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S. Schweiger, S. Konlechner, W. Güttel:
"How Cooperation Reinforces Conflict Over Time: The Role of Simplified Images and Disidentification";
Project Management Journal, 51 (2020), 62 - 76.

Managing projects raises multiple tensions such as the need to balance cooperativeness and assertiveness. By adopting a process
perspective, we analyze why a project group consisting of three heterogeneous subgroups is failing to uphold such balance over
time. Instead, overemphasizing cooperativeness in the early phases of the project led to over- assertiveness and escalation of
group conflict. We identify three mechanisms for reinforcing dynamics. First, we find that subgroups overestimate other sub -
groups´ behavioral autonomy, which promotes holding simplified, negative images of each other. Second, subgroups adopt ver -
tical disidentification when they define their own particular role. Third, cooperativeness conceals pejorative perceptions.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/8756972819891281