(Re)Thinking intragroup conflict: performance and group development

Abstract

Against the tarditional perspective of a intragroup conflict, that viewed this phenomenon as negative to group performance, the recente approaches argue that conflict simulates creativity and the innovation of workgroups. Nonetheless, the empirical studies developed didn’t find support to the positive effect of conflict in-group functioning. In this paper we try to contribute to a better understand of the relationships between conflict, handling conflict strategies and group development. We analyze, also, the way conflicts are lived and managed along the group temporal moments. Sixty-eught workgroups from the production department of eight industrial companies agreed to participate in this study. All workgroups performed non-complex tasks. Results revealed that task conflict is negatively related with performance and that integrating is the only strategy of handling conflict with a positive effect on the workgroups results (...)

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v21i2.373