Workers in modern teams that perform tasks over computer-mediated communication channels encounter challenges in building trust and performing effectively. Finding interventions to mitigate such losses could improve team performance. Collaborative critical thinking (CCT) training has the potential to improve trust, monitoring, and effectiveness in virtual teams. Using a simulated search-and-rescue task, the effects of CCT training, as compared with a control training, were evaluated in 105 three-member teams. No effects of CCT training were found on team positive or negative monitoring, team cognitive or affective trust, team efficacy, or team viability. However, teams trained in CCT reported consistently higher levels of team cooperation. Directions for future research are discussed so as to maximize the possibility that CCT might yet be an effective intervention.

To better understand the impact of task conflict in work teams, an incremental, multi-level model is developed, which distinguishes individual-level perceptions of conflict from more overt group-level manifestations of conflict. Task conflict is conceptualized as being detrimental for teams only to the extent that it positively predicts relationship conflict. The positive relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict is referred to as conflict spillover. The composition of team members’ underlying beliefs concerning the functional value of task conflict (referred to as conflict values) is examined as a moderator of conflict spillover. It is proposed that perceptual conflict spillover is smaller among team members who hold positive conflict values, and that manifest conflict spillover is smaller among teams composed primarily of members who hold positive conflict values. Hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal study of 59 student teams (294 individuals). At the team level, the diversity of team members’ conflict values was found to moderate manifest conflict spillover, such that the association between task and relationship conflict was significantly positive for teams composed of members who held more diverse conflict values. For teams composed of members who had less diverse conflict values, there was no significant association between manifest task conflict and manifest relationship conflict. As a result of these significant differences in conflict spillover, manifest task conflict indirectly and negatively predicted the task performance and viability of teams containing more diverse conflict values, but did not significantly impact the effectiveness of teams with less diverse conflict values. At the individual level, the significant positive association between perceived task conflict and perceived relationship conflict was not moderated by individual conflict values. However, because of this perceptual conflict spillover, task conflict perceptions also indirectly and negatively predicted team members’ personal willingness to continue working in the team. Results of this dissertation highlight important differences in the ways that conflict operates at the individual and group levels. Having identified the diversity of conflict values as a moderator of manifest conflict spillover, this dissertation outlines areas for further academic and practical knowledge development concerning the prevention of dysfunctional team dynamics.

To better understand the impact of task conflict in work teams, an incremental, multi-level model is developed, which distinguishes individual-level perceptions of conflict from more overt group-level manifestations of conflict. Task conflict is conceptualized as being detrimental for teams only to the extent that it positively predicts relationship conflict. The positive relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict is referred to as conflict spillover. The composition of team members’ underlying beliefs concerning the functional value of task conflict (referred to as conflict values) is examined as a moderator of conflict spillover. It is proposed that perceptual conflict spillover is smaller among team members who hold positive conflict values, and that manifest conflict spillover is smaller among teams composed primarily of members who hold positive conflict values. Hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal study of 59 student teams (294 individuals). At the team level, the diversity of team members’ conflict values was found to moderate manifest conflict spillover, such that the association between task and relationship conflict was significantly positive for teams composed of members who held more diverse conflict values. For teams composed of members who had less diverse conflict values, there was no significant association between manifest task conflict and manifest relationship conflict. As a result of these significant differences in conflict spillover, manifest task conflict indirectly and negatively predicted the task performance and viability of teams containing more diverse conflict values, but did not significantly impact the effectiveness of teams with less diverse conflict values. At the individual level, the significant positive association between perceived task conflict and perceived relationship conflict was not moderated by individual conflict values. However, because of this perceptual conflict spillover, task conflict perceptions also indirectly and negatively predicted team members’ personal willingness to continue working in the team. Results of this dissertation highlight important differences in the ways that conflict operates at the individual and group levels. Having identified the diversity of conflict values as a moderator of manifest conflict spillover, this dissertation outlines areas for further academic and practical knowledge development concerning the prevention of dysfunctional team dynamics.

The use of virtual teams (VTs) in the workplace has increased rapidly as companies seek to coordinate the collaboration of geographically dispersed employees effectively. This study involved an experimental comparison of VTs and face-to-face teams engaged in coopetition. Coopetition occurs when a relationship is characterized by simultaneous cooperation and competition. This study differed from previous research because many previous studies of team coopetition place their focus on traditional face-to-face teams and fail to touch upon the intricacies of VT coopetition. Because of this, investigating the intricacies of coopetition among VT members is an essential addition to the large body of research on face-to-face teams. This study examined team coopetition through separate measures of competitiveness and cooperativeness. The constructs competitiveness and cooperativeness were measured separately instead of together on a single continuum. This method determined team members’ coopetitive proclivities, the balance between one’s tendency to perform behaviors directed toward achieving a self-serving goal or goals and one’s tendency to perform behaviors directed toward achieving a group-serving goal or goals within the context of a coopetitive relationship. Team members’ coopetitive proclivities were examined through a combination of videogame play and electronic surveys. All participants in this experiment were female. No significant differences between the coopetitive proclivities of virtual and face-to-face teams were found. We found that the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners tended to be lower under the virtual condition. We found that extroverted team members were more likely to cooperate. We also found that the ratings of competitiveness that participants received from their partners were negatively correlated with the ratings of desirability for future collaboration (i.e., team viability) that participants received from their partners. Further, it was determined that the ratings of cooperativeness that participants received from their partners were positively correlated with the ratings of team viability that participants received from their partners. Additional results indicated a positive relationship between team members’ self-reported levels of agreeableness and the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners. Results also indicated a positive relationship between team members’ self-reported levels of openness and the ratings of competence that participants received from their partners. This paper discusses the implications of these results and possible directions for future study.

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