Advantages And Disadvantages Of Team Conflict

Discussion and Limitations

As mentioned earlier, in the context of team diversity the existence of a difference in work background and belief structure, the ideas of individuals about some specific task, object and process, among the team members are often discussed. When these ideas differ either with respect to task given or on personal interactions, this can lead to conflicts in teams (Pernet, 2005). Precisely, a team conflict can be defined as a situation where one or some of the team members perceive that one or some of the other team members are opposing or negatively affecting their interests. Hence, conflicts may arise in different forms as discussed above. Task conflict can be defined as group member having different opinions with

Amason (1996) found in his study that cognitive conflict should enhance understanding encouraged thorough evaluating alternatives. Cognitive conflict should also enhance affective acceptance among top management team members and therefore decision quality and commitment. As he expected, affective and cognitive conflict were positively and significantly correlated. However, even though he found a positively correlated between cognitive and affective conflicts, they are related differently to the decision outcomes. Overall cognitive conflict is generally less negatively related to the decision outcomes than affective conflict. The pattern seems to be that, when significant, the effects of cognitive conflict are positive and, when significant, the effects of affective conflict are negative. Moreover, the quality and overall understanding of a decision seems to improve with when a conflict arises (Amason, 1996). Therefore, the main implication of Allen K. Amason’s (1996) study is that, “to the extent that cognitive conflict can be encouraged while affective conflict is restrained, top management teams may be able to gain the benefits of conflict without the costs" (Amason, 1996). Hence, to achieve better outcomes, teams should encourage cognitive conflict. At the same time, however, they should discourage affective conflict. By doing both, teams should produce higher-quality decisions along with higher levels of consensus and affective acceptance (Amason, 1996).

However, due to the fact that diversity not only increasing the opportunity for creativity it also increases the likelihood that group members will be dissatisfied and fail to identify with the group. Hence, training programs, which can raise awareness among group members of the tendency for stereotyping and hostility may improve the outcomes of diverse teams. Groups that are not taught to manage controversies constructively, e.g. through collaboration rather than forcing may not realize benefits of that controversy to the same degree as groups that are trained in conflict management. Nevertheless, within some globalised business community, social category diversity among individuals might already be overruled by the establishment of a common set of values, attitudes, norms and behaviours of the internationally operating business people.

To conclude this analysis, its important to mention that the question weather or not diversity has a positive or a negative impact on team conflicts cannot be answered a priori with yes or no. As explained throughout the entire paper there are many different aspects which need to be taken into consideration. However, there is clear evidence that although teams that lack diversity experience less contentiousness than more diverse teams, the absence