Organizations create teams in order to get more done than each individual can do separately. "Teamwork" is intended to increase cooperation, collaboration, synergy, and creativity. But when teamwork breaks down, the cost* can be high.

Team leaders, as well as managers who want their employees to work as a team, need to resolve, manage, and prevent conflict quickly in order to maintain and build teamwork. The Track 2 option is recommended for team leaders and managers. The Track 3 option is recommended for human resource professionals and other support staff.

Follow links in the "Conference Info" panel to the left for program details. Print this one-page flyer

* Click for complimentary access to the Dana Measure of Financial Cost of Organizational Conflict, an on-line calculator producing immediate results. Also compute the financial return-on-investment in conflict management training.

Edited by Melissa Zarda. See other bibliographies.
Contributors: Jennifer Yelton, Rose Orsini, Phonsavanne Sithiphon, Cavit Kahya, Sarah E. Kelly, Deborah Fitzsimmons, Cindy Sinclair, Margaret Kozlowska-Misiorek, Suresh Dhandapani, Luca Iacusso, Gil Pizano

Copyright restriction: The contents of this bibliography may not be placed on other websites, but links from other websites may be directed to this page. Hardcopies of this page may be printed for academic purposes.

• Alper, S., Tjosvold, D., Law S.K. (2000). Conflict management, efficacy, and performance in organizational teams. Personnel Psychology, vol. 53, no. 3, pp.

The article discusses the interpersonal conflicts that are predictable to arise in a workplace team. The authors contend that conflicts may be a positive factor in improving the performance of the team members. The article provides examples of management opportunities. It also mentions how a person must believe in their ability to handle conflict.

• Amason, A.C., Hochwarter, W.A., Thompson, K.R., Harrison , A.. (1995). Conflict: An Important Dimension In Successful Management Teams. Retrieved June 15, 2005. Organizational Dynamics; Autumn.

This article explains two different types of conflicts on teams. There are Cognitive conflicts, C-type, lead to manageable discussion and debates of ideas and options. Alternatively there are Affective conflicts, A-type, that take the form of personal attacks and lead to decreased performance in the team. The goal of the article is to understand and manage C-types before they evolve into A-types.

• Bacal, R. (2007). Organizational Conflict - The good, the bad & the ugly. Works911 (website).

Bad conflict, viewed from the basis of organizational structure, is where processes are not designed adequately. Good conflict will exist within an organization and is necessary because it adds to an organization's knowledge and skills. One of management's assignments is to manage conflict in an effort to avoid the scenario where conflict eats away at team cohesiveness and productivity. The article refers to this as "the ugly". Organizational conflict should enhance people and organizations and not destroy it.

• Bailey, D., & Hinds, P. J. (2003). Out of sight, out of sync: Understanding conflict in distributed teams. Organization Science, (Volume 14, Issue 6; pp 615).

This article examines how geographically distributed teams experience conflict more so than traditional teams. Members' on a geographic team rely heavily on technology, which has a huge impact on team performance. This piece of writing goes on to examine what can be done to help lessen the impact of conflict and improve productivity for these teams in the future.

• Bens, Ingrid. (1999). Keeping your team out of trouble. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 22, 45-47.

Working as part of a team, inevitably problems will arise, and often the leader is not equipped to resolve them effectively. The author of this article provides eight strategies to prevent team conflict in the early stages before it becomes detrimental to the team's productivity. A schedule is recommended to track the team's performance of preventative actions and maintenance.

• Capozzoli, T. K. (1995, December). Conflict resolution - a key ingredient in successful teams. Supervision.

Conflict is a natural occurrence in situations where people work together. Without it, the necessary aspects of development for a team can be impeded. Completely avoiding conflict is dangerous for an organization that wishes to avoid perpetual failure and the resulting eventual decline. Proper understanding of constructive conflict resolution includes. Coming up with solutions that can benefit the entire team as well as learning how to disagree. This article gives tips for employees in this area.

• Caudron, Shari. (1998). Keeping team conflict alive. Training & Development, 52, 48-52.

This article explains how conflict can encourage creativity and innovation in a team. When conflict is suppressed, employees many not feel able to express differing opinions and ideas, which can hurt the company. However, there is a difference between constructive and a destructive conflict, the author advises. A company needs to harness the constructive conflict with a culture that accepts and rewards it.

• Cheser, Raymond. (1999). When teams go to war - against each other! Quality Progress, 32, 24-28

This article examines the causes of conflict between and within teams. Although it is expected that teams be efficient for the company, that is not always the case since conflict arises. Within the team, conflict is reduced when roles are clearly defined. The author states that it is the team leader's role to solve conflict between teams either by using authority, coordinating compromise, or problem solving.

