Journal re

hey there I need this  journal article reviewed in about 400 words with the following prompts :

What is the title of the article, the journal in which it was found, and the electronic link to it (if applicable)? Use APA format and title your submission with this information as you would in an Annotated Bibliography.

Describe the content of the article.

How does the article relate to assigned readings (this week the reading are on  Individual and Intergroup Personality Differences)?

Was the article reviewed by experts in the field before it was published?

Does the article have a stated research problem that helps you determine the focus of the author’s work? What is it?

Does the article describe how the author collected and analyzed the data? Please explain.

Is the article logically organized and easy to follow? Support your response.

Is there a discussion of the author’s interpretation of the results of the study? What does it say?

What in this article was most important to you? Why did you find it interesting? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Is this article something you would recommend or use in the future? Why or why not?

Vol. IV (LXVI)

No. 2/2014 01 – 14

Faculty trust, conflict and the use of knowledge in an
international higher education context

Jonasson Charlottea*, Normann Jana, Lauring, Jakobb
a: Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University,

Aarhus
bBusiness Administration, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus

Abstract

Few studies have examined group dynamics among faculty in higher education organizations. This is
unfortunate since a well-functioning, collaborating faculty group has been shown to have a positive
effect on both staff and student performance. Another important, but underexplored theme is the effect
of university internationalization. In this study, we combine these two scarcely studied themes and
focus on the role of interpersonal trust, group emotional conflict, and group task conflict in
international university departments. Our findings reveal that while interpersonal trust is positively
associated with the faculty members’ use of each other’s knowledge the opposite is true for group
emotional conflict. We found no effect of group task conflict. But we found that the percentage of
foreigners in a department negatively moderated the effect of interpersonal trust on knowledge use.
Hence, the role of trust is less important for faculty’s use of each other’s knowledge resources in highly
cultural diverse departments compared to less heterogeneous settings.

Keywords: Faculty in higher education; university internationalization; interpersonal trust; group
emotional conflict; group task conflict

1. Introduction

Universities and other post-secondary education institutions are human-capital
intensive organizations and it has been shown that as much as 80 percent of higher
education cost is related to personnel (Harvey et al., 2006; Salaran, 2010). Due to this
high expense, faculty group functioning and effective collaboration on teaching and
research are becoming a top priority of higher education administrations. Moreover,
research has shown that cohesive and well-functioning academic faculty groups
provide better results as regards work satisfaction, academic faculty performance and
student achievements (Barth, 1990; Wheelan & Kesselring, 2005; Wheelan & Tilin,
1999). Nonetheless, a number of studies have shown that many higher education
institutions fail to sufficiently ensure interpersonal collaboration and social climate
(Johnson, 1990; Perez et al., 2012; Wheelan & Kesselring, 2005). Especially, many
post-secondary faculty groups could benefit from increased interpersonal trust and
reduced conflicts (cf. Sergiovanni, 1992).

While collaboration in academic faculty groups is as important as ever, universities
could be facing a number of growing challenges. Austin (2003) argues that at many
places, the past reality of a homogeneous academic faculty composed of locally born
teachers is rapidly phasing out. Accordingly, the increasing diversification of higher

* Corresponding Author: Tel. +45 87165834
E-mai address: charlotte@psy.au.dk

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J./Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 2

education faculty could put new pressure on efforts to improve teacher collaboration
and interpersonal relations (Keller, 2001; Young & Brooks, 2008). This development
is driven by the emergence of an international academic labor market, international
faculty mobility, and growing number of international students (Mamiseishvili &
Rosser, 2010; Van De Bunt-Kokhus, 2000; Webber, 2012). Still, however, very little
research has examined interpersonal relations in international higher education faculty
groups (Crosling et al., 2008; Karuppan & Barari, 2010; Morrison et al., 2005;
Paltridge et al., 2010).

In this study, we focus on the effect of interpersonal trust and group conflict on the
faculty’s use of each other’s knowledge. With regard to trust, Van Maele and Van
Houtte (2009) argue that while research on trust has a long tradition in organizational
studies, this theme has achieved relatively little attention in educational organizations.
Nonetheless, faculty trust is an important subject because trust is related to the
effective functioning of the school (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Kochanek, 2005; Louis,
2007). Another important concept is faculty group conflicts because this could
potentially undermine school productivity (Wheelan & Tilin, 1999).

