ALL BY MYSELF? THE MODERATING ROLE OF
TASK INTERDEPENDENCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN HIERARCHY STEEPNESS, INTRA-TEAM
CONFLICT AND COORDINATION
Master Thesis; Msc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
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ALL BY MYSELF? THE MODERATING ROLE OF
TASK INTERDEPENDENCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN HIERARCHY STEEPNESS, INTRA-TEAM
CONFLICT AND COORDINATION
ABSTRACT
In a field study conducted with 458 team members in 72 organizational work teams in the Netherlands, I examined the influence of steepness of the status hierarchy on intra-team conflict and coordination under high amounts of task interdependence. Contradictory to suggestions made by previous researchers, no significant relationship was found in this moderated mediation model. However, findings broaden the understanding of the concepts, especially on task interdependence. This research and its findings gives room and should inspire researchers for future research in this field.
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INTRODUCTION
Hierarchy, defined as a rank ordering of individuals along one or more socially important dimensions (Anderson & Brown, 2010), is an aspect that is never absent in groups and organizations (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy, Chou, & Galinsky, 2011; Halevy, Chou, Galinsky & Murnighan, 2012; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Tiedens, Unzueta & Young, 2007). Since hierarchy is functionally adaptive and enhances a team’s chances of survival, it plays an important and pervasive role in organizational life (Halevy et al., 2011).
Informal status hierarchies within teams develop spontaneous and rapidly from social interactions within a work team (Halevy et al., 2011; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). One of the causes for this spontaneous and rapid development is that individuals within a team make judgements and form conclusions of others’ competences and power, based on short observations (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). Past research provides evidence that steeper hierarchies (i.e., those groups with larger asymmetries in members’ power, status, and influence levels) help groups and organizations to perform better than do flatter structures (Anderson & Brown, 2010) and that hierarchies are prerequisite to get things done efficiently (Cohen, 2013). The prevalence and diversity of hierarchy also suggests that groups have a strong preference for this form of social organization (Halevy et al., 2011). Previous researchers suggested that people prefer hierarchical orders, as opposed to other types of order, because hierarchy is particularly effective at facilitating coordination within social groups (Halevy et al., 2011; Magee & Galinsky, 2008).
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Previous research suggests that task interdependence has a conditional influence on the relationship between hierarchy steepness and both intra-team conflict and coordination (Halevy et al., 2011). Task structures require participation and contribution from most if not all the members of a group or a work unit (Halevy et al., 2011). Task interdependence is viewed as a critical factor that creates a need for hierarchy (Halevy et al., 2012). Furthermore, it is predicted by different authors that hierarchy is particularly beneficial for tasks that are characterized by high levels of task interdependence (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). Halevy et al. (2011) propose that the various group-level processes that contribute to the advantages of hierarchy (so as reduced conflict and enhanced coordination) might be effected by the degree of task interdependence. It is thus stated that task interdependence can respond to the recent call for the moderating role (Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). This research will therefore aim to investigate the influence of hierarchy steepness on intra-team conflict and coordination by looking at the influence of task interdependence on these relationships.
This research takes past research in the field one step ahead by actually measuring task interdependence and by the generalizability of the results. Halevy et al (2012) have researched the influence of hierarchical differentiation on organizational performance by comparing basketball and baseball teams. Depending on the context that these teams played in, they assumed the degree of task interdependence within these teams. A severe limitation to their research is that they did not actually measure task interdependence. Since my research is actually going to measure the component task interdependence, it will be of great additional value. Secondly, the results of this research will be more generalizable than Halevy et al. (2012)’s results since this research will be conducted in real life work teams, instead of sport teams. Furthermore, it is fascinating that there is a near omission from research on teams. However the study of status hierarchies in teams had an imbedded history in the sociological literature (Christie & Barling, 2010), recently, most recent research in this field is conducted at the individual level and focused on antecedents and consequences of individual status (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Christie & Barling, 2010). This research will focus on the team level and will therefore be of substantial additional value.
