Factional Groups: A New Vantage on Demographic Faultlines, Conflict, and Disintegration in Work Teams

Abstract

We develop the concept of factional groups, or those in which members are representatives from a small number of (often just two) social entities. Such groups include many merger integration teams, bilateral task forces, and joint venture teams. We extend theory about group demography by arguing that factional groups possess preexisting faultlines that require a new conception of demographic dissimilarity. We propose that large demographic faultlines between factions engender task conflict, emotional conflict, and behavioral disintegration-which in turn lead to poor performance. We tested our model using data from 71 joint venture management groups. Data gathered in two waves strongly supported our propositions.