Individual Assignment on a longitudinal study of team conflict, conflict

management, cohesion, and team effectiveness

COURSE NAME & CODE: Management and Organizational Behavior (BUS

520)

SECTION: 3

SUBMITTED TO: Dr. M. Shahedul Alam

DEPARTMENT: Management

SUBMITTED ON: 10th November 2021

SUBMITTED BY:

NAME ID
Maliha Salsabil 2135428660
 The topics that made this journal interesting to read

The entire journal is based on two theories of team development, the punctuated equilibrium
model and the stage model. The main purpose of this journal is to find out the specific roles of
task and relationship conflicts, how conflict management creates an impact on these conflicts and
ultimately affect the team cohesiveness which ultimately affects perceived performance, team
satisfaction and viability. But apart from everything the things which were extremely interesting:

 Task conflict which are created early in team’s span of life is actually beneficial for
developing cohesiveness among the members.
 Conflict and cohesiveness work together for creating an effective team.
 Relation conflict negatively influence the team cohesion.
 Task conflict positively influence the team cohesion.
 The negative relationship between the relation conflict and the cohesion will be stronger
under lower level of conflict management therefore a high level of conflict management
id required.
 The positive relationship between task conflict and cohesion doesn’t require much of
conflict management acting to resolve the problems. It gets fixed with time.
 The two important criteria of effective group are satisfaction and group viability that has
a strong connection with cohesion.

Arguments of the author do make sense to me

There are several empiral research on different types of conflicts, their management and effects
of these processes on the team effectiveness. But the journal here wants to have proper evidence.
They want to go at the bottom and find out the how and why such processes has an effect. After
the in-depth research they author wants to provide the future researchers a better perspective on
the conflicts and design strategies in order to stop such problems. They want to mitigate
potentially damaging conflict and increment the level of cohesion and team effectiveness.
Therefore, while going through the journal the author did make some arguments based on two
theories which the Stage model of Tuckman and Punctuated model of Gersick.

 Keeping the task conflict at a controlled level, the relationship conflict will be negatively
related to team cohesiveness. The reason behind in this argument is that relationship
conflict is based on the interpersonal incompatibility among the members. They show
annoyance, animosity and dissatisfaction with each other. As a result, the members
exhibit declination towards staying in group, showing openness, least bother to showcase
their ideas. They stay away from the actual objection making a dream project. They
devote their emotional and attentional resources on solving the relationship conflicts
which ultimately results in wastage of time. It is likely that having a relationship conflict
at the early stage of team’s life can cause negative reaction on cohesiveness.
 Keeping the relationship conflict at a controlled level the task conflict has a positive
impact on the team cohesiveness. As seen conflicts are multidimensional. But the
conflicts which creates a disagreement on how the task will be performed and, on the
views, opinions are known as the task conflict. Task conflict does have a positive impact
on team cohesiveness and there are many theories suggesting the same statement.
Because when there is task conflict, group usually channel their thoughts. They voice
their opinions pn issue that require group decision making and greater level of acceptance
is created. The group feels united and a team level of cohesion emerges.
 Negative relationship of team relationship conflict with cohesion will be stronger under
lower level of conflict management than in higher level of conflict management.Conflict
management might actually create a positive impact on team cohesion but it honestly
depends on the type of conflict created. Team that have low level of management do not
have any mediums to vent their opinions out. They keep the feelings to themselves where
they arode out of anger and sau the worst to other members which creates even more
problems. Therefore team members need to come in the open and have a discussion right
at the first half oh the team work so that they solve it it at first and not waste their
resources which can be used for the dream work. Theories and research suggests that
teams that address relationship conflict directly creates a long-term, open, healthy
constructive atmosphere. Some also suggested that if to address early the interpersonal
conflicts might escalate and hinder task completion over time.
  Positive relationship of team task conflict with cohesion will be stronger under lower
level of conflict management than in higher level of conflict management. Unlike the
relationship conflict, task conflict has only been found to be beneficial when the
relationship conflict is not present. Author had made such an argument based on
Murnighan and Colon’s research, In that research it was seen that the most successful
quartets had task conflicts every now and then. In order to solve such problems they
wouldn’t just address then and there because it would lead to negative emotional reaction
and unending logical conflicts and group paralysis. Instead what they would do is leave
the conflict and have some time to think about it. If the problem resurfaced again the
members would compromise and reach a solution.
 Team cohesion is positively related to team’s performance, satisfaction of team and
viability. The underlying reason are the two theories. In the theories it is seen that to
maximize a teams productivity it is important to make sure that the member feels safe
and they can trust each other. It can be done by reducing fear of getting rejected in the
group. This reduction is only possible by clarifying the group’s actual objective where
veryone here is at the same position and unified and everything that will be discussed in
the group will be solely based on the fulfilling the objective.Gersick’s model also suggest
that team members find task benefit when they become cohesive. Plans are implemented
better when they are unified and they experience satisfaction in the team performance and
they judge their perception of team viability based on whether the tean worked perfect;y
ro finish the task.
 The effects of task and relationship conflict, conflict management on the performance,
satisfaction and viability are partially mediated through cohesion. This completely make
sense and is reasonable to me because if the team isnot cohesive enough the conflict
management will not be able to use the stratwgies. The cohesion is a must. Conflict and
conflict management can never simple have positive impacts on team effectiveness. A set
of forces should be present in order to make sure that the conflicts arised can be solved.

