Our findings suggest that conflict has dysfunctional effects on team effectiveness.
Despite the low levels of conflict reported by members, these were enough to diminish
the performance, satisfaction and viability, which demonstrated the strength and the
dysfunctional impact of conflict (e.g. Bayazit and Mannix, 2003; Jehn and Mannix,
2001; Simons and Peterson, 2000). However, conflict did not have a significant impact
on TMM-similarity in the middle of team lifecycle. This may occur because low levels
of conflict are not able to diminish, in a short period of time, the shared understanding
that members developed about team- and task-aspects of work. Curseu et al. (2009)
showed that when members choose future teammates based on their competences
and/or similarities they keep equilibrium in such a way that the disagreements do not
deteriorate into relationship conflict. In the Global Management Challengew
members
choose their teammates based on their relational preferences or on their competences to
work. Thus, the low level of relationship conflict may be due to the way teams are
formed.