished two forms of nationalism: national ingroup preference for one’s own nationality and derogation of other nationalities. We selected a Pakistani sample for this study. Even though Pakistanis make a significant part of diversity in workgroups around the world (Ogbonna & Harris, 2006) there is barely any study that focuses on them. Knowledge of such national groups has become important especially after the remarkable events such as September 11 attack on the New York twin towers. The incident has made nationality a salient characteristic and has also influenced attitudes of people towards certain nationalities. We hypothesized that outgroup derogation was a stronger moderator of the relationship between national diversity and conflict compared to national preference. We argued that nationalistic outgroup derogation had a rather negative intent that was more likely a stimulant of negative reaction from the perceiver. National preference, on the other hand, was a favoring behavior which would not directly target anyone with harmful intent.

We adapted two Zellmer-Bruhn et al. (2008) items to measure perceived national diversity of group members. One item was a 7-point Likert item about how much respondents considered their workgroup was diverse with reference to nationality. The second item asked about approximate percentage of nationalities that were present in the workgroup different from respondents’ own nationality. The percentage scores were converted to match 7-point scale. The items gave a mean value of 1.51 (SD = 1.01) and an alpha coefficient of .76. Jehn’s (1995) scales were used to measure task and relationship conflict. We used 4 items for task conflict (e.g., “How much conflict of ideas is there among the members of this workgroup?”) and 5 items for relationship conflict (e.g., “How much do members differ about personal issues?”) with 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 7 (A Lot). Principal component analysis with oblique rotation validated the scales for Pakistani sample. The Cronbach alpha coefficients for task and relationship conflict were .86 and .90, respectively.To measure nationalism, we included items from Dekker et al.’s (2003) nationalism scale (e.g., “I feel I am a member of one Pakistani family”; “Pakistan is the best country to live in”; “In general, I like Pakistanis better.”) and Pettigrew and Meertens’ (1995) blatant rejection subscale (e.g., “Other nationalities have jobs that Pakistanis should have only because of their nationalities”; “Pakistanis can never be comfortable with other nationalities even if they are close friends”) with 7-point Likert scales (1= strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The reliability coefficients for national preference and nationalistic outgroup derogation were .91 and .78 respectively. We initially controlled for age and gender for their possible effects on the perception of conflict (Jehn, 1995; Jehn et al., 1999; Pelled, 1996) but found no significant differences in results due to these variables.

We retained survey data from 131 information technology professionals working in 29 workgroups, out of the 160 surveys distributed, in organizations located in Islamabad, Pakistan. We discarded 29 surveys due to erroneous or incomplete responses. National diversity in this sample of workgroups was around 30% diverse members in groups with an average group size of 7.73 members (SD = 3.45). This gave a representative sample for national diversity within Pakistani multinational workplaces. The diverse groups generally included one or two non-Pakistani members. The sample included 23 (17.6%) women. The mean age of the participants was 28.94 (SD = 6.62) with the age range of 28 to 63 years.

We tested the hypotheses with the help of regression analyses after computing descriptive statistics (see Table 1). National diversity had a main effect on perceptions of task conflict, thus verifying our hypothesis that national diversity is positively related to task conflict (see Table 2). We could not find support for our hypothesis regarding the positive relationship between national diversity and relationship conflict. However, nationalistic derogation had a moderating effect on the relationship between national diversity and relationship conflict such that there was more relationship conflict in nationally diverse groups with members reporting nationalistic derogation. In addition, nationalistic derogation strengthened the positive relationship between national diversity and task conflict. We also found nationalistic derogation to be a significant moderator compared to national preference.

Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations of Seven Variables

Table 2
Regression Analysis for the Moderation Effect of Nationalism

Workgroup Diversity and Social Attitudes: Social Distances and National Stereotypes

Our first study gave some interesting results where we observed that nationalistic derogation, that has a very negative connotation, could also give positive results such as heightened task conflict in nationally diverse groups. A closer look at the sample suggested that national diversity could be a prized feature in certain workgroups. Workgroups in Pakistan seldom include non-Pakistani members and thus it is likely that national diversity is a cherished distinction. Also of importance is the national diversity composition, that is, what national groups make up national diversity in a workgroup.

To further explore social attitudes in workgroups, we studied social distance among group members. If members have nationalistic attitudes, they are likely to have differential attitudes towards other nationalities. In that one may not exhibit similar nationalistic derogation towards other nationalities. Thus a member may be nationalistic and have strong reservations against some nationality while another nationality may be quite acceptable for interaction. Such contact preferences are studied as social distances. Social distance is a negative attitude that determines social relations marking the willingness or acceptability to interact (Bogardus, 1967; Chan & Goto, 2003). It evokes negative feelings that motivates the avoidance of outgroups (Hagendoorn & Kleinpenning, 1991). To understand the results of our first study, we explored the notion that a workgroup may have nationalistic members but without their negative effects when there are small social distances among the group members.

Another variable that could illustrate our results for nationalistic derogation is national stereotypes. We selected two attitudinal variables for a somewhat detailed depiction of social attitudes and beliefs. Whereas social distances are based on social differences, stereotypes are based on particular traits. Stereotypes are the beliefs and expectations about the characteristics of members of a social category (Hamilton & Sherman, 1994). These stereotypes could be positive or negative and a person may be seen as acceptable or objectionable depending on how his/...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• title
• copy
• Content Page
• Preface
• Managing Diverse Situations In Organizations
• Part I Managing Conflict and Justice
• Part II Leadership, Social Capital, and Personality
• Part III Issues in Entrepreneurship and Small Business
• Part IV Ethics, Learning, and Change
• About the Contributors