Journal of Applied Psychology 2010, Vol. 95, No.

6, 11731180

2010 American Psychological Association 0021-9010/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0020015

Task Conflict and Team Creativity: A Question of How Much and When
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Jiing-Lih Farh

Northeastern University and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Cynthia Lee

University of Maryland
Bridging the task conflict, team creativity, and project team development literatures, we present a contingency model in which the relationship between task conflict and team creativity depends on the level of conflict and when it occurs in the life cycle of a project team. In a study of 71 information technology project teams in the greater China region, we found that task conflict had a curvilinear effect on team creativity, such that creativity was highest at moderate levels of task conflict. Additionally, we found this relationship to be moderated by team phase, such that the curvilinear effect was strongest at an early phase. In contrast, at later phases of the team life cycle, task conflict was found to be unrelated to team creativity. Keywords: task conflict, creativity, teams

Crystal I. C. Farh

To remain competitive, organizations are increasingly relying on teams to respond creatively to rapidly changing marketplace demands (Tjosvold, Tang, & West, 2004). Despite a burgeoning literature on individual creativity, authors of recent reviews of creativity literature have called for greater attention toward factors influencing team creativity (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). Following prior work, we defined team creativity as the production of novel and useful ideas concerning products, services, processes, and procedures by a team of employees working together (Shin & Zhou, 2007, p. 1715). We answered the call to better understand the antecedents of team creativity by examining how an important team process (task conflict) and contextual factor (phase of the project teams life cycle) jointly influence a teams creative performance. Because creativity often emerges at the crossroads of divergent avenues of knowledge (Amabile, 1996), we focused on task conflict or conflicts about the distribution of resources, procedures and policies, and judgments and interpretation of facts (De Dreu &

This article was published Online First August 16, 2010. Jiing-Lih Farh, School of Business, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Cynthia Lee, Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and College of Business Administration, Northeastern University; Crystal I. C. Farh, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. The work described in this article was fully supported by a grant awarded to Jiing-Lih Farh and Cynthia Lee from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project HKUST6306/04H). The work described in this article was also supported by the Walsh Professorship awarded to Cynthia Lee by the College of Business Administration, Northeastern University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cynthia Lee, 304 Hayden Hall, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115-5000. E-mail: c.lee@neu.edu 1173

Weingart, 2003, p. 741)as an antecedent to team creativity. Additionally, in minority dissent theory (De Dreu & West, 2001; Nemeth, 1986), task conflict has been reasoned to enhance team creativity by triggering greater information exchange, reevaluation of the status quo, and scrutiny of the task at hand (Hu lsheger, Anderson, & Salgado, 2009; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Empirical studies of the task conflict and team creativity relationship have yielded inconsistent findings pointing to the need to examine under what conditions task conflict is helpful for team creativity (Hu lsheger et al., 2009). Although task conflict may expose team members to new ideas and present the potential to produce creative outcomes, too much task conflict may present an overload of possibilities and render it difficult for teams to arrive at a coherent solution (De Dreu, 2006). Thus, one potential moderator of the task conflictteam creativity relationship may be the amount of task conflict present. In our study, we assessed the possibility of task conflict having a curvilinear effect on team creativity. Another potential moderator of task conflictteam creativity relationship may be factors relating to the teams context (Shin & Zhou, 2007). We examined the possibility that the relationship between task conflict and team creativity is contingent upon when conflict occurs in a project teams life cycle. Theories of team development, such as Gersicks (1988, 1989) punctuated equilibrium model, have suggested that team members interactions and priorities tend to shift drastically across phases of the teams life cycle. As such, the amount of task conflict occurring in one phase versus the other may determine the extent to which conflict will translate into creative outcomes. Indeed, it has been theorized in prior research that novel ideas may be more or less likely to result in creative outcomes depending on the phase of the projects life cycle (Ford & Sullivan, 2004). By integrating concepts from the task conflict and team development literatures, we have contributed to the team creativity