• Cheung, C. C., Chuah, K. B. (2000, September). Intergroup conflict management framework for Hong Kong's manufacturing industry. Engineering Management Journal (Volume 12).

This paper looks at conflict management methods used by project managers in Hong Kong's manufacturing companies. Interpersonal and intergroup conflicts have increased with the adoption of a matrix organizational structure within Hong Kong's industries. Of the various methods available, managers have for the most part used a withdrawal mode for handling emotion-oriented conflict and confrontation mode for handling task-oriented conflict.

• De Dreu, C.KW., & Van Vianen, A.E.M. (2001). Managing relationship conflict and the effectiveness of organizational teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior, (Volume 22, Issue 3; pp 309).

The study in this article assessed relationship conflict and team effectiveness. Field samples of twenty-seven teams were chosen in various organizations to perform complex non-routine tasks. Teams were evaluated through their interactions, using conflicts that were related to interpersonal issues, political norms, values and personal taste. The responses that were examined were collaborating responses, contending responses, and avoiding responses.

• Desivilya, H.S. (1998). Using conflict in organizations. International Journal of Conflict Management, (Volume 9, Issue 9; pp 369).

This article offers insight on the positive side of conflict in organizations. It describes many types of conflicts among work teams, permanent groups and temporary groups. For many of us we look at conflict as a negative component within an organization. However, this piece of writing examines the conditions under which conflict enhances performance and can become positive for an organization.

• Esquivel, M. A. & Kleiner, B. H. (1999). The importance of conflict in work team effectiveness. Team Performance Management, Vol. 3, pp. 89-96.

In the article, authors have focused on conflict a tool in order to either enhance or worsen decision making process. Article emphasized the importance of conflict in work team effectiveness in a dynamically changing environment where companies are looking for more decentralized decision making capabilities. Since decentralized decision making is emerging, it also comes with conflict that might arise from various reasons. These conflict can be used as a tool for the benefit of the team to enhance the decision making process.

• Gassenheimer, J. B. (2002). Bridging the distance between US: how initial responses to sales team conflict help shape core selling team outcomes. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management.

The proper functioning of a sales team and its ability to build long term customer relationships is dependent upon how individual team members respond to conflict. Non-voice behaviors of individual team members who are in conflict with other team members will lead to further reduction on team performance. Managers should listen to individuals who are having intra-team conflict and encourage them to directly resolve theirs issues with the other team members in order to help maintain and improve team cohesion.

• Hall, Robert. (2005). Some internal conflict is good. ABA Bank Marketing, 37, 10-11.

This article shows that avoiding conflict by creating teams of analogous people is not an effective solution. Robert Hall studied 60 teams and concluded that when conflict was eliminated, characterized by most team members being close friends, performance was diminished. The author recommends that companies promote yet manage differences among employees rather than suppress them.

• Herb, Erika & Leslie, Keith & Price, Colin (2001). Teamwork at the top. The McKinsey Quarterly (2001 Number 2, pp 32-43).

This article looks at the pivotal role of chief executive. Here three dimensions or qualities of performance are used to analyze their impact: interaction, renewal, and direction. The negative impacts are also discussed: lack of alignment, lack of deep understanding, lack of strategic focus, poor dialogue, dysfunctional behavior, and inability to renew.

• Jehn, K.& Mannix,E. 2001 The Dynamic Nature of Conflict:A Longitudinal Study of Intragroup Conflict and Group Performance.

The focus of this article is conflict in teams specifically to examine patterns of conflict as they shift and change over time. The longitudinal study develops and tests a dynamic model of group conflict examining timing of conflict types and what precedes productive conflict patterns. The goal is also to identify the links to specific patterns which affect group performances.

• Jones, John E. & Bearley, William L. (2001). Facilitating team development: A view from the field. Group Facilitation.

This article clarifies the distinction between teams and groups and describes the relationship behaviors of the members. The author promotes the use of group facilitation as a way to manage conflict and build strong relationships among the members, thus enabling team productivity and effectiveness. Rules for effective group mediation are outlined.

• Jourdain, Kathy. (2004). The myths and value of team conflict. July - volume 4, no. 11.

Heated discussions, yelling and screaming, aggressive or defensive non-verbals, perhaps even the threat of violence are thought to be signs of conflict on teams. When we think of conflict resolution, the message most people get is that conflict is bad and we want to get rid of it.  These two statements are both partial myths. The article discusses different concepts as part of analyzing the myths of conflict. In addition, it also discusses several strategies how you would bring the benefit of conflict to your team. 

