How competitive climates trigger conflict with colleagues and supervisors and how team knowledge sharing helps

Purpose This research paper aims to examine how a competitive psychological climate (CPC), in which employees perceive rewards and recognition to depend on outperforming others, relates to workplace conflict, and how team knowledge sharing shapes this relationship. Drawing on Job Demands–Resources theory, the authors examined how CPC relates to process, relationship and task conflict with colleagues (horizontal conflict; Studies 1 and 3) and with supervisors (vertical conflict; Studies 2 and 3). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from employed adults across diverse sectors (e.g. education, information technology, public administration, health care, manufacturing). All respondents were employees; in Studies 2 and 3, only employees reporting having a direct supervisor were included. Study 1 (cross-sectional survey n = 213 employees) examined CPC’s associations with process, relationship and task conflict directed toward colleagues (horizontal relationships). The moderating role of team knowledge transfer was also investigated. Study 2 (n= 254 employees) aimed to replicate Study 1 using a time-lagged design and focusing on conflict directed toward supervisors (vertical relationships). Study 3 (n= 206 employees) was an experimental, preregistered study to replicate prior results and test a mediating mechanism (perceived colleague support). Findings Study 1 found that CPC was positively associated with process, relationship and task conflict directed toward colleagues, with team knowledge sharing buffering the effects across relationship and process conflict. Study 2 largely replicated these findings for conflict directed toward supervisors, although moderation by team knowledge sharing emerged only for process conflict. Study 3 replicated and extended these findings by identifying perceived colleague support as a key mediator: in low knowledge-transfer teams, high CPC undermined colleague support, which in turn was negatively related to process, relationship and task conflict toward both colleagues and supervisors. In contrast, in high knowledge-transfer teams, support was generally higher, partly offsetting the detrimental effect of CPC. Originality/value This work extends the literature by investigating the role of CPC in both horizontal and vertical conflict taking into consideration moderating (team knowledge sharing) and mediating (colleague support) processes, and using multiple methods (cross-sectional, time-lagged and experimental designs) to strengthen causal inference.