1174

FARH, LEE, AND FARH

literature in several ways. First, by empirically examining how the relationship between task conflict and team creativity varies across phases of the team life cycle, we tested relationships that have been implied but not yet tested (e.g., Ford & Sullivan, 2004). By considering team phase as a temporally relevant moderator, we also answered a call to examine the effect of temporal factors on team creativity (Zhou & Shalley, 2008). Finally, by testing our hypotheses in a field sample of information technology (IT) project teams based in the greater China region, we deviated from prior team creativity research that has primarily been conducted among ad hoc and laboratory groups (Paulus, 2008) and examined whether creativity models are generalizable to a non-Western context (Zhou & Shalley, 2008). Especially as being creative and innovative is increasingly valued in growth countries like China (Gupta & Wang, 2009), exploring how task conflict relates to team creativity in this context is not only timely but relevant. Following Gersick (1988), we defined project teams as groups convened to develop a concrete piece of work, whose lives begin and end with the initiation and completion of special projects (p. 13). Because project teams uniquely have definitive start and end times based on the duration of the task, the temporal concept of phases is especially relevant in such teams. Therefore, the theory that we present here is best suited as an explanation of when task conflict will affect team creativity in teams facing such task and time constraints.

gent perspectives to enhance team members consideration of alternative courses of action and also allows retention of some level of convergent thinking to stimulate progress toward a creative outcome. Consistent with this reasoning, De Dreu (2006) found a curvilinear relationship between task conflict and innovation, such that moderate levels of task conflict most optimally influenced team innovation through team members informationseeking behaviors and consideration of alternative courses of action. Thus, we expected that: Hypothesis 1: Task conflict has an inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity, such that team creativity is greatest at moderate levels of task conflict. Further, at very low or at very high levels of task conflict, team creativity is lower than at moderate levels of task conflict.

When Is Task Conflict Optimal for Creativity?

This reasoning suggests that moderate levels of task conflict have the highest potential to impact team creativity. However, in the context of project teams facing strict schedules and demands to produce novel yet practical solutions, the divergent ideas generated by moderate levels of task conflict may not always translate into creative outcomes. That is, the potential for producing creative outputs based on new ideas arising from moderate levels of task conflict may not be realized. Drawing on the team development literature, we proposed that moderate levels of task conflict will more likely translate into creativity when conflict occurs at early rather than later phases of the team life cycle. Several inductive studies on the development of project teams have demonstrated that regardless of the duration or type of team task, teams tend to prioritize task-related goals differently across phases of the team life cycle. Gersick (1988, 1989), and others (Chang, Bordia, & Duck, 2003) have found that at early phases (defined as the period of time between the start and midpoint of the project), project teams engage primarily in idea and strategy generation. At later phases (defined as the period of time between the midpoint and project deadline), teams focus on task execution and strategic implementation in order to meet deadlines. Due to the differential processes associated with early versus later phases, we argue that moderate levels of task conflict occurring early on are more likely to translate into creative outcomes. First, because the focus is on strategy formulation during early phases of the project (Gersick, 1988; Skilton & Dooley, 2010), team members are motivated to engage in task conflict to generate ideas. If this conflict is at a moderate level, an optimal range of novel ideas will be introduced to the team. Second, because project teams possess relatively plentiful time and resources at early phases, teams are able to invest the time and energy to adequately discuss, explore, and incorporate these novel ideas into creative outcomes (Ford & Sullivan, 2004). In contrast, resolving such issues too quickly at this phase may be detrimental for team success (Chen, 2006; Ford & Sullivan, 2004; Gersick, 1988). As the team advances into later phases of the project, however, resources are either being or have been employed in executing project plans. Teams cannot change course easily without penalty and are unlikely to value and incorporate any novel ideas that are generated during this phase (Ford & Sullivan, 2004). Additionally, because the focal concern is to meet deadlines and keep costs

How Much Task Conflict Is Optimal for Team Creativity?