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interdependently their employees should work in a team to get the most efficient outcomes in intra-team conflict and coordination by knowing their amount of status hierarchy within the team. Additionally, managers can take into account the amount of task interdependence within a team when they are facing hierarchical status structures in this team, or when they aim to make status asymmetries salient. Managers can for example use it to decide how to divide the work within the team, how to coordinate the team or how to use the task division and task interdependence in preventing their team from experiencing conflicts.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
By the prevalence and diversity of hierarchy, it can be suggested that individuals and groups do have a strong preference for this form of social organization (Halevy et al., 2011). Halevy et al. (2011) define hierarchy as an implicit or explicit rank order of individuals or groups with respect to a valued social dimension. Hierarchy can come in different forms, which are power, status and leadership (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). The type of hierarchy that is referred to in this thesis is informal status hierarchy. Informal status hierarchy is defined as asymmetries in respect and admiration from others (Halevy et al., 2011). It can be stated that the informal status hierarchy arises from informal interactions among the members in a group and that it results form a rank ordering of individuals by the amount of respect, influence, and prominence each group member enjoys in the eyes of others (Anderson, John, Keltner & Kring, 2001: 116).
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and delegation issues such as how task accomplishment should proceed in the work unit, who is responsible for what, and how things should be delegated’ (Jehn et al., 2008: 467). Conflict in this thesis refers to these three types of conflict.
Previous research stated that, for face-to-face groups, steeper hierarchies limit conflict over dominance and decision making (Anderson, Ames & Gosling, 2008; Anderson & Brown, 2010). This can be explained by the fact that in teams with a steep status hierarchy, the low ranked group members avoid conflict and will cooperate with the high-ranked members because it serves both their short-term and their long-term interests (Halevy et al., 2011). One of these interests is that the low-ranked team member will avoid sanctions and/or attain rewards by complying with the demands of the high-ranked members (Halevy et al., 2012). On the other side, individuals with a high status will control the group (Anderson et al., 2008; Halevy et al., 2012). This clear division of labour that specifies who does what and when (Halevy et al., 2011) will provide high amounts of order within groups. These high amounts of order within the group will result in less probability of conflict, since the group members know their position in the group and know how to deal both with and in different situations, following their position. Furthermore individuals would be willing to serve their team members and want to identify themselves with their colleagues. From this reasoning it can be concluded that there will be less conflict in a team with a high degree of informal status hierarchy, due to its order and clear division of labour. Halevy et al. (2012) confirm this by stating that hierarchy can reduce conflict via subservience, identification and internalization.
Furthermore much research has shown that groups tend to give higher rank to members who exhibit superior capabilities (Anderson & Brown, 2010). The persons that are at the top of a team (so that do have a higher hierarchical function) normally are qualified for this position and are thus capable and competent to make good decisions for the whole group. Therefore it can be stated that steeper hierarchies will – next to the fact that they lead to efficient decisions – result in less conflict about control over the team (Anderson & Brown, 2010). Put differently, steeper hierarchies will diminish the problem of having ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ (Anderson & Brown, 2010). The majority of the team members would aim to have the most capable person at the top of the team, who is, according to them, the best in making decisions for the whole team. Since team members with a lower status agree with the members with the higher status, there would be less room for conflict.
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H1: There is a negative relationship between the steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict.
Previous research widely discussed that there is a negative relationship between the hierarchy steepness and the amount of intra-team conflict (Anderson et al., 2008; Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). However, in addition to this clarification and reasoning, it is also important to know under which condition this relationship gets stronger. Preceding research (Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012) suggests that group-level processes support the positive effects of hierarchy in work environments, especially in work environments that involve high rather than low levels of task interdependence. Task interdependence refers to the extent to which work is performed or work processes themselves are interrelated so that changes in the state of one element affect the state of the other (Yan, Marie Francesco, Zhang & Chen, 2013). In executing interdependent tasks, each member must take actions for other members to do any part of the work (Wageman, 1995) and individuals share materials, information or expertise (Van der Vegt, Emans & Van der Vliert, 2001). Therefore work that is highly interdependent requires the input of several people to complete it (Wageman, 1995). This research will now focus on finding out at which level of task interdependence the relationship between hierarchy steepness and intra-team conflict and coordination gets stronger.
