The impact of interpersonal conflict on construction project performance A moderated mediation study from China

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between interpersonal conflict and construction project performance. The authors test the proposition that this relationship is mediated by negative emotions and moderated by political skill. Design/methodology/approach - This study used a structured questionnaire survey and gathered 266 completed data from 45 construction project teams in mainland China. To test the hypotheses, bootstrapping procedures were used. Findings - The results show that interpersonal conflict and negative emotions all have inverse relationships with project performance. Additionally, negative emotions mediated the relationship between interpersonal conflict and project performance, and this indirect relationship will be mitigated when team members have a high level of political skill. Research limitations/implications - These findings indicate that interpersonal conflict has a detrimental influence on project performance and should attract broad attention for future empirical literature. Furthermore, political skill is an effective contingent factor to suppress the detrimental influence of interpersonal conflict. Practical implications - The findings imply that managers should highlight the importance of interpersonal conflict in construction projects. Originality/value - This paper addresses a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship among interpersonal conflict, negative emotions and construction project performance, and it takes into account the moderating role of political skill. The paper also offers practical assistance to construction project managers in managing interpersonal conflict.