Knowledge is also important as it is becoming a vital resource in today’s
organizations where learning is often at focus – not least in the educational sector
(Blackmore et al., 2011). In recent years, university faculty has been facing highly
complex problems, rapidly changing technologies and a dynamic growth and
diversification of knowledge in terms of multidisciplinary and multinational concerns
(Kanzler, 2010). In consequence, the individual academics will often have difficulties
providing all the expertise necessary to plan and carry out teaching and research but
must frequently confer each other and draw on the skills and experiences of
colleagues in order to solve central everyday problems (Hara et al., 2003). Based on
the above, the study of how trust and conflict influences the interpersonal use of
knowledge in international higher education faculty groups can be argued to be
relevant and novel.

1.1. Conceptualization

Interpersonal trust can be perceived as a psychological state of individuals
involving confident, positive expectations about the actions of others (Dirks & Ferrin,
2001). Scholars in various disciplines have provided many different definitions of
trust according to their perspective and research area. A number of different concepts,
including willingness to be vulnerable (Mayer et al., 1995), expectation (Hosmer,
1995) and attitude (Giffin, 1967) have been used to define trust. Nonetheless, in a
review article, Rousseau et al. (1998) found that most scholars investigating
interpersonal trust relate the concept to some kind of psychological state of mind.
Based on a thorough literature review, Rousseau and colleagues, in general terms,
define trust as a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability
based upon a positive expectation of the intentions or behavior of another.
Accordingly, scholars seem to agree that positive expectations and suspension of
uncertainty are central elements of the concept (De Jong & Elfring, 2010). Positive
expectations refer to the belief that the actions of another will be beneficial or at least
not detrimental, despite the possibility of being disappointed by these actions
(Luhmann, 1988).

Group conflict is defined as the process arising from perceived incompatibilities or
differences between group members (Greer et al., 2011). Research has suggested that
conflict can have relational (affective) as well as task-related (cognitive) dimensions
(De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Group emotional conflict is related to personal clashes
over values or personality (Jehn, 1995). This may create interpersonal frictions,
tensions, animosity or annoyance among group members (Behfar et al., 2011).
Consequently, while not being the complete opposite, emotional conflict should be
negatively associated with interpersonal trust (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992; Pelled,
1996). Group task conflict concerns task goals or outcomes and is related to differing

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J. /Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 3

work-related ideas and opinions about the group’s task (Jehn, 1994). Hence, group
task conflicts could be seen as disagreements about specific activities which group
members must perform to advance a project. It includes such behaviors as discussing
pros and cons, considering alternative courses of action or evaluating how conflicting
evidence fits with the group’s decisions (Jehn, 1995).

To use knowledge is understood as bringing it to bear on a problem or task in a
timely manner (Argote et al., 2000; Faraj & Sproull, 2000). However, using other’s
knowledge often requires that group members engage in close interactions that allow
them to observe and learn from each other (Janowicz-Panjaitan & Krishnan, 2009).
Knowledge has been argued to consist of both explicit and tacit dimensions (Polanyi,
1997). Tacit knowledge is often described as residing in the background of our
consciousness, enabling us to perform certain tasks and attend to specific problems.
This type of knowledge, however, cannot be always be clearly articulated or codified
as explicit knowledge (Staycey, 2001; Tsoukas, 1996). However, formal learning by
doing (such as an apprenticeship situation) can also facilitate the transfer and use of
tacit knowledge (Carlson et al., 2003).

1.2. Hypotheses

1.2.1. Trust and knowledge use

Trust has generally been found to positively influence cooperation (Cho & Park,
2011) and on-going relationships (Heavey et al., 2011). Trust among group members
also enhances interpersonal helping behaviors (Choi, 2006). By enhancing
collaborative processes, trusting groups can better manage the interdependencies
between their respective expertise spaces (Chiocchio et al., 2011). Trust is also likely
to promote recurrent cycles of successful cooperation among group members that set
standards for acceptable behavior in a group (Ferrin et al., 2008). In this regard, Costa
(2003) maintains that trust facilitates coordination among individuals because a high
level of trust increases the likelihood that one will cooperate with other group
members. In a school context, it has also been argued that trust is related to teachers’
collaboration (Tschannen-Moran, 2009) and a supportive organizational climate
(Goddard et al., 2001; Hoy et al., 2002). A link between mutual respect (Hoe &
McShane, 2010), strong social ties (Levin & Cross, 2004) and the sharing of
knowledge has been established. Guzman and Wilson (2005) argue for a relation
between seeing the value in knowledge sharing and mutuality, trust and respect. In a
qualitative study of academics in the science discipline, Antal and Richebé (2009)
found that the sharing of knowledge also involved an emotional dimension and the
importance of the relationship itself, rather than being limited to the outcome of the
exchange affected if knowledge was used across staff members. Accordingly, we
present the first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Interpersonal trust is positively associated with academic faculty
interpersonal knowledge use.