Halevy et al. (2012) suggest that the achievement of reduced conflict by having a hierarchy within the organization is the most relevant in contexts involving high, rather than low levels of task interdependence. Individuals who are highly interdependent are motivated to maintain positive relationships to facilitate task completion (Hershcovis, Reich, Parker & Bozeman, 2012). They are motivated to maintain these positive relationship since they are aware that this will serve a successful completion of their task. Individuals in a task interdependent group are more willing to help each other within the group and positive interpersonal relationships are developed (Hershcovis et al., 2012). Individuals within the group are more willing to help each other since they are working together with frequent interaction, which makes that individuals might be more likely to show a positive attitude towards others to receive assistance (Chen, Tang & Wang, 2009). These positive attitudes towards each other within the group will result in less interpersonal frictions and it will thus result in less intra-team conflict.
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status hierarchy, he or she is likely to ask for advice or help of a higher status team member. Since the higher status team member is in the informal position of advising or helping team members, he or she would be willing to do so and no conflict about this will thus arise. In the case that both persons are dependent on each other for the completion of their task, both the demand for and the willingness to give advice is more likely to be present, since this will serve both their outcomes, and thus less intra-team conflict will arise.
My second Hypothesis is therefore:
H2: Task interdependence moderates the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict in such a way that this relationship becomes more negative when team members are task interdependent.
Asalready mentioned before, one of the reasons that people prefer hierarchical orders is that hierarchy is particularly effective at facilitating coordination within social groups (Halevy et al., 2011; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). When roles and hierarchical relations are not clear, work tends to become confusing, inefficient and frustrating, and thus, coordination suffers (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). By having a clear status hierarchy within the team, team members would immediately know to whom to defer or whom to ask for assistance. Halevy et al. (2012) confirms this by stating that a steeper hierarchy helps team members to know who does what, when and how. With a steeper status hierarchy, individuals would be aware of their order within the team, and thus coordination is more likely to be applied within the team. The person with a higher status within the teamcoordinates the persons with a lower status within the team. This is confirmed by Halevy et al. (2011) and Kwaadsteniet and van Dijk (2010) who state that hierarchy steepness can also create a pattern of voluntary deference of the lower status individuals towards the higher status individuals that facilitates tacit coordination (Halevy et al., 2011). A field study of Kwaadsteniet and van Dijk (2010) in which team members had to choose an option without communicating with each other, in which one option serves the high status individual and one serves the lower status individual, has proven that differences in status helped two parties to coordinate their actions (i.e. choose their option) by directing them to concurrently select the option that served the higher status member more than the lower status member. Concluding from this, it can be stated that there is more coordination in teams with a steeper status hierarchy.
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coordination of action for many kind of tasks (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). When working closely together on an interrelated task, individuals with lower status prefer to work interdependently with higher status colleagues, since this will clarify roles and facilitates the coordination within the task context (Magee & Galsinky, 2008). This especially adapts when tasks are interdependent since in this situation, when team members are working so closely together, they would immediately know to whom to defer to or ask for advice or assistance when there is a steeper hierarchy within the team. Furthermore, since individuals in task interdependent teams are working so closely and interdependently together, it would be more obvious for the higher status team member in which way these team members would need each other to successfully complete their tasks. The higher status individual can thus give more order to these interdependent members in a way that serves the outcome the best. This is supported by Magee and Galinsky (2008) who are stating that individuals with a higher status can direct the individuals with a lower status by assisting in signifying who does what and assisting in the group’s process. Furthermore, the reasoning based on the field study of Kwaadsteniet and van Dijk (2010) in which members both choose the option that served the higher status member more than the lower status member, would become more salient when tasks are interdependent. In task interdependent teams, team members exactly know what serves their team the best for the successful completion of their tasks. Therefore, individuals would thus better be able to coordinate their actions in choosing the right option, when they are working on an interdependent task.
From this reasoning Hypothesis 3 follows:
H3: Task interdependence moderates the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination in such a way that this relationship becomes more positive when team members are task interdependent.
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Galinsky, 2008). In other words, no discrepancies about each group member’s positions, which means no intra-team conflict concerning the division of positions, is allowed to effectively solve coordination problems. Since effective communication is an important condition for effective coordination (Rico, Sánchez-Manzanares, Gil & Gibson, 2008), intra-team conflict within a team would harm the coordination within the team. Due to this logical reasoning it can be stated that intra-team conflict mediates the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination.