• Kennedy, M. (1998). Managing Conflict in Work Teams. Center for the Study of Work Teams, University of North Texas. Retrieved from the Web on August 4, 2004. http://www.workteams.unt.edu/reports/kennedy-m.html.

This paper describes the role of conflict in team decision making and development. Team conflict resolution methods are outlined via the mediation process and team resolution process. Team conflict resolution skills are identified and summarized. The measurement of conflict as a stage of team development is explored, while tools such as perspective taking are recommended to manage the team conflict.

• Knoll, K., Jarvenpaa, S. (1995). Learning to work in distributed global teams. Hicss, vol. 00, p.92.

The computer age has created new teamwork dynamics and different types of conflict. This article observed graduate students over five weeks on “globally dispersed virtual teams.” These international teams relied mainly on electronic communication. The assigned projects were complex; so many conflicts arose during the trail. The article discusses what means the students used to accomplish their goals.

• Knott, W. & Lewis, J. (2003). Creating A Team Agreement. Conflict 911 (2005).

This article details the importance of team partnership agreements. The author explains guidelines for all team partnership agreements from compensation to exit strategies. The team partnership agreement is explained as the stepping stone to making formal team decisions. The author suggests that without a team partnership agreement it will be difficult for a team to stay on track to reach common goal thus, increasing team conflict.

• Leonard, D. C. (1993, February). Understanding and managing conflict in a technical communication department. Technical Communication.

This paper discusses the challenges faced by technical communication managers and the causes of the various types of organizational conflict they face. The types of conflict, as well as the effects of conflict from both a positive and negative perspective, and the strategies for how to handle conflict are analyzed.

• Lewis, Jeff, and Walter Knott. "Creating a Team Agreement: Like a pre-nup, a pact among prospective team members can help avoid problems later." On Wall Street. Sep 1 2003, pg. 1.

This article discusses a conflict resolution system that is built into a team agreement. This system is a preventative instead of reactive measure. The article explains how creating a team agreement can establish roles, responsibilities, compensation, and a plan for conflict resolution should the other guidelines not be followed.

• Lynch, D. (1997, May). Unresolved conflicts affect the bottom line. HRMagazine (Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 49-51).

The author here looks at the effect of conflict on the financial statement of a company. According to the article, having a team approach to resolving conflicts is more effective than having a manager resolve the conflict on their own. Ideas for team based strategies, including mediation, are given. From a cost perspective, if the company has five to ten instances per week where mediation is appropriate, having a formal mediation system may be the best for a company.

• Medina, F. J., Munduate, L., Dorado, M. A., Marti´nez, I. & Guerra J. M. (2005). Types of intragroup conflict and affective reactions. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 20, pp. 219-230.

This article explores task conflict and relationship conflict and provides three suggestions for managers to improve conflict resolution abilities. While the authors recognize that the task related conflict can be beneficial, they caution that an escalation can have a negative effect on employee job satisfaction and decrease team productivity. Also, the study found that there is relation between task and relationship conflict so the authors advise careful management constructive task based conflict.

• Montoya-Weiss, M. Massey, A. & Song, M. January 2001 Getting it Together: Temporal Coordination and Conflict Management in Global Virtual Teams.

This article examines virtual teams and conflict. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of temporal coordination on virtual teams supported by asynchronous communication technology. The relationship between conflict management behavior and virtual team performance is examined. Results show the way virtual teams manage conflict affects their success as a team.

• Nolin, C. (1993, September). Conflict Resolution: guiding members toward agreement. Association Management.

In this article, the author analyzes the importance of conflict resolution skills for an organization's executives. Organizational conflicts caused by differentiating values and/or personal friction among employees can be expected within an organization. Executives who are knowledgeable in this area anticipate conflict and arrange to avoid its outbreak. Ideas for how to handle conflict among executives, in addition to preventing it where possible, are discussed.

• O'Keefe, Barbara. Teamwork Module: Using Team Conflict. Retrieved from the Web on August 1, 2005.

The article discuss several teamwork module in dealing with team conflict. Even though conflict can be produced in negative ways, there are many benefits conflict can produce for groups. There are lessons given to show how groups can benefit from conflict by identifying key conflicts early and avoiding some common pitfalls in discussion. The topics discuss are: benefits from conflict, detecting conflicts, and pitfalls in conflict resolution.

• Passos, A. M. & Caetano, A. (2005). Exploring the effects of intragroup conflict and past performance feedback on team effectiveness. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 20, pp. 231-244

This article is primarily looking for the relationship between past performance feedback on team effectiveness. It's also exploring the effects intragroup conflict and perception of team decision making effectiveness on team performance. According to the article, results showed that there is a correlation between process conflict and team performance. While showing that there is no direct correlation between team performance and task and relationship conflict, article suggests that positive past feedback directly affects the overall team performance.

