Complex network approaches to small team analysis. Conflict and gender

Identifier:  TDX:1326

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX1326

Authors:  Rovira Asenjo, Núria

Abstract:
In a context where teams play an increasingly important role, it is of major importance to understand conflict and to develop diagnostic tools to avert it. Here, we investigate empirically whether it is possible to quantitatively predict future conflict in small teams using models of social network structure. We analyze data of 16 small teams. We find that models based on complex networks successfully anticipate conflict whereas traditionally used models do not. We also present a study about gender differences on leadership. This study aims to understand the mechanisms behind the leadership evaluation process. We analyze data of 45 leader evaluations (33% women). We find that female leaders are better evaluated than male leaders at the beginning. Later, this advantage vanishes together with the surprising effect of having a female leader. We also find that the network clustering of female leaders grows significantly more than the clustering of male leaders.