The moderator task interdependence not only proves to have an influences on the dependent relationships between steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict and steepness of the hierarchy and coordination, it proves to have an influence on the whole relationship of steepness of the hierarchy, intra-team conflict and coordination as well. When team members in a hierarchical team are dependent on each other for the completion of their task, there will be less chance of conflict, since persons need to work closely together to reach the desired outcome and thus higher status members are more willing to assist lower status members (Halevy et al., 2012; Hershcovis et al., 2012). This decreasing possibility of intra-team conflict within more hierarchical intra-teams due to task interdependence will results in more room for effective communication between the higher status individual and the lower status individual and thus more effective coordination is possible. My final proposition is therefore that the absence of intra-team conflict will explain the relationship between hierarchy steepness and coordination for teams that conduct interdependent tasks. The whole moderated mediation model thus presents the beneficial effects of hierarchy steepness on coordination by a decrease in intra-team conflict, especially at high levels of task interdependence, which can be seen in the conceptual model in Figure 1.
Hypothesis 4 can thus be defines as followed:
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FIGURE 1
Moderated mediation model
METHOD Sample procedure
I tested the above mentioned hypotheses by collecting the data, together with a group of four other master students, within 72 work team in the Netherlands. Several criteria were set to clearly define the work teams that were able to participate in the research. First of all, a work team had to consist of at least six persons, including a team leader, who performed organizationally relevant tasks, shared one or more common goals, interacted socially, exhibited task interdependencies (i.e. work flow, goals, outcomes), maintained and managed boundaries and were embedded in an organizational context that set boundaries, constrained the team, and influenced exchanges with other units in the broader entity (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003: 334). Although I researched 72 work teams within the Netherlands, they operated in diverse sectors, both profit and non-profit. Thirty-four of the teams operated in the profit sector (e.g., industry, transport and storage, business services), 36 teams operated in the non-profit sector (e.g. education, government and social insurances, healthcare) and for two teams no information was available with respect to which sector they operated in. The team members within all these teams executed different functions. Amongst them there were teachers, mentors, field analysts and all round staff members.
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of the questionnaires (mainly the names of the team members). During the first appointment the team members filled out the first questionnaire. By letting the team members fill out the questionnaire in a meeting, I strived to minimize communication about the questionnaires between the participants. As the team members returned their questionnaires to me, I provided the team members with the second questionnaire, which had tobe filled in the following week. After this week, I went back to the organization to collect the second questionnaires. All the team members in this research were given a unique team code to enable me and the other master students to link the first and the second questionnaires to each other and to assist us in the data analysis.
Within the questionnaires, two sources of information were used to minimize potential common method variance concerns (Cole, Walter & Bruch, 2008), which where peer rating (i.e. round robin) and self-report design. The members of each team rated one another’s status (round robin) and indicated their perception of task interdependence, intra-team conflict and coordination (self-report). Given that the Dutch respondents varied in their capability to understand English, our measures were translated to Dutch using a double-blind back translation process. Only the Dutch version was offered to participants. Participation in the survey by both team members and team leaders was voluntary and confidentiality was guaranteed.
The final sample consisted of 72 work teams in 42 organizations, resulting in 458 team member responses. The overall response rate among the participating work teams was 89%. These teams ranged in size from 5 to 18 team members and the average team size was 7.17 (s.d. = 2.19). The average team member age was 42,11 years (s.d. = 12.40); 54% of team members were female; 49% had a vocational qualification or higher and team members had an average team tenure of 5,65 years (s.d. = 6,47).
Measures
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members within the same team. Higher values of the standard deviation indicated steeper status hierarchies.
Task interdependence. Task interdependence was measured with five items using the task interdependence scale of Van der Vegt et al. (2001). Some sample items include “I have to obtain information and advice from my colleagues in order to complete my work”; “I have a one-person job; I rarely have to check or work with others” (reverse-coded); and “I have to work closely with my colleagues to do my work properly”. These five items were measured on a seven-point response scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) and together they formed a reliable total representation of task interdependence, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.78. The five task interdependent items were averaged for each individual member and were then aggregated to the team level.