1.2.2. Conflict and knowledge use

Emotional conflicts are generally perceived to have negative effects on interaction
and individual well-being. Emotional conflict has for example been associated with
breakdown in cooperation (Pondy, 1967). Emotional conflict is also negatively related
to positive social processes (Behfar et al., 2011). Empirical evidence shows a relation
between low dysfunctional conflict and knowledge sharing (Dougherty, 1992).

In comparison with emotional conflict, group task conflict is a more debated theme
since both positive and negative effects have been found. Behfar et al. (2011) argue

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J./Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 4

that group task conflict could stimulate members’ commitment to the group’s task in
organizational settings. Group task conflict has also been found to increase involved
information seeking, improve individual members’ ability to foresee problems and
lead members to think about problems more carefully (Jehn & Bendersky, 2003;
Nemeth et al., 2001). Moreover, group task conflict has been found to create stronger
affective commitment to a task (Behfar et al., 2011).

On the other hand, group task conflict does not necessarily increase interaction and
positive group processes, as some studies have suggested (Behfar et al., 2008).
Despite a prevailing notion that group task conflicts benefit teams, De Dreu and
Weingart’s (2003) meta-analysis showed a strong negative correlation between group
task conflict and team performance plus member satisfaction. Accordingly, it may be
argued that while it could have potential constructive implications, group task conflict
is generally unhelpful for work groups (Chiocchio et al., 2011). In the case of
university teachers, it could be speculated that if group members were to suspect their
peers to have hidden agendas or personal gains in mind when proposing different
conflicting ways of performing tasks, such as delegating resources for teaching or
supervising, then the outcome of group task conflict could have a negative impact on
academic faculty interpersonal knowledge use as negative emotions could arise (cf.
Dirks & Ferrin, 2001; Van Maele & Van Houtte, 2009). Still, however, it is unlikely
that group task conflict will be as negative for the use of each other’s knowledge as
group emotional conflict. We thus present the following set of hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2a: Group emotional conflict is negatively associated with academic
faculty interpersonal knowledge use.

Hypothesis 2b: Group task conflict is negatively associated with academic
faculty interpersonal knowledge use.

Hypothesis 2c: Group emotional conflict is more negatively associated with faculty
interpersonal knowledge use than group task conflict.

1.2.3. The international environment

Very little research has examined the effect of cultural diversity in the educational
sector (Morrison et al., 2005). This is unfortunate since increased student movement,
labor market changes, rapid sector growth, equal opportunity demands and a pressure
to internationalize education and research activities have combined to make
universities some of the most heterogeneous organizations to date (Dimmock & Chan,
2008).

While increased diversity could have some negative implications for group
functioning, such as increased fragmentation (Eddy & Gaston-Gayles, 2008; Lauring,
2009; Tsui et al., 1992), there could also be benefits. One benefit of having different
nationalities is that there will be a greater variety of knowledge resources available.
Cultural diversity may be perceived as a task-relevant diversity in organizations
because international members have been drawn to the organization to use their
specific abilities and therefore may offer complimentary information and skills
(Hambrick et al., 1998). In other words, intercultural knowledge sharing should be
more valuable than knowledge sharing in a more homogenous group because
members are more likely to encounter unique knowledge that has not previously been
shared (Ely & Thomas, 2001). Employees recruited from different parts of the world
have different perspectives and possess different knowledge resources. Hence, the
usefulness of variation in these kinds of organizations could well foster an
environment where more available needed knowledge creates more effective
knowledge sharing behaviour. Because the knowledge that individuals received from
culturally dissimilar colleagues is more useful that what they get from their nationality
peers, this type of diversity has been show to improve problem-solving (Watson et al.,

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J. /Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 5

1993), information processing (Phillips et al., 2004), decision making (Ely & Thomas,
2001), and creativity (McLeod & Lobe, 1992).

There is also another reason why much cultural diversity could benefit the use of
knowledge to a gerater extentthan less cultural diversity. Faultline Theory (Lau &
Murnighan, 1998) predicts that groups that are highly diverse will develop a shared
culture of their own while e.g. university departments with few national groups will
have nationality based subdivisions. Therefore much cultural diversity in a faculty
group is better than little cultural diversity as this strengthens an overall departmental
identity that will cut across national divides. Hence, there are several reasons to
assume that trust and conflict will be less important with regard to the willingness to
use each other’s knowledge in very heterogeneous university departments simply
because the knowledge from foreigners is more valuable for improved results. Trust
and conflict will, therefore, not have the same impacts as it would if the knowledge
originated from a more similar and thus less valuable source.

