The impact of interpersonal conflict on construction project performance

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between interpersonal conflict and construction project performance. The authors test the proposition that this relationship is mediated by negative emotions and moderated by political skill. Design/methodology/approach – This study used a structured questionnaire survey and gathered 266 completed data from 45 construction project teams in mainland China. To test the hypotheses, bootstrapping procedures were used. Findings – The results show that interpersonal conflict and negative emotions all have inverse relationships with project performance. Additionally, negative emotions mediated the relationship between interpersonal conflict and project performance, and this indirect relationship will be mitigated when team members have a high level of political skill. Research limitations/implications – These findings indicate that interpersonal conflict has a detrimental influence on project performance and should attract broad attention for future empirical literature. Furthermore, political skill is an effective contingent factor to suppress the detrimental influence of interpersonal conflict. Practical implications – The findings imply that managers should highlight the importance of interpersonal conflict in construction projects. Originality/value – This paper addresses a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship among interpersonal conflict, negative emotions and construction project performance, and it takes into account the moderating role of political skill. The paper also offers practical assistance to construction project managers in managing interpersonal conflict.

The buffering role of political skill on the relationship of interpersonal conflict and project performance through negative emotion as a mediator

“…Findings additionally demonstrate that Nurse Managers are urged to make a workplace that supports polished methodology and limits conflict (Zakari et al, 2010). China is also focusing on harmony and obedience facing interpersonal conflict (Zhang, 2015). As it is expected by the parties to avoid conflict but its inescapable nature of interpersonal conflict exists.…”

“…In this study, the criteria which are used to study the project performance are general criteria used for different projects i.e. Project cost, time, quality, stakeholder satisfaction, project safety and risk goals are used as the same criteria are used in the past studies (Zhang, 2015).…”

“…Furthermore, antagonistic feelings mediated the connection between interpersonal conflict and project performance. Outcomes demonstrate that interpersonal clash has an unfavorable impact on the performance of the project and ought to appeal an expansive consideration for the future as well (Zhang and Huo, 2015).…”

“…With the above discussion and past researches, the suggested theoretical framework is given below in order to back and support this study. The Zhang (2015) model is established over the other alternatives as it was the most current model developed studied the influence of interpersonal/social conflict on job performance. The current study is focusing on Gap which includes the Moderating role of political skill.…”

Interplay of relational governance, task conflict, opportunism and their effect on the performance of projects.

“…Project conflict can have several causes such limited resources, differences in priority and differences in understanding of project arrangement (Xue, Wang, Shen, & Yu, 2007). It is assumed that project performance is affected by conflict in both ways destructively and constructively which can be determined by several factor which include uncertain occurrence of conflict and the diversity of conflict (Akiner, 2014;de Carvalho, Patah, & de Souza Bido, 2015;Zhang & Huo, 2015). Internal conflicts are related to stakeholders' behaviour and are closely associated with project performance.…”