Conflict In Teams

Question 1

Relationship Conflict

Answer 1

A-type conflict, emotional conflict, or affective conflict

Involves disagreements based on personal or social issues

Relationship conflict can interfere with the mental effort and performance of team members, and can be detrimental to job satisfaction

Question 2

Task conflict

Answer 2

Aka c-type conflict, cognitive conflict

Involves disagreements about the work being done

Question 3

Process Conflict

Answer 3

Disagreements that center on task strategy and delegation of duties and resources

Question 4

Proportional conflict

Answer 4

Occurs when team members have different ideas about the amount and type of conflict that exists within their group

Question 5

Perceptual conflict

Answer 5

The extent to which there is team agreement (or not) surrounding perceived conflict

Question 6

Team Power

Answer 6

Team power refers to the control of resources that enables a team to influence others in the organization

Question 7

The type of conflict behavior (constructive vs destructive) depends on:

Answer 7

1. The level of team power

2. The likelihood that power determines success or failure for the team

Question 8

Cross-functional teams

Answer 8

Teams that are composed of people from multiple disciplines, functions, and divisions who have different areas of expertise

The performance advantages of these teams are often not realized because the team experiences conflict

Can have representational gaps

Question 9

Representational gaps

Answer 9

Inconsistent views in the way people define or approach a problem

The greater the representational gaps, the more teams disagree about a task

Question 10

Direct influence

Indirect influence

Answer 10

When people entice team members to adopt their position

People in the majority privately agree with the minority

Question 11

Benefits of minority representation in teams:

Answer 11

• cognitive activity in group increases
• increase in message scrutiny
• divergent thinking and consideration of multiple perspectives
• better decisions are made
• gain more original/creative ideas

Question 12

Conflict in culturally diverse teams

Answer 12

• linguistic-related challenges increase likelihood of relationship conflict
• individualism vs collectivism
• benefits of training to express conflict appropriately and effectively

Question 13

Work-family conflict

Answer 13

Stronger for people who are demographically dissimilar to their teams in terms of sex and and number of dependents

Question 14

Team members tend to use one of the following methods to resolve disputes:

Answer 14

Rights-based approach - focuses on applying some standard of fairness, precedent, contract, or law

Power-based approach - use of force, intimidation, rank, or power

Interest-based approach - focuses on satisfying both parties core interests

Question 15

Intervention strategies team leaders can use to improve the conflict resolution process:

Answer 15

• Team (re)design -do this first
• Task process coaching
• conflict process coaching -develop group norms regarding how to manage conflict
• changing the individual- do this last

Question 16

Norms of Fairness

Different methods for allocating resources:

Answer 16

• equity method - Prescribes that benefits (and costs) should be proportional to team members contributions
• equality method - prescribes that all team members should suffer or benefit equally, regardless of input
• need method - Prescribes that benefits (and costs) should be proportional to members’ needs

Question 17

Distributive justice

Answer 17

• the method of how to best allocate awards in an organization
• employees who regard their organization to be market focused tend to be interested in the distributive fairness of their organization

Question 18

Procedural justice

Answer 18

• concern for how a person is treated by others, particularly authority figures
• employees who regard their organization to be bureaucratic tend to be interested in the procedural justice of their organization

Question 19

The five styles of conflict are

Answer 19

Avoiding
Accommodating 
Competing
Collaboration
Compromise

Question 20

Avoiding

Answer 20

(Low assertiveness, low cooperation)

occurs when one party wants to remain neutral, stay away from conflict, or postpone the conflict to gather information or let things cool down

Question 21

Accommodating

Answer 21

(Low assertiveness, high cooperation)

Occurs when one party gives in to the other and acts in a completely unselfish way

Question 22

Competing

Answer 22

(High assertiveness, low cooperation)

Occurs when one party attempts to get his or her own goals met without concern for the other party’s results.

Win-lose form of conflict resolution

Question 23

Collaboration

Answer 23

(High assertiveness, high cooperation)

Occurs when both parties work together to maximize outcomes. Win-win form of conflict resolution

Question 24

Compromise

Answer 24

(Moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperation)

Occurs when conflict is resolved through give-and-take concessions

Question 25

The five styles of conflict can be viewed as a combination of two separate factors

Answer 25

How assertive leaders want to be in pursuing their own goals

How cooperative they are with regard to the concerns of others.

Question 26

Better teams can be purposely designed with high potential for performance success by

Answer 26

Building cohesion, examining how trust and respect are measured, and understanding the team role transition process