Differences and Similarities

The scholarly literature was collected using keywords such as "conflicts", "conflict management", "reasons for conflicts", "conflict resolution techniques and project success" and "conflicts in projects" in search engines and online journal sources such as Google, Google Scholar, DOAJ.org, and Open- JGate. The articles from top rated journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Computational Conflicts, Project Management Journal, Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, International Journal of Conflict Management, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Journal of Management in Engineering, Training and Development Journal, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Current Issues in Technology Management, Chinese Management Studies, International Journal of Project Management, Team Performance Management, Nordicom Review, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Development and Conflict Resolution Quarterly are collected. The literature is collected between May 2012 and January 2013. The conceptual model development is done between Jan 2013 and March 2013, analysis of reasons for conflicts and conflict resolution techniques is done between March 2013 and April 2013 and report writing is done during April 2013 and June 2013. 

According to Barki et Hartwick, in the past one group of researchers were working on conflict management styles and another group of researchers were working on level of interpersonal conflict in conflicting situations. Product development involves multi discipline team or teams. The complexity of product development leads to difficulties in coordination, cooperation and communication resulting into conflicts in teams. Some of the previous research is concentrating on team conflicts and their relationship to team performance or project performance and outcomes. The relationship of diversity, conflicts and group performance has been widely researched. Diversity leads to task conflicts, which are good for team performance. Task related diversity has more impact on task conflict than on relationship conflict resulting into better team performance.

Al-Sedairy has done a survey of a hundred thirty-eight construction professionals in Saudi Arabia in public sector construction projects comprising clients, contractors and consultants to find the reasons for conflicts in public sector construction projects and to find the different ways of resolving conflicts. He found that in public sector construction projects in Saudi Arabia, conflicts occur between contractors and clients, and contractors and consultants. The main reasons for conflicts are differences in perceptions, project priorities and goals but not the differences in technical understanding or management style. The findings include compromise as preferred way of conflict resolution and cultural differences are not main reasons for conflicts in construction projects in Saudi Arabia. In this study he found that the most frequent and most serious conflicts are between contractor and consultant, and contractor and client. They occurred during the actual construction stage of the project. 

Jehn et al., surveyedeighty-eight teams of five members each from three US business schools doing MBA program to find out the relationship and impact of value congruence, demographic diversity, and conflicts on workgroup outcomes. They found that individual visible demographic differences such as gender and age increases relationship conflict and informational demographic differences such as education increases task conflict. Group value congruence decreases both task and relationship conflicts. Individual stability and decisiveness resulted into higher performance. The group outcomes considered in this study are member satisfaction, objective performance and perceptions of performance. Task conflict is negatively related to perceived performance and member satisfaction and relationship conflict is negatively related to objective performance, perceived performance and member satisfaction. Task conflict is positively related to objective performance in work groups. 

Appelbaum et al., have studied self-directed teams to find out the impact of conflict management techniques on group decision making. They also presented a set of conflict management alternatives comprising competition, collaboration, compromise, avoidance and accommodation. They explained conflict process and described a four stage conflict incident in self-directed teams. Conflict is inbuilt nature of teams and self-directed teams are in use at organizations such as Procter & Gamble, Xerox Corporation, Motorola, GE, Coca-Cola, and Federal Express.

Jehn et Mannix have done a longitudinal study of 51 three-person groups comprising one hundred fity-three working executives doing part-time MBA at three USA business schools. They found that moderate task conflicts, low levels of relationship conflicts with rise at deadline and low, but increasing levels of process conflicts result into high performance in teams. This is the pattern of conflicts which results into high performance in project teams. They have categorized the conflicts as task conflicts, relationship conflicts and process conflicts. The stable members in the team result into more task related conflicts in the project. Another finding from their research is group value consensus is strongly correlated to group performance. 

Barki et Hartwick surveyed two hundred sixty-five information systems staff and two hundred seventy-two users from one hundred sixty-two information systems development projects in Canada to find out the relationship between interpersonal conflict and information systems project success. They found that the conflict management is positively related to IS project success. The interpersonal conflict construct is reflected by interference, disagreement and negative emotion. In this study, majority of the participants felt that adherence to schedules and budget is the overall success. Also the schedules and budget are strongly correlated to overall success to compare with other factors. In this study it was also observed that the interpersonal conflict, conflict resolution techniques, and satisfactory conflict resolution are strongly correlated to information systems quality. It is also observed that information systems professionals preferred avoidingas a technique of conflict resolution over all other techniques. However, problem solving is more associated with satisfactory conflict resolution. Satisfactory conflict resolution is positively related to overall project success and process satisfaction. Avoiding has negative correlation with overall success; whereas accommodating, problem solvingand asserting are positively correlated to many components of overall information system's success. 

