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The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically explore a model of four intra‐group conflict types (the 4IC model), consisting of an emotional person, a cognitive task, an emotional task, and a cognitive person conflict. The first two conflict types are similar to existing conceptualizations, whereas the latter two represent new dimensions of group conflict.

Based on a heuristic distinction between cognition and emotion, the four conflict types are defined, and scales for measuring them are developed. The psychometric and statistical properties of the scales were analyzed by data collected from four company samples and two student samples (n=208). The validity of the constructs was evaluated by comparing them with similar constructs, in particular, the Intra‐group Conflict Scale (ICS), developed.

A theory‐driven exploratory factor analysis elicited a 19‐item structure of four reliable factors, representing the four conflict types. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated satisfactory properties of the data matrix compared with the proposed model. Furthermore, a refined 12‐item scale was developed to consider the validity of the 4IC, with reasonably satisfactory findings.

Limitations concerning sample size, wording of items, the demarcation between conflict types and conflict approaches, and the robustness of the constructs are discussed. It is suggested that researchers may find the model useful for future studies of conflict in groups.

The model may be of assistance in handling conflicts in organizations. In particular, managers and employees may become aware that emotional conflicts are not always associated with relational or person‐oriented issues; they may as well concern task‐oriented issues. Furthermore, cognitive conflicts do not always have to be task‐oriented; they may also concern relational or person‐oriented issues. The introduction of the emotional task‐oriented and the cognitive person‐oriented conflict types may thus extend the conflict management toolbox for managers and employees.

The results of the study challenge common use of emotional and relationship/person conflicts as interchangeable conflict types, and cognitive and task conflict as interchangeable conflict types. Accordingly, the study suggests new ways to understand conflicts in groups.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between three conflict types, cognitive task conflict, emotional relationship conflict and emotional task conflict, and team effectiveness (team performance and team job satisfaction).

The authors conducted a group-level ordinary least square regression analysis of 61 working teams to investigate the study variables, and possible interaction effects among them. In an auxiliary analysis (36 teams), they analyzed the role of mood dimensions (hedonic valence and general conflict activation) as mediators to the relationship between cognitive task conflict and team effectiveness.

Cognitive task conflict was negatively related to team performance, emotional relationship conflict was negatively related to team job satisfaction and emotional task conflict was positively related to team performance, all controlled for the effect of each other. The relationship between cognitive task conflict and team job satisfaction was negatively moderated by team size. Mood valence mediated the relationship between cognitive task conflict and team performance, and between cognitive task conflict and team job satisfaction.

Several possible research lines emanate from the current field study. First of all, the authors suggest that emotional task conflict may be of particular interest, as this is hypothesized and found to be incrementally positively related to team performance. Second, their auxiliary study of the mediating effect of mood valence on the relationship between cognitive task conflict and performance may spur curiosity concerning the role of mood as a mediator of the relationship between task or cognitive conflicts and team effectiveness.

The practitioner should be advised to try to facilitate the distribution of intragroup conflict in their teams in the direction of an increased level of emotional task conflict (positive for performance) at the expense of cognitive task conflict (negative for performance) and emotional relationship conflict (negative for satisfaction). The practitioner should allow intragroup conflicts to be highly activated (intense), as long as the interactions are strictly directed to the task in hand, and not being personal. In addition, a positive mood in teams may significantly strengthen the team's resilience against adverse consequences of conflicts.

The three conflict types in this three-dimensional intragroup conflict model (3IC) have never been tested before, and the findings open for a conflict type – emotional task conflict – that may generally be conducive for the teams’ performance, evaluated by the teams’ supervisors. This is a conflict type where people simultaneously are emotional and yet task oriented. To the authors’ knowledge, this is a novelty, and they hope that it may encourage further research on this conflict type.

The ubiquity of smartphones has changed how people communicate, work and entertain. In view of conservation of resources theory and the positive spillover effect, this study explores the effect of non-work-related instant messaging (IM) in the workplace on daily task performance.