Intra-team conflict. The mediator intra-team conflict was measured with 9 items according to the intra-team conflict scale of Jehn (1995) and Shah and Jehn (1993). Some of the sample items include “How much friction is there among members in your work unit?” (representing relationship conflict); “How often do people in your work unit disagree about opinions regarding the work being done?” (representing task conflict); and “To what extent did you disagree about the way to do things in your work group?” (representing process conflict). These nine items in the questionnaire were measured on a seven-point response scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always) and together they formed a reliable total representation of intra-team conflict. The nine items were averaged for each individual member and were then aggregated to the team level , the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.90.
Coordination. The dependent variable coordination was measured with five items adapted from the coordination scale of Lewis (2003) and Janicik and Bartel (2003). Some sample items include “Our team worked together in a well-coordinated fashion”; “My group experienced interruptions or delays in the flow of work between members” (reverse-coded); and “My group had trouble coordinating the space members wanted to work at (i.e., some members wanted to work faster or slower than others)” (reverse-coded). These five items in the questionnaire were measured on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The five items were averaged for each individual member and then aggregated to the team level. Together they formed a reliable total representation of coordination, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85.
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tend to face coordination problems that smaller groups do not have or in that the use of coordination increases once the team size increases, I included team size as a control variable in all the analyses. Team tenure was also included as control variables in all the analyses since previous research has proposed that team tenure is related to coordination in a way that greater team tenure facilitates coordination (Smith, Smith, Sims, O’Bannon & Scully, 1994). Furthermore, as is suggested by Harrison and Klein (2007) we control for the mean level of status as well.
RESULTS Data analyses
I tested my hypotheses on the team level using the moderated ordinary least square (OLS) regression (Aiken & West, 1991). We standardized all the predictor variables and computed the interaction effect by multiplying the respective standardized predictor variables. Finally we checked the moderated mediation model according to Preacher, Rucker and Hayes’ macro (2007). The MODMED macro of Preacher et al. (2007) estimates the coefficients for the moderated mediation model, once the independent variable, the mediator, the outcome and the moderator in the analysis are provided. The macro present the estimates of the model and the conditional indirect effects and hypothesis tests on two prerequisites. One prerequisite is that the macro is set at the sample mean, one standard deviation above the mean or one standard deviation below the mean. Another prerequisite is the indirect effects at values of the moderator in several appreciations within the range of the data (Preacher et al., 2007). The macro can furthermore control whether bootstrapping is used, and if so, the number of bootstrap samples taken as well as whether the macro generates confidence intervals (Preacher et al., 2007).
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Descriptive statistics
Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations and zero-order Pearson correlations among the studied variables. A review of the correlations show that hierarchy steepness was negatively correlated with coordination (r = -.24, p <.05) and marginally positively correlated with intra-team conflict (r = .22, p < .10). Furthermore, the mean status in the team was positively correlated with task interdependence (r = .28, p < .05) and marginally positively with coordination ( r = .21, p <.10). Additionally, task interdependence was marginally positive related with team conflict ( r = .22, p < .10). The results of this analysis showed that intra-team conflict was not linearly related to coordination (r = -.79, p < .05).
TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations a
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1.Team size 7.17 2.90 2.Team tenure 5.60 4.44 -.04 3.Mean status 4.40 0.61 .03 -.08 4.Hierarchy steepness 0.63 0.31 -.01 -.13 -.10 5.Task interdependence 4.52 0.60 -.09 -.02 - .28* .09 6.Intra-team conflict 3.32 0.77 -.06 .02 -.15 .22~ .22~ 7.Coordination 4.79 0.80 -.03 -.05 .21~ -.24* -.12 -.79 a n=72 * p <.05, ~ p < .10 Hypotheses Testing
Table 2 represents the results of the Ordinary Least Square regression analysis as well as the moderated-mediation macro check (Preacher et al., 2007). As shown in Table 2, steepness of the hierarchy is positively associated with intra-team conflict, as indicated by a marginally significant regression coefficient (B = .16, p < .10). Since these results, proving that the steepness of the hierarchy has a positive influence on intra-team conflict, are contradictory to my expectations, Hypothesis 1 is not supported.
