Understanding Conflict in Virtual Teams: An Experimental Investigation using Content Analysis

Virtual teams are temporally and geographically dispersed groups, which may have members from varied cultures and backgrounds. Such diversity may cause intra-group conflicts in virtual teams. We analyzed the contents of the transcripts of GSS-based virtual teams and identified the conflict episodes and the approaches followed to resolve intra-group conflicts. The conflict episodes that occurred in the early phases of decision-making were separated from those taking place in the choice phase. The results revealed that conflicts in the choice phase of decision-making were detrimental to global virtual teams. We also found that groups following an integrative conflict resolution style had better performance than those following other conflict resolution approaches, such as a distributive style. While the results contribute towards the understanding of conflict in groups, the area warrants further research.