CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

4. CONFLICT AND GROUP DECISION MAKING: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION 131
The study by Barrick et al. (1998) on teams together with the evidence
on individual conflict management that can be derived by the studies of
Moberg (2001) and Graziano and colleagues (Graziano et al., 1996; Jensen-Campbell
et al., 1996) led us to conclude that social motivation affects
conflict management processes in decision-making teams as it does in
negotiation teams. However, this research does not answer the question
of how social motives during conflict exactly influence teams’ decisionmaking
effectiveness.
Many scholars have suggested that a prosocial approach to conflict benefits
group decision making in the long run. For example, Rubin, Pruitt,
and Kim (1994) speculated that such a prosocial approach would lead to
positive conflict experiences like achieving integrative agreements, and
thereby enhance interpersonal relations, increase team members’ feelings
of self-efficacy, and decrease the likelihood of future conflict. Their arguments
are consistent with the results of studies on teams in organizations,
showing positive correlations between cooperative attitudes, constructive
conflict management, and group functioning.
An impressive line of studies by Tjosvold and colleagues (for an overview,
see Tjosvold, 1998), consistently shows that when group members
adopt a prosocial motive, they engage in more constructive conflict management.
Specifically, Tjosvold argues and shows that a prosocial orientation
to conflict fosters “constructive controversy,” a process in which team
members express their divergent ideas and opinions and try to integrate
these into an optimal decision. Evidence for this perspective comes from a
laboratory experiment by Tjosvold and Deemer (1980), in which 66 dyads
discussed a work-distribution issue. Results showed that dyads discussing
the case in a prosocial context with a confederate who emphasized mutual
benefits reached integrative decisions more often than dyads discussing
the case in a proself context with a confederate who emphasized that each
of the parties should try to prevail. Likewise, Tjosvold, Wedley, and Field
(1986) showed that constructive controversy was significantly correlated to
managers’ self-described successfulness of decision-making experiences.
Thus, the higher the constructive controversy, the more successful the decisions
were. Moreover, Tjosvold, Dann, and Wong (1992) demonstrated that
perceiving cooperative goal interdependence led individuals to engage in
constructive controversy, and to focus on good customer service, work efficiently,
and make progress on their tasks. Furthermore, research by Tjosvold
and De Dreu (1997) showed that Dutch employees who indicated that
they engaged in constructive controversy had better interpersonal relationships
than employees who did not engage in constructive controversy. The
process of constructive controversy was also related to higher ratings of
efficiency and to more confidence in future collaboration. Finally, in a study
on 61 self-managing teams, Alper, Tjosvold, and Law (2000) showed that
teams employing constructive controversy felt that they were more effective
in handling conflicts and received higher performance ratings from
their management than teams that did not.