Because creativity arises from exposure to different perspectives and from combining old with new ways of seeing things (Mumford & Gustafson, 1988), teams that discuss a variety of ideas and opinions are likely to generate more creative solutions. A team process known to stimulate team members exposure to divergent perspectives is task conflict. Task conflict has been thought to increase creativity through the influence of minority dissent. When minority team members publicly oppose the beliefs, attitudes, ideas, procedures, or policies assumed by the majority (De Dreu & West, 2001; McLeod, Baron, Marti, & Yoon, 1997), a degree of cognitive conflict is introduced into the minds of team members, thereby increasing divergent thinking and reducing premature consensus (De Dreu & West, 2001). Disagreements about the task may be especially beneficial for creative thinking because such conflict leads team members to re-evaluate the status quo and adapt their objectives, strategies, or processes more appropriately to the task (Nemeth & Staw, 1989; West & Richter, 2008). In contrast, creativity tends to suffer when minority dissent is suppressed in a homogeneous workforce (De Dreu & De Vries, 1997). This logic suggests that some task conflict is necessary for fostering the divergent thinking and information search that contributes to creativity. However, as De Dreu (2006) and others have suggested, too much task conflict may lead to a reduced capacity to perceive, process, and evaluate information. Team members may be unable to incorporate multiple lines of thinking into a cohesive solution and may subsequently lose sight of the collective goal or become frustrated by the lack of progress. Thus, too much task conflict can also be detrimental for creative outcomes. In contrast, moderate levels of task conflict may be most optimal for team creativity because such conflict introduces sufficient diver-

BRIEF REPORTS

1175

within budget (Gersick, 1988), teams can no longer afford to invest large amounts of time and resources needed to resolve and manage task conflict in a productive manner. As such, any potential for creativity due to moderate levels of task conflict may go unrealized during later phases of the team life cycle. Thus, we expected that: Hypothesis 2: Phase of the project team life cycle moderates the inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between task conflict and team creativity, such that the curvilinear relationship will be stronger at early phases than at later phases of the project life cycle.

Method Research Context and Sample

Our sample consisted of revenue-generating project teams in the Great China service division of a Fortune 50 multinational IT company. This company is consistently ranked as one of the 20 most creative companies in the world, with half of its revenue coming from IT service projects for external clientsthe very projects the teams in our sample were responsible for carrying out. Hence, our sample represents a rare but particularly appropriate setting for studying team creativity. Because of high sensitivity associated with these revenue-generating projects, data collection was possible only through an internal channela senior manager of the company who was in charge of project management training and who had personally trained over 2,000 project managers in the company up to the time of the study. This senior manager served as our organizational contact and ensured that the data were collected in a high-trust environment. A sample of 100 project teams was identified based on a list of active IT service project teams in 2005. We excluded teams that had completed less than 10% of their work, as project managers were primarily engaged in defining and authorizing the project and assembling relevant team members (see Figure 1). We then contacted the remaining project managers to solicit their participation. For those project managers agreeing to participate, a phone inter-

view was arranged during which each manager was guided by our organizational contact to complete an Internet-based manager survey. Each project manager also sent a personal letter to the core members of his or her project team, inviting them to participate in an Internet-based team member survey. Assessments of the teams phase in the project life cycle, background, and creativity were included in the manager survey, whereas task conflict and other control variables were measured in the team member survey. Measures in English were translated into Chinese following Brislins (1980) forward-and-back translation procedures. Our final sample consisted of 422 team members and 71 project managers from 71 project teams. Project life cycles ranged from 6 months to 2 years, and teams consisted of between three and 16 members, with an average of 6.96 members. Response rates for team members were 85%. Among the 422 team members, 74.9% were men, 95.1% held university or postgraduate degrees, and 40% were external contractors or members of the client organization. The average age of a team member was 32 years, with a mean organizational tenure of 4.28 years. Among the 71 project managers, 83.1% were men and held either university (66.2%) or postgraduate (31%) degrees. Their mean age was 36.2 years, with a mean organizational tenure of 5 years.

Measures
Task conflict was assessed using a four-item scale from Pelled, Eisenhardt, and Xin (1999) and was measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). A sample item is, How often do the members of your team disagree about how things should be done? Cronbachs alpha was .76 for task conflict. Phase of project team life cycle was derived from the percentage of the project work completed at the time of the survey, as reported by the project manager. In our sample, the mean project completion across the 71 teams was 57.6% with a standard deviation of 25%. We employed a mean split, such that teams with a percentage of project completion below 57.6% were categorized as being at an early phase and teams with a percentage above 57.6% were

Figure 1. Illustration of relationships between the approximate percentage of project completion, project phase, phase processes, and phase outputs. Note: Processes and outputs associated with early versus later phases were adapted from the A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide, 3rd ed., p. 23, Figure 23), by the Project Management Institute, 2004, Upper Darby, PA: Author. Copyright and all rights reserved 2004 by the Project Management Institute. Adapted and reproduced with permission of PMI. Approximate percentage of project completion associated with early versus later phases was confirmed by our organizational contact.

