The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link The Role of Task and Process Conflict in StrategizingThe implementation of strategic initiatives is central to organizational success (Balogun & Johnson, 2004;. Recent studies show that implementation does not simply operationalize and execute strategy, but also results in subtle adjustments or explicit reformulations of strategy content (Sminia & de Rond, 2012;Vaara & Whittington, 2012). Strategy implementation is thus central to effective strategizing. Yet, strategy implementation is complex, partially because it is critically affected by human dynamics like resistance (Courpasson et al, 2013), politics (Whittle et al, 2013) and tension (Jarzabkowski et al, 2013). Rather than indicators of failure, such dynamics are an integral part of how organizations negotiate multiple goals (Denis et al, 2001(Denis et al, , 2007Johnson et al, 2003) and can improve the quality of strategy (Normann, 1977;Pettigrew, 1977). It is thus important to understand the human dynamics underlying strategy implementation.While strategy scholars have studied the role of dynamics such as resistance, politics, and tensions during strategy implementation, little focus has been put on conflict. This is surprising as (i) conflict is specifically about incompatibility of goals, processes and relationships (De Dreu and Gelfand, 2008;Jehn and Bendersky, 2003), which are central to strategy implementation; (ii) conflict significantly impacts organizational outcomes such as performance (De Wit et al., 2012) and helps develop organizational capability (Danneels, 2008;Hinthorne, 1996); (iii) all organizations are affected by conflict to some degree (De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008); and (iv) conflict often precedes resistance, politics and tensions (Courpasson et al, 2013;Jarzabkowski et al, 2013; Whittle et al, 2013). Hence, conflict is a critical dynamic for strategist to understand.The few studies explicitly investigating conflict in the strategy process tend to focus on formulation by studying strategic decisions (e.g. Amason, 1996;Amason & Schweiger, 1994;Eisenhardt et al, 1997). Such studies show that conflict leads to increased scrutiny of information and, consequently, better decisions Kellermanns et al, 2008;Mooney et al, 2007). There has been little attention to conflict during strategy implementation (exceptions: Floyd & Lane, 2000;Regnér, 2003). Conflict is likely to impact implementation but do not know how. That is our focus.Employing a strategizing perspective, we theorize the role of human dynamics in strategy implementation, focusing on conflict. We then investigate these ideas in a detailed longitudinal study of implementing a strategy in real-time, highlighting the importance of task and process conflict. Our study shows that the interaction of task and process conflict, and the responses this interaction evokes, enables strategy to emerge as actors implement it. Both conflict types enable...

Affective conflict and identification of knowledge sources in MNE teams

“…By examining the role of affective conflict in identification of knowledge sources in MNE team context, our study responds to several calls for how individuals identify and search knowledge residing within MNE teams at the micro-foundational level (Foss & Pedersen, 2004;Morris, Hammond, & Snell, 2014;Haas & Cummings, 2015). Similar calls have been recently made for unravelling micro-foundations of conflict in organizations (Lê, & Jarzabkowski, 2015). We thus contribute to greater understanding of identification of knowledge sources in MNE teams in three important ways.…”

“…Coviello, 2006;Jehn et al, 2008) and for MNE teams specifically (Hinds & Mortensen, 2005;Hinds & Bailey, 2003). Similarly, both Barclay & Kiefer (2014) and Lê, & Jarzabkowski (2015) have recently argued that prior research has ignored the simultaneous effect of negative and positive interactions, and we should isolate their differential impacts on organizational outcomes at the micro-foundational level. However, no prior research to our knowledge has empirically investigated the organizational outcomes of different types of affective conflict, especially from viewpoint of knowledge identification in MNE teams.…”

Unpacking the Meaning of Conflict in Organizational Conflict Research

“…There are, however, evident objections to the instrumental approach to studying conflict and whether the relationships between conflict types and performance should be so simple. It is particularly important to correctly diagnose task and process conflict, to harness the generative effects of conflict (Lê & Jarzabkowski, ) and that the manner and intensity of conflict expression influences conflict processes and subsequent outcomes (Weingart, Behfar, Bendersky, Todorova, & Jehn, ). Such studies move toward recognizing processual components of perception, interpretation, and expression as critical aspects influencing any relationships between conflict and performance.…”

“…The concepts of task and relationship conflict are widely used in conflict research and are therefore well-established concepts in the literature. The concept of process conflict is accepted as an important concept (see e.g., Greer, Jehn, & Mannix, 2008;Lê & Jarzabkowski, 2015;de Wit et al, 2012) but application is still limited. More recently, the concept of status conflict (Bendersky & Hays, 2012) has been added to the collection of conflict types.…”

Principais entraves e facilitadores da implementação de estratégias em empresas brasileiras

“…Uma vez que os planejadores não teriam como prever e definir todos os pormenores da estratégia, exigindo alguns ajustes incrementais, a partir da identificação e solução dos problemas que surgem no decorrer do processo (Lê & Jarzabkowski, 2015 Fischmann (1987), baseado em Bonoma (1984) Embora pareça haver uma crescente conscientização sobre a importância da implementação, corroborada pelo aumento de publicações sobre o tema (conforme representado no Figura 06), a literatura que trata da execução de estratégias é um processo fragmentado e eclético (Noble, 1999a Sacramento et al (2015) A maneira como a execução é conduzida, por exemplo, diverge entre as organizações. Nutt de planos estratégicos não realizam plenamente suas expectativas e ambições devido à má implementação (Cândido & Santos, 2015).…”