Hypothesis 3a-c: The percentage of foreigners moderates the relation between (a)
interpersonal trust, (b) group emotional conflict and (c) group task conflict and the use
of knowledge so that the effect of trust on knowledge use is less positive and the
effect of conflict is less negative.

2. Methodology

2.1. Objective

Academics of science departments were targeted in this study. A database of e-mail
addresses of academics in science departments in three large universities in Denmark
was constructed. In total 16 departments were targeted ranging from traditional
disciplines such as Chemistry and Physics to specializations such as Nanotechnology
and Pharmacology.

The data was collected electronically and a commercial web survey software
package was used to administer the questionnaire. The university affiliation of the
investigators was identified as the official sender and the potential respondents were
assured of anonymity and confidentiality as usual. The survey used advanced
electronic mail functions that allowed participants to register their responses directly
onto the form which then fed a database. A total of 1,022 academics were invited to
participate in the survey and eventually, 489 responses were received amounting to a
response rate of 47.8 per cent.

2.2. Participants

The majority of the respondents were associate or assistant professors (51.1%) and
the respondents had an average period of employment of 7.59 years with their
respective department (SD=9.19). Most academics were Danish citizens (62.9%), but
a substantial minority was foreign nationals (37.1%), where respondents from non-EU
countries made up 16.7 per cent and academics from other EU countries than
Denmark represented 20.4 per cent of the sample. The number of respondents from
each department ranged from 9 to 54, and the share of foreign national respondents
from each department ranged from 14.3 per cent (4 of a total number of departmental
respondents of 28) to 57.1 per cent (8 of a total of 14). Accordingly, the departments
are culturally diverse. The average age of the academics was 37.05 years (SD=11.34)
with a minimum departmental age range of 17 years (Physics & Nanotechnology) to a
maximum departmental age range of 47 years (Physics).

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J./Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 6

2.3. Instrument

The variables depicting the types of trust and conflict were ‘Interpersonal trust’,
‘Group emotional conflict’ and ‘Group task conflict’. A scale for ‘Knowledge used’
(bring knowledge to bear) was also included. All multi-item scales used a seven-point
Likert-type scale with response categories ranging from (1) ‘strongly disagree’ to (7)
‘strongly agree’.

Interpersonal trust was gauged by a three-item scale by Martins et al. (2003). A
sample item is ‘Given their track records, I see no reason to doubt my colleagues’
competence or preparation for work’ (alpha=.77). Group emotional conflict was
measured by a four-item scale by Jehn (1995). Sample item: ‘There is a great deal of
friction in our department’ (alpha=.93). Group task conflict was measured by a four-
item scale by Jehn (1995). Sample item: ‘There are many differences of opinion
regarding tasks in our department’ (alpha=.92). Knowledge used was measured by a
four-item, five-point scale by Faraj and Sproull (2000). A sample item is: ’People in
our department share their knowledge and expertise with one another’ (alpha=.80).
Percentage of Foreign Nationalities was used as a moderator and was measured by a
direct question ‘What is the percentage of foreign nationality staff members?’

3. Results

Sample means, standard deviations and zero-order Pearson correlations of all
variables are provided in Table 1. One-sample t-tests showed that the mean scores for
Knowledge used (t = 102.31, p<.001) was significantly higher than the midpoint of the respective scale. This indicates that the academics generally felt that they used their knowledge well in their workplace. The significant associations between Percentage of Foreign Nationality with the dependent variable; Knowledge Used (r = 0.22, p<.01), emphasize the need to make use of this variable as a moderator in the regression analysis.

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among the Variables

S.
No Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5

1 Knowledge used 5.17 1.10 1.00

2 Interpersonal trust 5.67 0.93 0.48** 1.00

3 Group task conflict 3.50 1.29 -0.42** -0.45** 1.00

4 Group Emotional conflict 3.13 1.46 -0.52** -0.49** 0.66** 1.00

5 Percentage of foreigners 21.49 14.63 0.22** 0.12* -0.17** -0.20** 1.00

* p<.05; ** p<.01;

The hypotheses were formally tested by way of hierarchical multiple regression
(Table 2). The moderator variable Percentage of foreign nationality was entered in
Step 1. There was a significant positive association between Percentage of foreign

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J. /Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 7

nationality and Knowledge used (beta = 0.22; p<.001). In Step 2, the three predictor variables were entered. This produced significant effects on the criterion variable which explains 30 percent of the variance in the variables depicting Knowledge used.

