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Steven H. Appelbaum: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Chahrazad Abdallah: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Barbara T. Shapiro: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Introduction
The use of teams has become the criteria for organizational success throughout the late 1990s. Cross-functional teams, continuous improvement teams, and lately self-directed teams (SDT) are being used as ways of achieving employee participation as well as getting closer to the customer. These teams also called semi-autonomous work groups or self-managing teams, have been implemented in various companies including Coca-Cola, Federal Express, General Electric, Motorola, Procter & Gamble and Xerox (Piczak and Hauser, 1996). However, with the rising use of teams, there is an increasing concern that productivity and efficiency may be hurt rather than helped by team-oriented organizational structures. Lower rates of productivity, poorer decisions, and increased employee dissatisfaction have in fact been the experiences of some organizations.
The paradox, however, is that the very act of bringing people from different backgrounds together may be the reason why they fail to achieve their objective. Conflict, inherent in the nature of teams (and in the organization as a whole) is a factor that can determine their success. More specifically, how conflict is managed within the group can bring out the best or the worst of team-oriented organizations. In the case of SDTs, the relationship between the team and the organization is different. Members of SDTs have a responsibility for managing themselves and their work. Team members learn multiple tasks that were once exclusively related to supervisors and managers.
Conflict within SDTs has another dimension that this article intends to explore. The notion of the SDT will first be defined and some attention will be drawn to its theoretical foundations. The nature of conflict at the group level will then be examined as well as its consequences upon the decision-making process. Finally, several conflict management alternatives will be discussed in the light of SDTs specificity.
What are self-directed work teams
The concept of SDT had a great impact on companies with traditional organizational structures where top-to-bottom authority prevailed and teams were used as basic organizational "tools". Today, SDTs are "small groups of employees who have day-to-day responsibility for managing themselves and their work. Members of SDTs typically handle job assignments, plan and...