Resumen

DIMAS, Isabel Cristina Dórdio; LOURENCO, Paulo Renato  y  MIGUEZ, José. (Re)Thinking intragroup conflict: performance and group development. Psicologia [online]. 2007, vol.21, n.2, pp.183-205. ISSN 0874-2049.

Against the traditional perspective of intragroup conflict, that viewed this phenomenon as negative to group performance, the recent approaches argue that conflict stimulates creativity and the innovation of workgroups. Nonetheless, the empirical studies developed didn’t find support to the positive effect of conflict in­‑group functioning. In this paper we try to contribute to a better understand of the relationships between conflict, handling conflict strategies and group development. We analyze, also, the way conflicts are lived and managed along the group temporal moments. Sixty­‑eight workgroups from the production department of eight industrial companies agreed to participate in this study. All workgroups performed non­‑complex tasks. Results revealed that task conflict is negatively related with performance and that integrating is the only strategy of handling conflict with a positive effect on the workgroups results. Our analysis suggests also that the emergence of intragroup conflict is different along the group temporal moments. Other studies are necessary with teams that performed complex and non routine tasks to test the pattern of results found.

Palabras clave : intragroup conflict; conflict management; performance; group development.

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