ABSTRACT
Group decision making has become a crucial aspect of organizational performance (Hackman, 1998; Ilgen, 1999). Within organizations, a great variety of decision-making groups and teams exists-management teams, command-and-control teams, cross-functional project teams, self-managed work teams, as well as computer-assisted teams in which members are located in different countries or continents. All of these teams have one thing in common: Inevitably, conflicts arise regarding divergent ideas, interests, or values held by individual team members. However, based on current knowledge, it is hard to give a conclusive answer to the question of how conflict and different methods for managing conflict affect a groups’ ongoing processes and decision making.