1176

FARH, LEE, AND FARH

categorized as being at a later phase. The early phase subgroup consisted of 32 project teams with the percentage of project completion ranging from 10% to 58%, and the later project phase subgroup consisted of 39 project teams with the percentage of project completion ranging from 58% to 100%. (Three project teams had a score of 100% because they had just completed their projects at the time of our survey). Although authors of prior studies have identified teams as being in their early versus later phases using the amount of time elapsed since the start of the project or the amount of time left before some externally imposed deadline (e.g., Chang et al., 2003; Gersick, 1988), our project teams were sometimes required to extend deadlines and re-adjust project schedules. Such adjustments make strictly temporal indicators less accurate assessments of phases in the team life cycle. Therefore, we felt that a teams phase was more appropriately captured by the percentage of project completion, as reported by project managers. We also have some assurance that project managers assessments of the percentage of work completed were comparable across teams, and that all project teams at an early phase would be primarily engaged in strategy and idea generation, whereas all project teams at a later phase would be primarily engaged in strategy implementation and closing. This is because all project managers, as certified professionals through the Project Management Institute, were required by the company to follow the principles of project management, as articulated in the Project Management Body of Knowledge or PMBOK (Project Management Institute, 2004). Hence, regardless of the content or duration of the project, each team followed the same project schedule template and carried out specific project processes in the same order. To confirm this, we consulted the PMBOK and our organizational contact to understand the approximate relationships among percentage of project completion, phase of the project team life cycle, and activities the team would likely be engaged in during each phase. These relationships are illustrated in Figure 1. We assessed team creativity by adapting two creativity items from Oldham and Cummings (1996) to the project team context. Project managers were asked to indicate the extent to which the team output was creative and original and practical. Following prior work in which creativity measures were developed or adapted to be relevant to the organizational context (Scott & Bruce, 1994; Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009), we added a third item: The team output demonstrates that the team is capable of using existing information or resources creatively (in executing the project). We added this item to capture the adaptive component of the definition of team creativity we presented earlier. Because each phase of the project life cycle is associated with specific team outputs (see Figure 1), our organizational contact emphasized to project managers that they should assess the teams creativity with respect to the creativity of the specific output associated with that phase. As such, we distinguished our team creativity construct from team innovation, the latter of which would be concerned with whether creative ideas generated at an early phase actually translated into better performance at a later phase. This scale was measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The Cronbachs alpha was .85.

Control Variables
We controlled for team size, team tenure, percentage of company employees (company personnel), spatial/time distance, and relationship conflict in this study due to their potential influence on team processes and outcomes. Project managers provided information on team size, team tenure, and percentage of company employees, whereas team members provided information on spatial/time distance and relationship conflict. Team size is commonly controlled in group research (e.g., Keller, 2001; Pelled et al., 1999) because larger teams have more potential for conflict and may influence group processes and performance (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). Project tenure was measured by the number of months that had lapsed from the projects start until the time we surveyed the project manager. We controlled for the percentage of company employees within the team due to the possibility that greater conflict may arise in teams composed of team members holding different company identities (Li & Hambrick, 2005). We controlled for the spatial/time distance between team members because the use of communication technology necessitated by large distances may influence the manner in which conflict is resolved within the team (Maruping & Agarwal, 2004). Spatial/time distance was measured by a four-item scale adapted from the substitute for leadership subscale (Kerr & Jermier, 1978; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). Cronbachs alpha for this scale was .80. We controlled for relationship conflict due to previous research suggesting that the benefits of task conflict are not realized unless relationship conflict is low (Amason, 1996) and that historically their correlation has been high (r .54 in De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; r .47 in Simons & Peterson, 2000). Team members reported relationship conflict with the four-item scale used by Pelled et al. (1999). The Cronbachs alpha for relationship conflict was .82.

