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

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2018 (ICCSA 2018)

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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 differentiated 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 difference 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.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under project grants UID/MULTI/00308/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-008540.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ESTGA, Universidade de Aveiro, 3750-127, Águeda, Portugal

    Isabel Dórdio Dimas

  2. GOVCOPP, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Isabel Dórdio Dimas

  3. IPCDVS, Universidade de Coimbra, 3001-802, Coimbra, Portugal

    Teresa Rebelo & Paulo Renato Lourenço

  4. FPCEUC, Universidade de Coimbra, 3000-115, Coimbra, Portugal

    Teresa Rebelo & Paulo Renato Lourenço

  5. CeBER and FEUC, Universidade de Coimbra, 3004-512, Coimbra, Portugal

    Humberto Rocha

  6. INESC-Coimbra, 3030-290, Coimbra, Portugal

    Humberto Rocha

Authors
  1. Isabel Dórdio Dimas
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  2. Teresa Rebelo
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  3. Paulo Renato Lourenço
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  4. Humberto Rocha
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Isabel Dórdio Dimas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  2. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  3. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  4. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Stankova

  5. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo M. Torre

  6. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A.C. Rocha

  7. Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    David Taniar

  8. Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka shi, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  9. Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy

    Eufemia Tarantino

  10. Myongji University, Yongin, Korea (Republic of)

    Yeonseung Ryu

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Dimas, I.D., Rebelo, T., Lourenço, P.R., Rocha, H. (2018). A Cusp Catastrophe Model for Satisfaction, Conflict, and Conflict Management in Teams. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2018. ICCSA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10961. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95165-2_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95165-2_24

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