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In a longitudinal study, we found that higher group performance was associated with a particular pattern of conflict. Teams performing well were characterized by low but increasing levels of process conflict, low levels of relationship conflict, with a rise near project deadlines, and moderate levels of task conflict at the midpoint of group interaction. The members of teams with this ideal conflict profile had similar preestablished value systems, high levels of trust and respect, and open discussion norms around conflict during the middle stages of their interaction.
In response to growing demands for efficiency and flexibility, organizations are shifting to teambased structures (cf. Boyett & Conn, 1991). Teams bring assets-adding knowledge and creativity, increasing the understanding and acceptance of ideas, and improving commitment and motivation (for reviews, see McGrath [1984] and Levine and Moreland [1990]). However, as many organizations have discovered, teams do have liabilities (for reviews, see Maier [1967], Kruglanski and Mackie [1990], and March [1994]). Teams can stifle ideas, result in conformity, and encourage free riding. They can also be hotbeds of conflict, and it is this aspect of teams and the relationship between conflict and performance that is the focus of our research.
Although our focus is conflict in teams, we believe it is necessary to examine patterns of conflict as they shift and change over time. Time has been of considerable interest to philosophers, physicists, biologists, and anthropologists, but both psychologists and organizational theorists have been less likely to include temporal aspects in their theory and research (see McGrath and Kelly [1986]; for some exceptions, see Gersick [1988], Mannix and Loewenstein [1993], Mannix, Tinsley, and Bazerman [1995], O'Connor, Gruenfeld, and McGrath [1993], and Schweiger, Sandberg, and Rechner [1989]). In this study, we developed and tested a dynamic model of group conflict that includes the timing of conflict types as critical and specifies the antecedents that encourage productive conflict patterns.
CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND AND
HYPOTHESES
Conflict is an awareness on the part of the parties involved of discrepancies, incompatible wishes, or irreconcilable desires (Boulding, 1963). Drawing on past research (Amason & Sapienza, 1997; Cosier & Rose, 1977; Guetzkow & Gyr, 1954; Jehn, 1992, 1997; Pelted, 1996; Pinkley, 1990; Wall & Nolan, 1986), we propose that conflict in work groups can be categorized...