Results
We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis at the team member level to examine the factorial structure of our measures of task and relationship conflict and spatial/time distance. Results showed that an a priori three-dimensional factor structure fit the data well, 2(51, N 422) 116.59, p .01; root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) .06; goodness-of-fit index (GFI) .96; nonnormed fit index (NNFI) .96, comparative fit index (CFI) .97, root-mean-square residual (RMSR) .05. All items loaded significantly on their designated factors with factor loadings ranging from .41 to .92. To establish the discriminant validity of the constructs, we compared the above baseline model to an alternative model in which the correlation between task conflict and relationship conflict was constrained to be 1. Results indicated that the alternative model fit the data poorly, 2(52, N 422) 372.02, p .01; RMSEA .14; GFI .84; NNFI .80, CFI .84, RMSR .08, and had a significantly worse fit than the baseline model, 2 (1, N 422) 255.43, p .01. These results suggest that the three constructs measured at the team member level were distinct and that the three measures had construct validity. To check interrater agreement among team members, we calculated within-group agreement (rwg) values using uniform null distribution and obtained median values of .89 for relationship

BRIEF REPORTS

1177

conflict, .91 for task conflict, and .92 for spatial/time distance. These values were well above the conventionally acceptable rwg value of .70 (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1993). Additionally, we calculated intraclass correlation (ICC[1]) and found .10 for relationship conflict ( p .01), .11 for task conflict ( p .01), and .29 for spatial/time distance ( p .01). These values were comparable to the median or recommended ICC values of group-level constructs in the literature (see Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998) and justified aggregating members ratings to group-level variables. Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of all major variables. Consistent with previous studies (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Simons & Peterson, 2000), task and relationship conflict were positively correlated (r .43, p .01). Relationship conflict had a negative but nonsignificant association (r .08) and task conflict had a positive but nonsignificant association (r .19) with team creativity. We used hierarchical regression analysis to test the curvilinear effect of task conflict on team creativity as predicted by Hypothesis 1 (see Table 2). We centered the predictor and the moderator variables to reduce possible multicollinearity. In the first step (Model 1), we entered the six control variables. In Step 2 (Model 2), task conflict was entered and was found to have a significant positive effect on team creativity ( .29, p .05), which accounted for an additional 5.4% of the variance. In Step 3 (Model 3), the quadratic term of task conflict (i.e., task conflict squared) was added to the equation and was found to be significant ( .26, p .05), which accounted for an additional 5.8% of the variance beyond its linear effect. The negative quadratic term in conjunction with a positive linear term ( .37, p .05) suggests a predominantly positive, concave downward curve (see Aiken & West, 1991). In Figure 2, the quadratic fit of task conflict in predicting team creativity is plotted, revealing that as task conflict increased, team creativity also increased. However, once task conflict reached a score of 2.8, team creativity peaked and then declined as task conflict increased. The inverted U-shape of this curve is consistent with Hypothesis 1. To test Hypothesis 2, which predicted that the curvilinear relationship between task conflict and team creativity would be stronger at the early rather than later phase of the project team life cycle, we created two interaction terms (Phase Task Conflict and Phase Task Conflict2) and entered them into the regression equation in Step 4 (Model 4), an approach also used in previous studies (e.g., Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). Results showed that the two interaction terms

as a block were marginally significant ( p .10), which accounted for 6.3% additional variance in team creativity. As shown in Table 3 and in support of Hypothesis 2, task conflict had a significant and negative quadratic effect on team creativity ( .53, p .05) in the early phase condition. The negative quadratic term in conjunction with a positive linear term ( .13, p .10) suggests a predominantly positive, concave downward curve (see Aiken & West, 1991). In contrast, in the later phase condition, task conflict had no significant linear ( .39, p .10) or quadratic effect ( .07, p .10) on team creativity. The quadratic fit of task conflict in predicting team creativity is shown in Figure 3. It shows that in the early phase condition, team creativity reached its peak as task conflict approached 2.6, but declined after task conflict exceeded 2.6. In contrast, in the later phase condition, task conflict was unrelated to team creativity linearly or quadratically.