Montoya-Weiss.et al., have experimented on thirty-five member student teams from university in Japan and three universities in US to find the relationship between conflict management and virtual team performance mediated by process structure and temporal coordination. It was found that internal conflict management in virtual teams is critical for team performance mediated by temporal coordination. 

Leung et al., have done a study of seventy-five construction professionals including clients, project managers and project team members in Hong Kong to find the relationship between construction conflicts and participants' satisfaction. They found that moderate level of conflict gives optimum participant satisfaction and the increased levels of conflict diminish satisfaction. They also found that the participants have to balance between task and relationship for project performance. According to their research there is a strong correlation between task conflicts and relationship conflict. They used the term team conflicts to express the relationship conflicts between the stakeholders of the project. In their study both task and relationship conflicts were negatively correlated to participants' satisfaction. Integration style of conflict resolution is positively correlated to participants' satisfaction. 

Brahnam et al., have studied the relationship between gender and conflict resolution techniques used by a study of one hundred sixty-three Information Systems undergraduate students at a Midwest university in USA. They found that women use mostly collaborative style of conflict resolution and men avoid the conflict in information systems projects. They also found that women may possess more attributes of conflict resolution than their men counterparts. Song et al., have done a survey of two hundred ninety R&D and marketing managers in US to find the relationship between five conflict resolution strategies, constructive and destructive conflicts and innovation performance.

Lam et al., have done a study of two hundred forty-five manufacturing experts in Hong Kong and found sixteen sources of conflicts and five conflict resolution techniques for client-supplier relationships in new product development teams. They found that conflict has negative impact on new product development performance. Particularly integrating and obliging styles of conflict resolution are good for better performance and dominating and avoiding styles of conflict resolution hamper the team performance. They found costs, differences in technical opinions and schedules as top three reasons for conflicts between client and supplier in new product development teams in manufacturing industry. The intensity of conflict also impacts the product quality, costs, schedules and new product development team performance. 

Mohammed et al., surveyed one hundred sixteen Indian, French and UK project managers to study the relationship between culture and conflict management style in international projects. They found that Hofstede's cultural dimensions are correlated to project manager's conflict management styles. Proper cultural management leads to innovation and knowledge creation and gets competitive advantage for the organization. It was also found that Indian project managers prefer avoiding and French and to a less extent UK project managers prefer competing styles of conflict management. 

Ochieng et Price have interviewed project managers, project directors and project engineers working in 8 organizations from construction, pharmaceutical, energy and petrochemical industries in UK and Kenya to find out the impact of culture on multicultural project team performance. They found that cultural differences can result into conflicts, poor project performance and misunderstandings. They also found currency rate fluctuations, and language can be big issues in multicultural teams. 

Doucet et al., studied sixty-six American and fifty-two Chinese managers working in mainland China to find out the impact of culture on conflict management approaches of these managers. They found that for Chinese managers, it is important to embrace the colleague and teach a moral lesson in case of conflict and for American managers, hostility and vengefulness are important elements. According to them hostility and vengefulness are not included in traditional conflict management frameworks and models. 

Vokić et Sontor surveyed one hundred sixteen Croatian employees to find out the affect of individual characteristics such as age, gender, education, field of work, hierarchy level, marital status and parenthood on choice of conflict resolution styles. They found that compromising is most frequently used conflict resolution styles among Croatian employees. It is also observed that parenthood is associated with accommodating, compromising and avoiding styles; married status is associated with accommodating and compromising; gender is associated with accommodating, specifically women employees were using more collaborative styles of conflict resolution such as accommodating and compromising rather than competitive styles of conflict resolution. Age, education, field of work and hierarchy level are not related to choice of conflict handling styles among Croatian employees. 

Curseu et al., have done a research on forty-three short term groups and forty-four long term groups of students at a Dutch University to find the relationship and impact of task conflict, group temporariness and emotional regulation on emergence of relationship conflict. They found that in groups having less effective emotional regulations, task conflicts can become relationship conflicts. The presence of trust reduces the chances of task conflict becoming relationship conflict. These findings are similar to the findings of the research done by Holahan et Mooney. Effective emotional regulation can reduces the changes of task conflict becoming relationship conflict. This effect is more for long term groups rather than short term groups. In another research done in mining industry projects in Peru by Rees et al., it was found that the external factors outside the project have impact on conflict management in Peruvian mining projects. Next section explains the conflict life cycle in projects.