The authors use the experience sampling method to collect day-level data from 75 employees over a period of 10 workdays. Multilevel path analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

Non-work-related IM exerts a significant negative indirect effect on daily task performance through diminished cognitive engagement. This negative indirect effect disappears when social support is high, thereby showing the function of social support as a neutralizer of the detriment of non-work-related IM on daily task performance.

The findings suggest that organizations can neutralize the harm of non-work-related IM in the workplace by promoting social support perceived by employees.

This study advances the technology and management literature by developing and testing a balanced perspective on the ambivalent effect of workplace smartphone use that considers social and cognitive resource implications.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of cognitive tasks on mentoring provided and the moderating influence of having an educational leadership position.

This cross-sectional survey was based on a questionnaire sent to 435 employees of 29 preschools in Norway. A total of 284 responses were returned, with a response rate of 65.3%. A total of three research hypotheses were formulated. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to develop three measurement models, and structural equation modelling (SEM) based on the multigroup analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

Results revealed that cognitive tasks increase the occurrence of mentoring provided at work for employees with and without an educational leadership position. Furthermore, educational leadership moderates the relationship between cognitive tasks and mentoring provided.

The use of convenience sampling and self-reports are discussed, especially related to representativeness and reporting biases. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.

This is an understudied area, and no previous research has used a confirmatory approach to investigate how cognitive tasks and educational leadership influence the occurrence of mentoring provided.

To provide better services to customers, especially immediate responses and 24/7 availability, businesses are implementing text-based automated conversational agents, i.e. chatbots on their social platforms and websites. Chatbots are required to not only provide customers with necessary consultancy and guidance but also communicate friendly and socially. Based on the cognitive fit theory, this study attempts to examine the role of chatbot as a decision aid and how the match between information presentation in forms of decisional guidance and communication style and the shopping task influences consumers' perceived cognitive fit and decision performance outcomes.

A 2 x 2 x 2 between subject online experiment was conducted to identify which kind of decisional guidance (suggestive and informative guidance) and communication style (task-oriented vs social-oriented style) are the most appropriate for each type of shopping task (searching vs browsing task).

The findings show that when customers interact with chatbots, they will perceive higher cognitive fit if the chatbots provide them with suggestive guidance and communicate in a friendly style especially when they perform a searching task.

This study is the first attempt to understand the role of chatbots as a decision aid to customers using the communicative language. This study also tries to explore the cognitive fit theory in a novel way, and we propose the information presentation in forms of communicative language rather than matrices, tables and graphs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of cognitive style on navigating a large digital library of cultural heritage information; specifically, the paper focus on the wholist/analytic dimension as experienced in the field of educational informatics. The hypothesis is that wholist and analytic users have characteristically different approaches when they explore, search and interact with digital libraries, which may have implications for system design.

A detailed interactive IR evaluation of a large cultural heritage digital library was undertaken, along with the Riding CSA test. Participants carried out a range of information tasks, and the authors analysed their task performance, interactions and attitudes.

The hypothesis on the differences in performance and behaviour between wholist and analytic users is supported. However, the authors also find that user attitudes towards the system are opposite to expectations and that users give positive feedback for functionality that supports activities in which they are cognitively weaker.

There is scope for testing results in a larger scale study, and/or with different systems. In particular, the findings on user attitudes warrant further investigation.

Findings on user attitudes suggest that systems which support areas of weakness in users’ cognitive abilities are valued, indicating an opportunity to offer diverse functionality to support different cognitive weaknesses.

A model is proposed suggesting a converse relationship between behaviour and attitudes; to support individual users displaying search/navigation behaviour mapped onto the strengths of their cognitive style, but placing greater value on interface features that support aspects in which they are weaker.

The purpose of this study is to question the undifferentiated treatment of individual traders as “dumb noise traders?”. We question this undifferentiated verdict by conducting an analysis of the cognitive competence of individual investors.

The authors let experts (both experienced researchers as well as practitioners) assess the mathematical and verbal reasoning demands of investment tasks investigated in previous studies.

Based on this assessment, this paper concludes that individual investors are able to perform a number of complex cognitive actions, especially those demanding higher-order verbal reasoning. However, they seem to reach cognitive limitations with tasks demanding greater mathematical reasoning ability. This is especially unfortunate, as tasks requiring higher mathematical reasoning are considered to be more relevant to performance. These findings have important implications for future regulatory measures.