Discussion
By integrating concepts from the task conflict and team development literatures, we have shown how much and when task conflict leads to optimal levels of team creativity. In particular, we argued and found that moderate levels of task conflict lead to the highest levels of team creativity. Our findings are consistent with those of authors who have argued for an inverted U-shaped relationship between tension and team effectiveness (De Dreu, 2006; Gardner, 1986; Jehn, 1995; Van de Vliert & De Dreu, 1994; Walton, 1969). We have extended their work by demonstrating that the curvilinear relationship between task conflict and team creativity holds in Chinese IT project teams, despite differing project content and duration. Furthermore, we argued and found that the curvilinear effect of task conflict on team creativity held only for teams in the early phase of the project teams life cycle. In contrast, we did not find a significant effect of task conflict on team creativity for teams in the later phase of the life cycle. Our findings are consistent with Ford and Sullivans (2004) proposition that novel ideas raised at early phases of the team cycle are more likely to be valued and incorporated into creative outcomes. We have extended their theory by identifying moderate levels of task conflict as the source of novel ideas. Thus, by integrating phase of project life cycle as a moderator, we are among the first to demonstrate that temporal factors associated with the teams context can influence how processes play out within the team to affect creativity.

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations Matrix of the Study Variables

Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

M 6.96 9.07 0.63 2.58 2.08 2.61 57.6 5.53

SD 2.56 9.19 0.36 0.79 0.33 0.35 25.08 0.89

1 0.03 0.10 0.06 0.11 0.04 0.23 0.15

2 0.23 0.07 0.24 0.06 0.49 0.03

Group size Group tenure Company personnel Spatial/time distance Relationship conflict Task conflict Project phase Team creativity

0.03 0.03 0.05 0.32 0.05

(.80) 0.13 0.21 0.05 0.06

(.82) 0.43 0.23 0.08

(.76) 0.24 0.19

0.07

(.85)

Note. N 71. Internal consistency values (Cronbachs alphas) appear across the diagonal in parentheses. p .10. p .05. p .01.

1178

FARH, LEE, AND FARH

Table 2 Regression Analysis of the Effects of Task Conflict on Team Creativity

Variable Control variable Group size Project tenure Project phase Company personnel Spatial/time distance Relationship conflict Task conflict Task conflict Task conflict2 Interaction Phase Task Conflict Phase Task Conflict2 R2 Overall R2 Degrees of freedom Overall F Note. N 71. p .10. p .05.

Model 1 0.20 0.08 0.19 0.01 0.04 0.12

Model 2 0.22 0.05 0.14 0.01 0.04 0.26 0.29

Model 3 (H1) 0.20 0.03 0.16 0.07 0.11 0.29 0.37 0.26

Model 4 (H2) 0.19 0.04 0.02 0.02 0.07 0.31 0.25 0.19 0.18 0.30

0.06 0.06 6, 64 0.66 p .01.

0.06 0.12 7, 63 1.19

0.05 0.17 8, 62 1.60

0.06 0.23 10, 60 1.83

A key theoretical and practical implication of our research is that moderate levels of task conflictif occurring at early phases of the project can yield the highest levels of team creativity. Unfortunately, beyond describing as moderate a score of 2.6 on a scale ranging from 1 to 5, neither we nor our predecessors in the conflict literature have been able to articulate what moderate levels of task conflict look like. One way to gain clarity on this issue is to employ Harrison and Kleins (2007) taxonomy of differing levels of diversity to understand how the configurations of team members opinions and ideas may reflect low, moderate, or high levels of task conflict. For instance, Harrison and Klein (2007) argued that the diversity of opinions (or task conflict) is highest when half the team is in extreme favor of one option, while the

Figure 2. Curvilinear relationship between task conflict and team creativity.