As displayed by Table 2, concerning the three variables depicting Interpersonal
trust and Conflict, there was a positive relationship between Interpersonal trust and
Knowledge used (beta = 0.26; p<.001), a non-significant negative relationship between Group task conflict and Knowledge used, and a significant negative relationship between Group emotional conflict and Knowledge used (beta = -0.34; p<.001). In Step 3, the interaction terms were entered. This only resulted in a significant relationship with one of the predictor variables. There was a negative significant association between Interpersonal trust x Percentage of foreigners with Knowledge used (beta = -0.13; p<.01). All F values for the criterion variables were statistically significant, indicating a proper fit between the regression model and the data.

Table 2. Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression

Knowledge used

Step 1 Control

Percentage of foreigners 0.22***

Adjusted R2 0.05

Step 2

Trust 0.26***

Group emotional conflict -0.34***

Group task conflict -0.05

Interpersonal trust_Perc of foreigners_mod -0.13**

Group emotional conflict_Perc of foreigners_mod -0.02

Group task conflict_Perc of foreigners_mod -0.05

Adjusted R2 0.35

Change in R2 0.30

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J./Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 8

Fig. 1: Moderation of the effect of Percentage of Foreigners on Knowledge used by Interpersonal trust

To explore the character of the moderating relationship detected, the significant
interactions for Knowledge Used was plotted in Figure 1. This figure shows that
percentage of foreigners moderates Interpersonal trust. For a higher percentage of
foreigners, Interpersonal trust has a stronger positive association with Knowledge
used than for a lower percentage of foreigners. In other words, the moderating effect
of percentage of foreigners is stronger for respondents with higher percentage of
foreigners than for respondents with lower percentage of foreigners, irrespective of
whether the extent of Interpersonal trust used is low or high. Tests of the simple slope
indicated that the linkage between Interpersonal trust and Knowledge used was
significant both when the percentage of foreigners was high and low. Hence, of the
presented hypotheses, we found support for Hypothesis 1, 2a, 2c and 3a. There was no
support of hypotheses 2b, 3b, and 3c.

4. Discussions

In this study, we examined the association between trust/conflict and using each
other’s knowledge in international educational departments. Our general expectation
was that the interpersonal trust would positively affect the use of knowledge among
the academic faculty whereas conflict would have the opposite effect. We also
conjectured that with increased cultural diversity, the role of trust and conflict would
be less prominent.

We generally found support for our hypotheses. There was a strong positive
association between group interpersonal trust and the use of knowledge and a strong
negative effect of emotional conflict and using knowledge. There was no significant
effect of task conflict and using knowledge. Task conflict, hence, can be seen as less
negative for using each other’s knowledge than emotional conflict, as predicted.

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J. /Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 9

This is in line with other studies on the relationships between the social
organizational environment and knowledge sharing activities. Reychac and Weisberg
(2009) found strong social relations to be positively associated with knowledge
sharing. Hansen (1999) and Janowicz-Panjaitan and Krishnan (2009) found group
trust to be positively associated with knowledge sharing in business organizations. In
a university setting, Li et al. (2010) found group cohesiveness activities to be
associated with knowledge sharing. Other studies have also found that conflict
influences knowledge sharing behavior in a negative way in other types of
organizations (Behfar et al., 2011; Dougherty, 1992).

We also found a negative moderating effect of percentage of foreigners on the
association between interpersonal trust and knowledge used indicating that trust did
not play an important a role in highly culturally diverse university departments.
However, we did not find a moderating effect in relation to any of the conflict
variables. While this is not surprising with regard to task conflict, as there was no
direct effect either, it is somewhat surprising that the moderating effect is not found
for group emotional conflict when it is found for interpersonal trust. This may indicate
that although trust and emotional conflict are strongly negatively associated with each
other, they are, after all, not a direct oppositional concept (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992;
Pelled, 1996).

4.1. Limitations

As usual, there are a number of potential weaknesses of this investigation that could
have biased the findings. This study used a cross-sectional research design, and
causality cannot be determined. For better investigative control, a longitudinal design
could have been applied, but that might have introduced other methodological
problems such as low response rates (cf. Menard, 1991).