This study has two non-trivial limitations. First, indirect measurement of mental requirements does not allow authors to make definite statements about the cognitive competence of individual investors. To do so, it would be necessary to conduct laboratory experiments which directly measure performance of investors on different investment and other cognitively demanding tasks. However, such data are not available for retail investors on this market to the best of the authors’s knowledge. We therefore think that our approach is a valuable first step toward understanding investors’ cognitive competence using data that are available at this moment. Second, the number of analyzed (and available) tasks is rather low (n = 10) which limits the power of tests and restricts the authors from using more profound (deductive) statistical analyses.

This paper proposes to illustrate information in key investor documents mostly verbally (e.g. as proposed by Rieger, 2009), compel exchanges and issuers of retail derivatives to create awareness for the results of the reviewed studies and our conclusion and to offer online math trainings especially designed for individual investors to better prepare them for different trading activities, as these have been shown to be as effective as face-to-face trainings (Frederickson et al., 2005; Karr et al., 2003).

This study can only be considered as a first step toward understanding the cognitive limitations of individual investors indirectly and could be transferred to other market areas as well.

This study is the first to combine the assessment of outstanding researchers in this field with the results of previous studies. In doing so, this paper provides an overarching framework of interpretation for these studies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of verbal-imagery cognitive styles of information searching behavior of users in using the Web.

In all, 44 participants were recruited for this study. The participants’ cognitive styles were measured by using Riding's Cognitive Style Analysis test. Three search tasks were designed based on Kim's search task definitions. Moreover, an individual lab session was arranged and then participants’ memos were analyzed using content analysis.

In all, 48 strategies in four categories of behaviors in searching the Web were identified. There were associations between users’ cognitive styles and their information searching behavior. The participants’ selection of the search initiation behaviors varied, so that imagers suffered from more varied initial behavior than verbalizers. The verbalizers tended to search in a narrow area, then broadening the area and following structured navigation and reading behavior to process information, while imagers tended to search in a general area, then narrowing down the search and adopting mixed navigational styles and mixed behaviors to process information. This study revealed that there was a difference in search performance of verbalizers and imagers descriptively, as verbalizers spent more time compared to imagers and imagers visited more nodes than verbalizers for the tasks completion. In addition, the task was an important variable influencing the search performance. Based on the key findings (search initiation behaviors, formulating search queries, navigational behaviors, information processing behaviors), a conceptual pattern of Web searching and cognitive styles is presented.

The study provides a new understanding of Web users’ information search behavior based on cognitive styles which contributes to the theoretical basis of Web search research. It also raises various questions within the context of user studies

The paper adopted a mixed approach in the area of information searching on the Web. A valuable contribution lies in the methods developed.

Guided by the cognitive-affective system theory of personality (CAPS), this study aims to investigate the parallel mediating effects of cognitive and affective cynicism on the relationship between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance. It also proposes growth need strength as a moderating variable for relationships between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance.

Using a time-lagged design, data were gathered from 330 frontline hotel employees in China.

The authors found that the presence of illegitimate tasks is negatively associated with employees’ adaptive performance, this relationship being mediated by cognitive and affective cynicism. Growth need strength weakens the negative impacts of cognitive and affective cynicism on employees’ adaptive performance. In addition, the indirect effect of illegitimate tasks on employees’ adaptive performance via cognitive and affective cynicism is stronger for employees with lower levels of growth need strength.

Hotel managers must heed the negative impact of illegitimate tasks. Furthermore, they should underscore the importance of promoting a harmonious and positive organizational culture and atmosphere. Naturally, hotel managers must also establish effective communication with employees, assisting them in fostering a desire for excellence in their work.

This study provides valuable insights for the hospitality industry by investigating how illegitimate tasks hold sway over hotel employees’ adaptive performance. The study uses a moderated dual-path model to uncover the mechanisms behind this impact and the influence of boundary conditions, thereby expanding the understanding of the topic.