other half is in extreme favor of the other. In contrast, conflict would be moderate when one or two members occupy extreme opinions, whereas the other team members fall somewhere along the continuum between the extremes. Adopting Harrison and Kleins (2007) perspective would suggest that, moving forward, configuration of opinions within the team should also be assessed in addition to use of existing, global measures of task conflict. An important premise of our argument is that the novel ideas generated by task conflict will only translate into creativity when the project team possesses the resources, openness, and time to integrate these ideas. Unfortunately, the design of our study did not allow us to assess whether team members (and potentially, the project team leader) handled conflict differently across the phases of the project life cycle. An interesting direction for future research would be to capture these dynamics in a longitudinal design. We also encourage future research of the content-related reasons why moderate levels of task conflict in later phases of the project life cycle did not translate into creative outcomes. It may be that certain types of task conflictfor example, different perspectives about which strategy would best address clients needsare better suited to help in the formulation of creative strategy at early phases of the project but are unlikely to help stimulate creative implementation at later phases. Therefore, one may examine how the content of task conflict evolves over the course of the project life cycle, as well as how certain forms of task conflict may be matched with each phase of the project to generate the most creative outcomes. A practical implication of our study is that managers seeking to increase the creativity of their teams outputs should encourage some level of task conflict among team members, particularly at early phases of the project. Managers should embrace the attitude that some conflict can be good, communicate this to team members, and allow ample time early on for team members to voice their task-related opinions. Further, managers should build a psychologically safe team climate early on in the project, so that team

BRIEF REPORTS

1179

Table 3 Regression of Team Creativity on Task Conflict by Project Phase

Low completion phase (N 32) Variable Control variables Group size Project tenure Project phase Company personnel Spatial/time distance Relationship conflict R2 Task Conflict Task conflict Task conflict2 R2 Overall R2 Degrees of freedom Overall F

High completion phase (N 39) Model 1 0.38 0.17 0.29 0.01 0.10 0.03 Model 2 0.46 0.29 0.37 0.03 0.20 0.17 0.34 0.15 0.15 6, 32 0.95 0.09 0.24 7, 31 1.41 Model 3 0.46 0.29 0.36 0.05 0.22 0.18 0.39 0.07 0.00 0.24 8, 30 1.21

Model 1 0.36 0.29 0.26 0.04 0.13 0.26

Model 2 0.40 0.43 0.21 0.05 0.05 0.50 0.50

Model 3 0.30 0.30 0.17 0.07 0.07 0.50 0.13 0.53 0.14 0.49 8, 23 2.72

0.20 0.20 6, 25 1.06

0.14 0.34 7, 24 1.78

Note. N 71. Early phase 10 58% project completion; later phase 58 100% project completion. p .10. p .05. p .01.

members feel safe to bring up ideas that may be counter to the majority opinion (Edmondson, 1999). However, managers should keep in mind that divergent and novel ideas will only translate into creative outcomes when there is sufficient agreement with regards to the ultimate solution that should be implemented. As such, managers should intentionally find ways to integrate ideas as they are raised by team members into a creative solution, rather than letting the team bring forth new ideas simply for the sake of discussion. Additionally, managers should monitor the affective level of the team. As high levels of task conflict and too many disagreements may sometimes translate into relationship conflict or cause team members to become very frustrated, managers need to intervene and potentially act as conflict mediators to prevent task conflict from escalating into a destructive process.

References
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview. Amason, A. C. (1996). Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision-making: Resolving a paradox for top management teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 123 148. Ancona, D. G., & Caldwell, D. F. (1992). Demography and design: Predictors of new product team performance. Organization Science, 3, 321341. Brislin, R. W. (1980). Translation and content analysis of oral and written materials. In H. C. Triandis & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Handbook of crosscultural psychology: Vol. 2. Methodology (pp. 137164). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Chang, A., Bordia, P., & Duck, J. (2003). Punctuated equilibrium and linear progression: Toward a new understanding of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 106 117. Chen, M.-H. (2006). Understanding the benefits and detriments of conflict on team creativity process. Creativity and Innovation Management, 15, 105116. De Dreu, C. K. W. (2006). When too little or too much hurts: Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between task conflict and innovation in teams. Journal of Management, 32, 83107. De Dreu, C. K. W., & De Vries, N. K. (1997). Minority dissent in organizations. In C. K. W. De Dreu & E. Van de Vliert (Eds.), Using conflict in organizations (pp. 72 86). London, England: Sage. De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A metaanalysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 741749. De Dreu, C. K. W., & West, M. A. (2001). Minority dissent and team innovation: The importance of participation in decision making. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 11911201. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 350 383. Ford, C. M., & Sullivan, D. M. (2004). A time for everything: How the

Figure 3. Relationship between task conflict and team creativity by phase of project life cycle.