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TABLE 2
Results of Regression Analyses and conditional indirect relationships a
becomes more negative when tasks are interdependent. However, no significance was found for the moderating role of task interdependence in the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict. As can be seen from Table 2, the cross-product of hierarchy
Intra-team conflict Coordination
Predictor Model 1 Model 1 Model 2
B SE B SE B SE Controls Team size -.04 .09 -.04 .09 -.06 .06 Team tenure .03 .09 -.05 .09 -.03 .06 Mean status -.10 .09 .18~ .10 .06 .07 Main effects Hierarchy steepness .16~ .09 -.17~ .10 -.06 .06 Task interdependence -.20* .1 -.14 .10 .02 .07 Two-way interactions Hierarchy steepness * task
interdependence -.01 .11 .05 .11 .04 .07
Mediator
Intra-team conflict -.62* .06
Conditional indirect relationship
Moderator Value 95 % Confidence Interval (BCA)
-1 SD -.016, .443
M -.029, .342
+1 SD -.175, .346
a N = 72. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
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steepness and task interdependence was negatively related to intra-team conflict and not significant (B = -.01, ns). This relationship is also plotted in Figure 2.
In Hypotheses 3 I assumed that task interdependence would moderate the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination in such a way that this relationship becomes more positive when tasks are interdependent. The first unexpected outcome here is that hierarchy steepness was marginally negatively related to coordination (B = -.17, p <.10), instead of positively as expected. Additionally, there is no significance found for the moderating role of task interdependence in the relationship between hierarchy steepness and coordination (B = .04, ns). This relationship is also plotted in Figure 3. As it can be seen from Table 2, the cross-product of hierarchy steepness and task interdependence was positively related to coordination and not significant (B = .05, ns).
Finally, Hypotheses 4 tested the whole moderated mediating model suggesting that intra-team conflict mediates the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination, especially at high levels of task interdependence. No significance was found in this relationship as well (B = .04, ns). The moderated mediation model is explained by Baron and Kenny (1986). For the moderated mediation model to work, the significance level should change when the mediator is added to the model, which is not the case here, since the model was already not significant without the mediator. Furthermore, the results of this test show that conflict is very negatively significant correlated to coordination (B = .62, p <.05)
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FIGURE 2
Interactive relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict, moderated by task interdependence
FIGURE 3
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DISCUSSION
The objective of my study was to research the influence of steepness of the hierarchy within a team context. I developed a conceptual model that proposed a positive relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination, mediated by intra-team conflict. I then suggested that this relationship will be reinforced under the condition that team members work on interdependent tasks. Four hypothesis derived from this conceptual model and they were broadly grounded. Research within 72 work teams has been conducted to test these hypotheses.
Findings
In the first hypotheses I assumed status hierarchy to have a negative influence on intra-team conflict. The reasoning was based on elaborate theoretical findings (e.g. Anderson & Brown, 2008; Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). However, contradictory to my expectations, Hypothesis 1 appeared not to be proven, since this research shows a positive relationship between the steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict. This confirms the previous suggestion of researchers that the effects of steeper hierarchies are highly mixed (Anderson & Brown, 2010).
The fact that the results of my analysis show a positive relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and intra-team conflict, although a negative relationship was expected according to the literature review, might be due to the study design. The research is conducted within 72 work teams within various different sectors. The sectors in which the companies operated might have had an influence on this relationship. For example, a number of organizations that were researched were schools, based in the educational sector. One might understand that the steepness of the informal status hierarchy within a school team might be reasonably different allocated than the steepness of an informal status hierarchy within a business organization. Bounding this research to particular sectors might have given different outcomes.
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task interdependence is negatively related to intra-team conflict, instead of positive as I assumed.
In previous research (Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012) task interdependence was not actually measured but it was based on a comparison between baseball and basketball teams. This research added value by actually measuring task interdependence. A possible reason for this unexpected outcome of the research might be the measurement method of task interdependence. In my study, team members rated their task interdependence themselves. By looking at the data set, it appeared that team members within the same team often rate their amount of task interdependence within the team completely different. This means that there was no consistency within the team about whether or not they are dependent on each other in the completion of their task. If one general score about the task interdependence in the team would have been used (for example rated by the team leader) different outcomes might have appeared. The fact that this research measured task interdependence in work organizations instead of in sport teams might also have given a difference in the outcome. The hypothesis founding was partly based on theory based on task interdependence within sports teams (Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). Since the findings of this research were based on task interdependence in real life work teams, one can image that this would give different results than task interdependence in sports teams, due to the fact that individuals in a work team work differently together than individuals in a sports team do.