Since data were collected by cross-sectional self-reports, the results could have
been biased by common method variance (CMV). This is a systematic measurement
error emerging since the variance is attributable to the measurement method rather
than to the constructs that the measures represent. For example, some sources of CMV
result from the fact that the predictor and criterion variables are obtained from the
same source or rater (Podsakoff et al., 2003). However, the general and automatic
condemnation of cross-sectional self-report methods has been found exaggerated (cf.
Crampton & Wagner, 1994; Lindell & Whitney, 2001; Spector, 2006) to the extent
that it may have achieved the status of a methodological urban legend (Spector, 2006).
The fact that the studied data were extracted from a larger investigation may have
reduced the possibility for CMV to occur. The measurement of many variables is
mixed together in a fashion that it may not be evident to respondents which groups of
items measure predictor variables and which groups of items measure criterion
variables. Besides, the electronic questionnaire also prevented respondents to go back
to previous pages and edit answers once they had entered a new page. To further
lessen the potential bias of CMV, a number of procedures were implemented in the
larger study. As usual, the anonymity and confidentiality of the respondents were
assured. Additionally, a few of the items also had reverse polarity. These design
procedures may all have contributed to diminish effects of CMV (Podsakoff et al.,
2003). To investigate the potential for remaining biases of CMV, Harman’s single
factor test was applied (cf. Andersson & Bateman, 1997; Aulakh & Gencturk, 2000).
The exploratory factor analysis of the items, corresponding to all the variables of the
study, resulted in a four-factor, unrotated solution. Although one of the four factors
explained more of the variance than the others, this may not suggest that CMV was a
serious problem in this study (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Additionally, it has been argued
that moderation effects, commensurate with the one we have found, cannot be caused

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J./Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 10

by CMV (Chang et al., 2010). In conclusion, CMV should not have been an important
problem in this study.

4.2. Implications

This study responds to a scarcity of research on trust/conflict and faculty
knowledge use in international education institutions. The findings give rise to a
number of theoretical and practical implications as well as suggestions for further
research.

Little research has studied interpersonal trust and group conflict in relation to
knowledge use among international faculty members. Consequently, the results of our
study provide novel insights to be integrated in the theoretical discussion within the
literature on the management of human resources in diverse, internationalized
educational organizations. Especially the finding that the number of foreign faculty
moderates the effect of knowledge sharing on trust is interesting as it suggests that
university internationalization can actually have a positive and not a negative effect
on the use of the internal knowledge resources available among various faculty
members.

From a practical standpoint, our research may have several implications for higher
education faculty human resource strategies. Our results indicate that internal
knowledge use may be stimulated by high levels of interpersonal trust and low levels
of group emotional conflict. Our study also shows that task conflict is unimportant to
the use of each other’s knowledge. Hence, the management of educational institutions
needs to increase the level of interpersonal trust and reduce the level of group
emotional conflict in order to develop well-functioning and collaborating faculty
teams. Finally, our study shows that the percentage of foreigners has a positive effect
on knowledge use and that it makes interpersonal trust less important for knowledge
sharing. Hence, the effort in relation to creating trust in academic organizations does
not need to be as intensive in highly culturally diverse settings.

Interventions in order to develop the faculty group may be carried out at the
individual, the team and the organizational level. At the individual level, recruitment
of certain personality types as well as training, coaching and mentoring could assist in
keeping trust high and conflicts low. At the team level, team building activities could
improve social relations and clarify team member roles. Klein et al. (2009) argue that
team building is especially effective in the case of teams facing emotional issues. At
the organizational level, strategies and policies can be implemented to develop trust
and counteract conflict. This can be done in the form of missions, evaluations and
reward structures. Obviously, the best way to develop the faculty group is to apply
individual, team and organizational interventions simultaneously.

Future studies may try to eliminate some of the weaknesses of the current study and
extend its scope. For example, efforts could be spent to try to increase the response
rate and may use multiple raters for assessing trust, conflict, and the use of
knowledge. In this study, we focused on knowledge sharing at the departmental level.
Future research could also extrapolate our findings to a broader (e.g. organizational or
societal) context and examine whether trusting each other affects the use of
knowledge between different groups. Finally, while internal knowledge use has been
argued to be of great importance to academic work, internationalization and funding
opportunities have made external contacts and interaction more and more common. A
new worthwhile research endeavor could also be to assess the effect of trust and
conflict on external knowledge use in higher education settings.

Jonasson C., Normann J., Lauring J. /Journal of Educational Sciences and Psychology 11

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