1180

FARH, LEE, AND FARH Pelled, L. H., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Xin, K. R. (1999). Exploring the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 128. Podsakoff, P. M., & MacKenzie, S. B. (1994). Organizational citizenship behavior and sales unit effectiveness. Journal of Marketing Research, 31, 351363. Project Management Institute. (2004). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (3rd ed.). Upper Darby, PA: Author. Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1994). Determinants of innovative behavior: A path model of individual innovation in the workplace. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 580 607. Schneider, B., White, S. S., & Paul, M. C. (1998). Linking service climate and customer perceptions of service quality: Tests of a causal model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 150 163. Shalley, C. E., & Gilson, L. L. (2004). What leaders need to know: A review of social and contextual factors that can foster or hinder creativity. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 3353. Shalley, C. E., Gilson, L. L., & Blum, T. C. (2009). Interactive effects of growth need strength, work context, and job complexity on self-reported creative performance. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 489 505. Shalley, C. E., Zhou, J., & Oldham, G. R. (2004). The effects of personal and contextual characteristics on creativity: Where should we go from here? Journal of Management, 6, 933958. Shin, S., & Zhou, J. (2007). When is educational specialization heterogeneity related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational leadership as a moderator. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1709 1721. Simons, T. L., & Peterson, R. S. (2000). Task conflict and relationship conflict in top management teams: The pivotal role of intragroup trust. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 102111. Skilton, P. F., & Dooley, K. J. (2010). The effects of repeat collaboration on creative abrasion. Academy of Management Review, 35, 118 134. Tangirala, S., & Ramanujam, R. (2008). Exploring nonlinearity in employee voice: The effects of personal control and organizational identification. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 1189 1203. Tjosvold, D., Tang, M. M. L., & West, M. (2004). Reflexivity for team innovation in China: The contribution of goal interdependence. Group and Organization Management, 29, 540 559. Van de Vliert, E., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (1994). Optimizing performance by stimulating conflict. International Journal of Conflict Management, 5, 211222. Walton, R. (1969). Interpersonal peacemaking: Confrontations and thirdparty consultation. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. West, M. A., & Richter, A. W. (2008). Climates and cultures for innovation and creativity at work. In J. Zhou & C. E. Shalley (Eds.), Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 211236). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Zhou, J., & Shalley, C. E. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of organizational creativity. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

timing of novel contributions influences project team outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 279 292. Gardner, D. G. (1986). Activation theory and task design: An empirical test of several new predictions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 411 418. Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31, 9 41. Gersick, C. J. G. (1989). Marking time: Predictable transitions in task groups. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 274 309. Gupta, A. K., & Wang, H. (2009). Getting China and India right: Strategies for leveraging the worlds fastest-growing economies for global advantage. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Harrison, D. A., & Klein, K. J. (2007). Whats the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1199 1228. Hu lsheger, U. R., Anderson, N., & Salgado, J. F. (2004). Team-level predictors of innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1128 1145. James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1993). Rwg: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 306 309. Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 256 282. Keller, R. T. (2001). Cross-functional project groups in research and new product development: Diversity, communications, job stress, and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 547555. Kerr, S., & Jermier, J. (1978). Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 22, 374 403. Li, J. T., & Hambrick, D. C. (2005). Factional groups: A new vantage on demographic faultlines, conflict, and disintegration in work teams. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 794 813. Maruping, L. M., & Agarwal, R. (2004). Managing team interpersonal processes through technology: A task-technology fit perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 975990. McLeod, P. L., Baron, R. S., Marti, M. W., & Yoon, K. (1997). The eyes have it: Minority influence in face-to-face and computer-mediated group discussions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 706 718. Mumford, M. D., & Gustafson, S. B. (1988). Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 27 43. Nemeth, C. J. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychological Review, 93, 2332. Nemeth, C. J., & Staw, B. M. (1989). The tradeoffs of social control and innovation in groups and organizations. In L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 175210). New York, NY: Academic Press. Oldham, G., & Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 607 634. Paulus, P. B. (2008). Fostering creativity in groups and teams. In J. Zhou & C. E. Shalley (Eds.), Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 165188). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Received October 6, 2008 Revision received February 9, 2010 Accepted March 19, 2010