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lead to less coordination, since team members do not call for coordination of the higher status members or the higher status members do not see the need to coordinate their team members.
Finally I tested the whole model by assuming that intra-team conflict mediates the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination, especially at high levels of task interdependence. Different authors have argued this whole moderating mediation model (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). However, the results of the research have shown that no moderating mediating model is proven. Since there already was no significance found for the relationship between steepness of the hierarchy and coordination, moderated by task interdependence, a logical consequence would be that no significance would be found for the whole moderated mediation model. Next to that, all the previous mentioned reasoning (e.g., measurement method of task interdependence, sectors in which I conducted my research, mixed effects of hierarchy steepness) have contributed to this insignificance of the model and should be taken into account for future research.
Theoretical implications
Although the research results show a vast amount of unexpected non-significant relationships, this research definitely adds value to existing status literature. First of all, since past research devoted little attention on the team level (Christie & Barling, 2010), our research contributed to existing literature by focusing on this field of study again. In solid contrast to past findings there is a marginally positive significant relationship between hierarchy steepness and intra-team conflict. This implies that work teams with a steeper status hierarchy would face more intra-team conflict, instead of less intra-team conflict as was suggested so far in status literature. Furthermore, hierarchy steepness appears to relate marginally negative significantly to coordination. This endorses to previous contingencies in this field, stating that hierarchies are not per definition good or bad (Anderson & Brown, 100). Additionally, since the moderating role of task interdependence was not proven to be significant in the relationships, my research adds to previous literature that the measurement method can be crucial, since previous research did not measure task interdependence and this research did. My contribution in this field was thus to make a starting point in measuring task interdependence, which should be elaborated on by future researchers. Finally, the fact that the moderated mediation model is not proven to be significant also serves contingencies theories in their statement that the influence of hierarchies depends on various factors.
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Strengths, limitations and future research
Within my research, several strengths can be identified. First of all, my research was focused on the somewhat larger teams, since a team needed to consist of at least five team members to be able to participate. This will make that my research contributed to existing research in reliability. Another strength is that the results of my research are generalizable, due to the fact that I conducted a field research within cross-sectional team levels in multiple business sources, instead of in sports teams, as previous research has done (Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012). The results as found in my research are thus applicable to organizational work teams in general. Furthermore, the fact that my research actually measured task interdependence instead of only assuming it, strengthened my research as well. Besides measuring task interdependence, the measurement method of hierarchy in my research is also way more direct and accurate than measurement methods of hierarchy in previous literature (Halevy et al., 2012). In my research hierarchy is measured by individuals rating their fellow team members, which gives an accurate reflection of the informal status hierarchy within a team, instead of measuring hierarchy by for example the amount of monetary rewards that different team members receive.
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end of a questionnaire had a shorter response time and a lower variability which results in lower quality of the data. This unexpected longer duration of the questionnaire thus decreased the quality of the answers at the end of the questionnaire. Future researchers should therefore take the duration of their questionnaire into account, to overcome that it would influence their outcomes in a negative way.
Since Halevy et al. (2012) stated that there are more aspects that have a moderating influence on the relationship between hierarchies and group processes, these should also be taken into account for future research. One of these aspects is legitimacy. Without task interdependence there would be no vindication for hierarchical differentiation anymore, which reduces the perceived legitimacy (Halevy et al., 2012). Future research should therefore focus on the moderating role of legitimacy as well. Another limitation to my research is that I did not include status conflict within the research. Status conflict, defined as the conflict over members’ status positions in the groups’ social hierarchy, is an important fourth type of conflict and may be interesting to investigate on in future research (Bendersky & Hayes, 2012: 232). Since status conflict would be more likely to reside in teams with steeper status hierarchies, it would be interesting to investigate whether this could declare the positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and intra-team conflict.
Practical implications
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