Manifested Intra-Group Conflict in Collaborative Technology Supported Multi-Cultural Virtual Teams: Findings from a Laboratory Experiment

In this paper, we report the findings of our study on perceived group atmosphere and manifested intra-group conflict in global virtual teams, engaged in non-repetitive task. We conducted a laboratory experiment in which global virtual teams used IBM's Lotus Sametime to perform group tasks. We found that cultural heterogeneity of the virtual teams adversely affected members' perception of the group atmosphere, which in turn impacted the intra-group conflict in the teams. We also found that task conflict overshadowed relationship conflict in these teams. We studied conflicts that were manifested in the group discussions. The groups that performed a complex task manifested fewer conflict episodes than those working on a relatively simpler task. The findings of the study are interesting and provide motivation for future research.