A Longitudinal Study of Team Conflict, Conflict

Management, Cohesion & Team Effectiveness

Many theories about team conflict, conflict management, cohesion, and effectiveness are telling
key points, and they also have some conflict models, such as Gersick's (1988) and Tuckman's
(1965) models, which note that conflict and cohesion work together to form a team's
effectiveness. Similarly, the episodic model of team processes proposed by Marks, Mathieu, and
Zaccaro (2001) suggests that processes like conflict and conflict management can lead to
emergent states like cohesion.

The authors of this study also include an important analysis of conflict, stating that the initial
benefits of conflict rapidly decrease as it intensifies and reduces group cohesion; therefore,
conflict should be reduced. Many conflict researchers believe that task conflict is positively
linked to group results such as cooperation by allowing team members to express themselves in
decision-making.

Though this longitudinal approach is compatible with prior theory on team growth, the study's
main goal is to learn more about how and why team processes (e.g., mission and relationship
conflict and conflict management) affect later team cohesion. Understanding how different forms
of conflict and how they are handled have an effect on team success and participant responses
over time is crucial.

The second goal of our research is to close this gap by using longitudinal evidence to investigate
the relationship between team conflict, team conflict management, and team cohesion. The
current study's third goal is to answer the question "so what?" by using longitudinal data to
examine the three team effectiveness criteria of perceived success, viability, and satisfaction as
outcomes of team cohesion. Task and relationship conflict can have different effects on team
cohesion, according to this report. It's difficult to separate these differential effects because task
and relationship conflict are often linked (e.g., task conflict may often spill over into relationship
conflict). and vice versa.

In this research, a hypothesis method is used to evaluate the relationship between Team Conflict,
Conflict Management, Cohesion, and Team Effectiveness to see whether the hypothesis is
correct or incorrect. They created several hypotheses and tested them by identifying various
variables and mediators.

Hypothesis 1a: Team relationship conflict would be negatively linked to team cohesion after
adjusting for team mission conflict.

Hypothesis 1b: Team mission conflict would be positively linked to team cohesion after
adjusting for team relationship conflict.

Hypothesis 2: Team conflict management would be linked to team cohesion in a positive way.

Conflict Management plays a moderating role in this analysis, and it also tests another
hypothesis: "Team Cohesion and Effectiveness are the Variables."

Hypothesis 3a: Team conflict management can balance the relationship between relationship
conflict and team cohesion, resulting in a stronger negative relationship between relationship
conflict and cohesion at low levels of conflict management than at high levels of conflict
management.

Hypothesis 3a: Team conflict management can balance the relationship between relationship
conflict and team cohesion, resulting in a stronger negative relationship between relationship
conflict and cohesion at low levels of conflict management than at high levels of conflict
management.

Hypothesis 4: Team cohesion would be linked to (a) perceived team success, (b) team happiness,
and (c) team viability in a positive way.

Hypothesis 5: Mission conflict, relationship conflict, and conflict management have direct and
interactive effects on perceived team success, member satisfaction, and viability, which are
partly mediated by cohesion.

This study seeks to test these hypotheses, collected data from 53 student teams (260 total
students) enrolled in an upper-level undergraduate course at a large mid-Atlantic university.by
using Predictors , Mediating variables , Dependent Variables ( 5 item scale used).This study then
used hierarchical regression to test all hypotheses. To test Hypotheses 1–3, they entered the two
types of conflict in Step 1 followed by conflict management in Step 2. Then, they entered the
interaction terms of the two conflicts and conflict management in Step 3. To test Hypotheses 4a
to 4c, they entered the two types of conflict, conflict management in Step 1, conflict management
in Step 2, and finally cohesion in Step 3. Because they collected team viability and satisfaction
with the team at the individual.

The Final result shows that Hypotheses 1a postulated a negative relationship between
relationship conflict and team cohesion Hypothesis 1b postulated a positive relationship between
task conflict and team cohesion.These hypotheses were not supported, as neither of the two
conflict dimensions was related to team cohesion when controlling for the other type of
conflict.Hypothesis 2 postulated a positive relationship between conflict management and team
cohesion.Hypotheses 3a and 3b concerned the moderating effects of conflict management on the
relationships between relationship and task conflict and team cohesion.Hypothesis 5 predicted
that the direct and interactive effects of the two types of conflict and conflict management on
team effectiveness would be partially mediated by team cohesion. The result showsthat neither
netheir task conflict nor relationship conflict was related to cohesion.Although conflict
management was directly related to cohesion.

Given these results, cohesion was not a mediator of the relationship between the direct effects of
the predictors on the three team effectiveness criteria. This research also examined if team
cohesion mediates the relationships between the interaction of task conflict and conflict
management and team effectiveness criteria, as well as that of between the interaction of
relationship conflict and conflict management on these criteria. Both the interaction of task
conflict and conflict management and the interaction of relationship conflict and conflict
management were related to team viability.Overall these results show that cohesion partially
mediates the relationship between the interaction terms and two criteria (team viability and
satisfaction with the team), providing a partial support for lastHypothesis.goals).

Therefore, This research suggest that future studies examine the role of task conflict and what
factors may cause it to degenerate into relationship conflict or vice versa.As the level of task
conflict increases, relationship conflict may increase as well, which would negatively affect
cohesion. However, at a high level of task conflict, teams may start to see the benefits of such
conflict and appreciate the diverse opinions among themselves, which may in turn raise the level
of team cohesion.

In this study the second research support for the hypothesized relationship between conflict
management and cohesion. And the relationships between team task and interpersonal conflict,
team conflict management, and team cohesion were complex as expected. The study found that
conflict management moderated the impact of both task and relationship conflicts on team
cohesion in opposite directions.The third research question focused on the effect of team
cohesion on subsequent perceived team performance and teams’ attitudinal reaction and found
support for the direct and positive influence that team cohesion has on perceived team
performance.

Finally, study shows that team cohesion served as a partial mediator of the relationship between
the interaction terms and team effectiveness criteria.In this study, we therefore provide initial
evidence on the order of events and the long-term effects of interactions between team conflict
and conflict management on subsequent team cohesion.These findings suggest that the role of
conflict management processes on different types of conflict is complex.Hence, teams who have
relationship conflict should be given guidance on using conflict management processes. Teams
with low relationship conflict and more task conflict should not try to overly manage their
disagreements over the task and rather let them work themselves out through expression.