Research on workplace conflict has given relatively little attention to the impact of national context on the perception toward task conflict by employees. By drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we investigate the mediating role of employee engagement between task conflict and extra-role performance in two nations: the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Netherlands. Results from 137 Chinese and 95 Dutch employees indicate a positive association between task conflict and extra-role performance in the PRC but a negative association in the Netherlands. Results also show that employee engagement mediates the association between task conflict and extra-role performance in both countries. We also find that relationship intensity moderates the association between task conflict and extra-role performance, through employee engagement, in both the PRC and the Netherlands. We discuss implications for theory and practice as well as offer future research directions.
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