• Perl, E. (Summer 1997). Treatment of Team Conflict: The Wishes For and Risks of Consensus. Psychiatry 60(2): 182-95.

This article explores the clinical, systemic, and interpersonal dynamics of conflict between therapists on a treatment team. It considers treatment implications in regard to how therapists handle conflicts with one another, and focuses attention on the pressure they experience to resolve differences and reach consensus. Specifically, the author suggests that the therapist's ability to tolerate a lack of consensus, and to understand and accept conflicting perspectives with respect to a given patient, can help that patient begin to tolerate and integrate his or her own ambivalent feelings. Such integrative efforts may enable the patient to eventually deal with conflicting affects more directly within a single therapeutic relationship.

• Reynolds, S. (1998). Managing conflict through a team intervention and training strategy. Employment Relations Today, Vol. 24, p57(8)

A six step intervention process is presented in the article that can help teams to deal with conflict resolution. The author mainly talks about how to engage every member of the team in the conflict management process, which includes evaluation of the teams work and recognition where it is necessary.

• Simons, T. L., Peterson, R. S. (2000). Task conflict and relationship conflict in top management teams: The pivotal role of intragroup trust. Journal of Applied Psychology. Feb. Vol 85(1) 102-111.

This article discusses that there are two types of conflicts, those driven by tasks and those driven by relationships. Decisions made during a task conflict can create positive results. Decisions made during a relationship conflict can create poor results. The authors think that conflict management problems occur when prescribed attempts are made to adjust these conflicts. They contend that trust is the key factor between what is a task conflict and relationship conflict and one could lead to the other based on the dynamics of the teams.

• Somma, C. T. (1999, January). Mediation: a positive alternative in conflict resolution for clinical laboratories. Medical Laboratory Observer.

This article looks at the use of mediation, rather than reconciliation, for resolving conflict in the workplace. Reasons for the use of mediation are given. A minimum level of mediation training is recommended for any person who wishes to mediate a workplace conflict issue because it demands negotiating skills different from other forms of conflict resolution. An example case along with the mediation process used is given in detail.

• Townsley, C. (1995). Resolving Conflict in Work Teams. Center for the Study of Work Teams, University of North Texas.

This paper describes the sources of both negative and cooperative conflict in teams. It lists five methods for handling negative conflict as well as steps to manage cooperative conflict. An escalating method of team resolution is outlined through the stages of collaboration, mediation and team counseling. The role of negotiation in resolving conflicts is described.

• Tuckman, B. & Jensen, M. (1977) Adapted. 5 Stages of Group Development. George Mason University Center for Service and Leadership.

Adapted from Tucker's Developmental Sequence of Small Groups , this article outlines the five stages of group development. In the Stage 1: Forming Stage groups personal relationships are characterized by dependence. Stage 2: Storming is characterized by competition and conflict, while Stage 3: Norming is typified by the cohesion of interpersonal relations. Stage 4: Performing is the evolution of the group to true interdependence and finally Stage 5: Adjourning involves the disengagement from relationships.

• Van Slyke, E. J. (1999, November). Resolve Conflict, Boost Creativity. HR Magazine (Volume 44, Issue 12, pp. 132-136).

This article looks at the importance of properly managed conflict in the workplace. Without conflict, complacency and lack of team innovation occur. Managers need to maintain a right balance and intensity of conflict. Mediation of conflicts, as opposed to resolution, allows managers to guide team members to see the other party's point of view. In doing so, common ground may be obtained and team members will be able to create their own solutions.

• Wagner-Johnson, D. (1999). Managing Work Team Conflict: Assessment and Preventative Strategies. Center for the Study of Work Teams, University of North Texas.

This paper describes both affect and task conflict and provides strategies to prevent and effectively manage conflict. The causes of constructive and destructive conflict are identified. Guidelines to resolve destructive conflict are listed and preventative strategies to manage conflict are recommended. A Teams and Conflict Checklist (TACC) is provided as a tool to help teams identify whether they are experiencing affect or task conflict.

• Watson, S. (2003). Managing Workplace Conflict: Advice for the New IT Manager. TechRepublic.com, CNET Networks, Inc.

This article offers advice to the new manager on how to handle conflict in the workplace. It suggests finding a balance between creativity and stability in a creative environment by looking at the overall functioning of the team. It advises encouragement of controlled conflict and the discouragement of conflicted based on personalities. A “real-life” example of conflict management in an IT environment is detailed.