Team conflict

Team conflict is conflict within a team.

Team conflict is common in the workplace where it may hinder productivity and the achievement of team goals. If management of conflict is not effective, it can disrupt group processes, but successfully-managed conflict may benefit the group.

Conflicts may be caused by differing goals, values or perceptions of the team members.

Lau and Murnighan identify what they call "faultlines" as a source of conflicts within groups. As a supplement to traditional approaches of research that focused on diversity characterized by variance of demographic attributes across a population, faultlines are hypothetical dividing lines that split groups into multiple sets of subgroups with each set based on different attributes. These attributes may be demographics, but also may be characteristics such as personal values or personalities. This work builds on work in social identity theory and self-categorization theory, which explains the ways in which individuals favor other individuals with whom they share a common identity; per this model, individuals evaluate members of their subgroups more positively than other members of the larger group, which may lead to conflict when disagreements occur across faultlines. Lau and Murnighan identify three compositional factors for faultlines within a group:

A group has weak faultlines if subgroups contain different members across sets, and strong faultlines if group members fall in the same groups across sets. For example, a team composed half of young male entry-level employees and half of older female executives has strong faultlines because each member falls in subgroups with the same other members across all three demographic characteristics.

Subsequent work on the impact of these embedded subgroups, called "factions" when overlap in subgroups is structured into teams, has found significant negative impacts on group productivity stemming from task conflict, emotional conflict, and behavioral disintegration. Faultlines were found to better predict variance in a variety of group self-perception metrics than traditional metrics of group heterogeneity, including perceptions of team-learning, psychological safety, satisfaction, and expected performance.

It is important to note that, while the concept of faultlines model may be seen as presenting diversity as a challenge to be overcome, diversity has been found to contribute significantly to team outcomes under certain circumstances. Respectful inclusion of the opinions of minority members can lead to increased creativity as the group incorporates their distinct perspectives. The challenges associated with inclusivity are not insubstantial, and may require strong leadership and norms of tolerance and respect to overcome.

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