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Past research has revealed that team effectiveness and satisfaction suffer when teams experience relationship conflict- conflict related to interpersonal issues, political norms and values, and personal taste. This study examined how teams should respond to these conflicts. Three types of conflict responses were studied: collaborating responses, contending responses, and avoiding responses. A field study involving a heterogeneous sample of teams performing complex, non-routine task showed that collaborating and contending responses to relationship conflict negatively relate to team functioning (i.e., voice, compliance, helping behavior) and overall team effectiveness, while avoiding responses were associated with high team functioning and effectiveness. It is suggested that collaborating and contending responses to relationship conflict distract team members from their tasks, while avoiding responses appear more functional in that they allow team members to pursue task performance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
Team work in organizations is increasingly the norm, yet the challenges of working effectively in teams are considerable (Guzzo and Shea, 1992). In particular, when teams perform complex tasks, team effectiveness is not only a function of individuals' task performance and goal achievement; team effectiveness also depends on the extent to which team members need to avoid process losses by helping each other, coordinating activities, complying with demands and requirements, and voicing opinions and ideas (cf., Hackman, 1983; Podsakoff et al., 1997; Steiner, 1972; West et al., 1998). One challenge to team effectiveness is conflict - the tension between team members due to real or perceived differences (Thomas, 1992; Wall and Callister, 1995; see also Cohen and Bailey, 1997). Conflict affects team work at various levels, both positive and negative (De Dreu et al., 1999). Conflict has been associated with greater innovation and more effective interpersonal relations (Tjosvold, 1997), but also with lower effectiveness, reduced well-being and turnover (Spector and Jex, 1998).
These negative consequences of conflict for well-being and effectiveness appear especially when conflicts relate to the interpersonal relationship aspects of team work (Amason, 1996; De Dreu and Van de Vliert, 1997; Jehn, 1995). As a result, most research efforts focus on preventing relationship conflict in teams. Alternatively, however, one may ask which responses to relationship conflict are most adequate. Assuming that one can never completely prevent relationship conflict, we need to...