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

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the moderating role of political skills on the association of Interpersonal conflict and Project performance. This paper conducted a quantitative study to measure the moderating role of political skills. Past researches recognized that conflict is a vibrant aspect to lessen project performance through budget overrun. Negative emotions provoked by interpersonal/social conflict have a negative influence on project performance. The influence of interpersonal conflict on project performance by Lessing the dysfunctional outcome is the most emphasized part of this research. In the previous studies, the contingency approach was used to inspect the interpersonal conflict. This research was conducted in the defense industry of Saudi Arabia for the first time. Data was collected from project managers and project members. Hypotheses were tested with 280 samples and process macro was used to test the moderated mediated relation. A survey revealed that political skill does not act as a moderator. Furthermore, findings revealed that there exists a full mediation. Negative emotion mediates the relationship between negative emotion and project performance. This study would be a great step to strengthen the existing literature and will also help to increase knowledge in the prevailing literature. The research was on a small scale and data was conducted from small numbers of respondents. Moreover, research should be conducted to identify the reasons why a political skill does not exist as a moderator in the defense industry. Further, the analysis should be done to identify the other factors which make the project successful even in the presence of interpersonal conflict. When a political skill is not acting as a moderator then what are other factors that could act as a moderator to increase project performance should be catered in the future.