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In recent years management scholars have conducted an array of studies on relational demography. Most of this research, however, has taken place in the USA. Also, few of these prior investigations have looked at the role of moderators. In an effort to begin addressing those gaps, this study assessed the relationship between individual demographic dissimilarity and conflict in a Central Mexican workplace; additionally, it examined the moderating role of supervisor facilitation. Data from 190 Mexican workers revealed that in this study, as in comparable US studies, conflict had a two‐dimensional structure consisting of task conflict and emotional conflict. Associations between relational demography and conflict, however, were not identical to those previously found in the USA. Individual dissimilarity in age was positively associated with emotional conflict, while individual dissimilarity in tenure was negatively associated with both task and emotional conflict. Supervisor facilitation moderated the relationships between tenure dissimilarity and conflict. These results suggest that greater attention to demography effects, as well as moderators of those effects, in Mexico is warranted.
Pelled et al. (Thu,) studied this question.