Conflict During Financial Crisis: The Impact of External Pressure on Conflict Persistence and Turn-Taking in Board Meetings

Abstract: This paper examines how external financial pressure shapes conversation dynamics following instances of affective conflict on a corporate board. Drawing on transcripts from 31 board meetings of a publicly traded firm over five years, we show that affective conflict is more likely to trigger affective conflict in the subsequent three utterances in aggregate and specifically when when financial pressure is high. Moreover, we distinguish turn-taking between the individual and subgroup levels. We find that affective increases turn-taking across both levels. However, individual-level turn-taking increases after affective conflict under high financial pressure, but not low pressure. In contrast, subgroup turn-taking increases under low financial pressure, but not high pressure. These findings highlight how external financial pressures not only intensify conflict cycles but also constrain inter-subgroup participation in board deliberations.

Keywords: boards; conflict; turn-taking; persistence