The findings were intuitive except for one which was counter intuitive

The journal had three research questions where they wanted to know whether task conflict
created at the early stage of life develop cohesion in the future, they wanted to know if conflicy
management plays a moderating role in resolving conflicts that increases cohesion and lastly
they wanted to know the impact of cohesion on performance, satisfaction and viability. They
created hypothesis and research on 53 students to get the answers. The finidings were:

 Conflict management does have a moderating role on both the task and relationship
conflict on team cohesion in opposite directions. Their findings suggest that hoghly
negative influence of relationship conflict on cohesion can be neutralized by conflict
management because the findings suggest that conflict management can make the team
members apen up about their thoughts which helps to react fastly on the problem and go
forward. I find it very reasonable aand intuitive as this actually happened in my life
where the management really helped the team to get rid on conflict, created trust, helped
with the openness that ultimalty helped with getting new ideas.Lastly task conflict has
positive attitude but it diminishes when the tasl conflict turns to relation conflict therefore
as per the findings suggest that discussing disagreements over tasks makes everything
worse and timeout should be given.
 Team cohesion has a positive impact of team effectiveness and is also a moderator
between cconflicts, comflict management and team effectivenessis another finding of the
journa. They found out that teams that with more cohesiveness were more satisfied and
wanted to be in the same group for future projects. This was intuitive to me as all
indivuals like the sense of belonging. They want to overcome the fear of not getting into
the team and once all the negativities get drwaned out the members can act perfectly and
do what is needed to attain the objective. Once the objective is attained satisfaction is
created and the members want to stay in that particular group. The last finding of this
journal where cohesion is a moderator is also intuitive because when the conflict
management is high the relationship conflict gets resolved, cohesion increase which
ultimately helps to attain the objective which impact the team’s satisfaction and viability.
Similarly in low conflict management the task conflict gets unaddressed, time is given,
people compromised which ultimately helps with cohesion and cohesion then helps in
satisfaction and viability.

The one finding which was counter intuitive are :

 The hypothesis where task conflict at an early stage creates a cohesion in the future wasn’t
supported by the findings.The reason behind might be because task conflict was so bad that it
ultimately created relationship conflict. Another possible reason might be because the
relation between task conflict and cohesion is curvilinear. This means that at low level of
conflict there is low level of cohesion and moderate level of conflict and low level of
cohesion and high level conflict leads to higher cohesion. Lastly the reason for finding no
supports to the hypothesis is that the way task conflict is managed. Above all the findings
seemed counterintuitive to me because task conflict leads to discussion and discussion
creates compromise and ultimately create a sense of fellowship and ultimately cohesiveness.

