Voice and punctuation: A process model of conflict enactment in new venture teams

Abstract

This paper presents an emergent process model of conflict enactment in new venture teams. The analysis is based on the inductive study of conflict process in three new venture teams over six months, leveraging a unique combination of interviews, video recorded observations and analysis of online chat conversations among team members. The analysis advances team conflict research by offering a novel conceptualization of team conflict, one that complements the prevalent focus on conflict content. Moreover, by introducing the concept of team voice as a regulatory mechanism underlying productive conflict process, the analysis challenges some fundamental assumptions of how conflicts are productively solved. The essence of this idea being that it is not conflict, argument, or negative affect that destroys a team, but rather the absence of positive conversations.