A Cusp Catastrophe Model for Satisfaction, Conflict, and Conflict Management in Teams

Abstract

Teams are now a structural feature in organizations, and conflict, which is recognized as an inescapable phenomenon in the team context, has become an area of increased research interest. While the literature shows contradictory results regarding the impact of conflicts on teams, the strategies used to manage them have shown that can help to explain the dfferentiated effects of conflict situations. Adopting a nonlinear dynamic system perspective, this research tests a cusp catastrophe model for explaining team members' satisfaction, considering the roles of conflict and of conflict management. In this model, the conflict type is the asymmetry variable and conflict-handling strategies are the bifurcation variables. The sample is composed of 44 project teams, and data was collected at two points (half-way through and at the end of the project). The presence of a cusp catastrophe structure in the data was tested through both the dynamic di erence equation modeling approach, which implements the least squares regression technique, and the indirect method, which uses the maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters. The results suggest that the cusp model is superior to the linear model when the bifurcation variables are passive strategies, while less clear results were found when active strategies are considered. Thus, the findings show a tendency for a nonlinear effect of passive strategies on members' satisfaction. Accordingly, this study contributes to the literature by presenting passive conflict-handling strategies in a bifurcation role, which suggests that beyond a certain threshold of the use of these kind of strategies, teams might oscillate between two attractors.