Variables and hypothesis being measured in the right way

The test all the hypothesis the journal did an extensive research on 53 students who are upper
level undergraduate students of Mid Atlantic university. The students were divided into teams of
five where they were told to select a topic, research on it ang give a final report. The journal
created questions to assess the:

 Task and relation conflict when they had worked together for more than 2 months and
how they are managing those conflicts. The task conflict, relation conflict and the conflict
management are the independent variables here. The journal made sure that the group
members had a good discussion where everyone had to pick one answer regarding the
amount of conflicts, conflict management happened in the group. The questions here will
help the journal to understand the impact of both kinds of conflict on cohesion and the
also the impact of conflict management on cohesion.
 The overall team cohesiveness after resolving the conflicts. For these cohesion stage the
questions were asked after they had worked for 3 more weeks. It is the mediating variable
as the strength and direction of cohesiveness will be analyzed based on the independent
variables. As said before the journal also had group discussion on the cohesion of the
group where the members had to come up with one answer.
 Lastly the satisfaction, viability and perceived performance were being assessed at the
end of the semester after they have received the grades. Lastly these are the outcomes
basically the dependent variables. As satisfaction, viability is something very
 individualistic where everyone has their own opinion therefore the journal made sure they
have a one -one conversation to understand about the feelings of the members.

Therefore, yes, the variables that the journal used were correctly measured. Because they
chose the right group of people the students who undergo so much of team and relation conflict
every now and then due to the number of projects they do. They meet new people every semester
where every member needs to cope up with new strategies. The journal also made sure that the
students are asked question in three different set of times because as seen members in the team
undergo the fighting phase at the mid-session of the team span and then they have a cohesive
team as their only aim then is to fulfill the task objectives. They also chose the right variables.

Conclusion drawn reasonable given the findings:

In conclusion it is said that the findings has proper implications in our lives which is reasonable
to me.Team work makes the dream work. Living in the 21 st century every organization has
departments working in teams and being in teams does have conflicts which can be based on
tasks and conflicts.The conclusion mentions the effect of conflict management on the different
conflicts. The findings will help the team leader on how to devise startegies to turn it into desired
outcomes. Lastly the conclusion also mentioned that the findings are supporting both the
proposals of GErsick and Tuckman.

The relevance of this knowledge to my prior experience and future

I am a post graduate student of North South University and I have recently completed my
graduation from North South University majoring in Finance and marketing. Being in the first
ever private university is not an easy task as the grading system is extremely hard. Losing some
marks can really make me nervous as there is a good chance od losing a good grade. In our
university team projects are contains 15-25% marks which if not done properly can really create
a problem. As since North South has an open elective system its not possible to have the same
group of people. As a result, each semester contains new sets of challenges. But fortunately, I
had a two very close friends who were with me from the start of my university life. We first
knew each other as group members. From the start we got to know each other and since I always
had a type A personality I was chosen as the leader. So the first task of the group was to find
different topics for the assignment. There were no conflicts then but after some time there were
problems regarding some sort of pricing of the product. This problem was basically a task
conflict as members had different attitudes. But sadly, the task conflict turned into relation
conflict where people made very hard statements and members did not want to share their
thoughts with others. Conflict management was a must in this case and then after this stage due
to task objectives everyone left their conflict and starting working together. Everyone knew
everyone’s strengths and weakness. They had trust and after that we gave our best shot on the
project and was the best between two sections. From then onwards we have been friends and did
all our courses together. Therefore, the members were satisfied as well wanted to be in the group
from then onwards. So yes, the entire journal was something that I could relate with my own life.

Some other aspects of research

Limitations and future implications:

 The journal used 53 upper level under graduate students as a the sample they did not
consider the organization.
 It is a small sample size.
 The team members could give false ratings or answers.
 Most of the time the members stayed out of the class to finish their projects so it is
unknown whether they have completed the projects as a team or individually.
 Sometimes the group wants to show themselves as the best because they feel that it
creates a negative impression.

So in the future for the researchers should keep in mind that their sample should be both in
organizations and universities with a bigger sample size where they can actually see the
members working. They can then understand [erfectly and give better results.