The Effect Of Conflict Management Approaches On Team Effectiveness

Conflict can be seen everywhere in team, but whether or not its effect on team effectiveness is good enough depends on the approach that the team adopts to manage its conflict. If a team has a reasonable conflict management approach, it will generate a specific environment and conditions difficult to be imitated within the team and then a profound impact on team operational effectiveness will be produced.This study, from the perspective of conflict management, aims to explore the way of improving team operational effectiveness and the intermediary channel of these improvements. Based on the literature review, this paper analyzes the effects of three types of conflict management approaches - including cooperative, competitive and avoidance– on team operational effectiveness, and assumes that constructive controversy in team is an intermediate variable between team conflict management approaches and team operational effectiveness. Through the analysis of data from 137 station agents on duty in 43 operational teams of Shanghai Metro Corporation, we found that cooperative conflict management approach has a positive impact on constructive controversy and affects team operational effectiveness through constructive controversy in team. In addition, when cooperative conflict management approach is under control, the effect of competitive conflict management approach and avoidance conflict management approach on team operational effectiveness will become insignificant. This study also discusses those findings that are different from previous studies, and describes the practical value.From the theoretical sense, this study analyzes relationship model among team conflict management approaches, constructive controversy and team operational effectiveness, and puts the model in the empirical test. This analysis contributes to a better understanding of how team conflict management approaches affect team operational effectiveness. From the practical sense, the results of this study contribute to better team work in dealing with conflict issues, and thus maintain and improve team performance.