Is cooperation a panacea? The effect of cooperative response to task conflict on team performance

Task conflict is unavoidable, and cooperation is widely adopted to manage task conflict within work teams. Prior studies demonstrated that the effects of cooperative response to task conflict on team performance can be positive or none. To explain the inconsistent effects, based on cooperation and competition theory, this study explores how and when cooperative response to task conflict increases team performance. Seventy-one work teams from Chinese organizations responded to a survey. Results show that knowledge integration mediates the positive effect of cooperative response to task conflict on team performance. More interestingly, need for cognition and resource interdependence moderate the aforementioned mediating process in such a way that cooperative response increases team performance through knowledge integration only when need for cognition is high or when resource interdependence is high. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.