IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v66y2023i6p729-740.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A new leadership challenge: Navigating political polarization in organizational teams

Author

Listed:
  • Javidan, Mansour
  • Cotton, Rick
  • Kar, Anirban
  • Kumar, Medha Satish
  • Dorfman, Peter W.

Abstract

In this article, we highlight an increasingly important issue in the workplace: the dysfunctional divide between employees of different political affiliations that results in reduced trust and heightened conflict. We provide evidence that differences in political views are having an increasingly corrosive effect on trust, interpersonal relations, and the very ability of teams—at all levels and in many countries around the world—to achieve their missions and to reach their objectives. Drawing from data we collected from managers and professionals before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate the consequences of political polarization in the workplace and explain both how trust is built and how empathy has become an increasingly important factor in trust building among coworkers. Most importantly, we provide actionable strategies for team leaders as to how to effectively manage political polarization and increase trust among team members.

Suggested Citation

  • Javidan, Mansour & Cotton, Rick & Kar, Anirban & Kumar, Medha Satish & Dorfman, Peter W., 2023. "A new leadership challenge: Navigating political polarization in organizational teams," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(6), pages 729-740.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:66:y:2023:i:6:p:729-740
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2023.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681323000320
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2023.03.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rockey, James & Zakir, Nadia, 2020. "When two tribes go to work: Board political diversity and firm performance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Mutz, Diana C., 2002. "Cross-cutting Social Networks: Testing Democratic Theory in Practice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 111-126, March.
    3. Lilliana Mason, 2015. "“I Disrespectfully Agree”: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 128-145, January.
    4. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Hester van Herk & Robbert Maseland, 2022. "The Nature of Societal Conflict in Europe; an Archetypal Analysis of the Postmodern Cosmopolitan, Rural Traditionalist and Urban Precariat," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(6), pages 1701-1722, November.
    5. Shanto Iyengar & Sean J. Westwood, 2015. "Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(3), pages 690-707, July.
    6. Claude Berrebi & Hanan Yonah, 2016. "Terrorism and philanthropy: the effect of terror attacks on the scope of giving by individuals and households," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 171-194, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chonnakan Rittinon & Boontida Sa-ngimnet & Suparit Suwanik & Tanisa Tawichsri & Thiti Tosborvorn, 2022. "Misunderstood Differences: Media, Perception, and Out-Group Animosity in Thailand," PIER Discussion Papers 194, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, revised Sep 2024.
    2. Helbling, Marc & Jungkunz, Sebastian, 2020. "Social divides in the age of globalization," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(6), pages 1187-1210.
    3. Vicky Chuqiao Yang & Tamara van der Does & Henrik Olsson, 2021. "Falling through the cracks: Modeling the formation of social category boundaries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-11, March.
    4. Eugen Dimant, 2020. "Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 029, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Stone, Daniel F., 2019. "“Unmotivated bias” and partisan hostility: Empirical evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 12-26.
    6. Dieter Dekeyser & Henk Roose, 2022. "Polarizing policy opinions with conflict framed information: activating negative views of political parties in a multi-party system," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1121-1138, June.
    7. Cornago Bonal, Luis & Raffaelli, Francesco, 2024. "Political Identities and the Politics of Workplace Cooperation," OSF Preprints j43tn, Center for Open Science.
    8. Anne-Sophie Neyra, 2022. "“Polish People Are Starting to Hate Polish People”—Uncovering Emergent Patterns of Electoral Hostility in Post-Communist Europe," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-26, November.
    9. Duell, Dominik & Valasek, Justin, 2019. "Political polarization and selection in representative democracies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 132-165.
    10. Kemal Kıvanç Aköz & Alexei Zakharov, 2023. "Electoral turnout with divided opposition," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 60(3), pages 439-475, April.
    11. Petter Törnberg & Claes Andersson & Kristian Lindgren & Sven Banisch, 2021. "Modeling the emergence of affective polarization in the social media society," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-17, October.
    12. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier, 2021. "Voting for compromises: alternative voting methods in polarized societies," ECON - Working Papers 394, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Ximeng Fang & Sven Heuser & Lasse S. Stötzer, 2023. "How In-Person Conversations Shape Political Polarization: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Initiative," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 270, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    14. Borbáth, Endre & Hutter, Swen & Leininger, Arndt, 2023. "Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 631-651.
    15. Mazen Hassan & Sarah Mansour & Stefan Voigt & May Gadallah, 2022. "When Syria was in Egypt’s land: Egyptians cooperate with Syrians, but less with each other," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 337-362, June.
    16. Fabio Sabatini, 2006. "Social Capital and Labour Productivity in Italy," Working Papers 2006.30, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. Luca Henkel & Philipp Sprengholz & Lars Korn & Cornelia Betsch & Robert Böhm, 2023. "The association between vaccination status identification and societal polarization," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(2), pages 231-239, February.
    18. Joshua Conrad Jackson & Marieke van Egmond & Virginia K Choi & Carol R Ember & Jamin Halberstadt & Jovana Balanovic & Inger N Basker & Klaus Boehnke & Noemi Buki & Ronald Fischer & Marta Fulop & Ashle, 2019. "Ecological and cultural factors underlying the global distribution of prejudice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, September.
    19. Sgroi, Daniel & Yeo, Jonathan & Zhuo, Shi, 2021. "Ingroup Bias with Multiple Identities: The Case of Religion and Attitudes Towards Government Size," IZA Discussion Papers 14714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Sabatini, Fabio, 2010. "Questionario e guida pratica per la misurazione del capitale sociale [Questionnaire and Guide Book for the Measurement of Social Capital]," MPRA Paper 21355, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:66:y:2023:i:6:p:729-740. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.