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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of two moderators of the relationships between affective conflict and cognitive conflict and team performance: the cultural context and the level of team‐oriented behaviors.Design/methodology/approachSurvey questionnaires were administered to a sample of 143 Mexico‐ and US‐based learning teams. Regression analysis was used to test hypotheses.FindingsIn both cultural contexts, cognitive conflict more positively affected performance when team‐oriented behaviors were high. This effect was stronger for Mexican teams. Affective conflict more negatively affected performance in Mexican teams than US teams, particularly when team‐oriented behaviors were high.Practical implicationsThe results have implications for managing conflict to improve team effectiveness in the USA and in Mexico and for training managers who work across these cultural contexts.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates the joint role of the cultural context and team behaviors in how conflict influences team performance.

Attribution theory research has shown that leader attributions of subordinate prior performance information influence leader-subordi nate interaction and problem solving. However, the effect of perfor mance information attributions in combination with levels of leader participation behavior on leader-subordinate interaction has received little attention. Leaders were placed randomly into high or low subordinate performance conditions, and the extent of leader partic ipation behavior was measured after the discussion. Two role-play problems representing different work contexts were utilized. Results demonstrated some support for previous research regarding leader attributions of prior performance and substantial support for the effect of leader participation behavior on problem-solving effective ness. Influences of the organizational context are discussed.

Interaction that occurs while a group completes a cooperative task describes how the group works. Group members working cooperatively on complex intellective tasks completed open-ended questionnaires that described interaction behaviors that facilitated and behaviors that interfered with their group's performance over the life of the group (four months). After considerable screening, these descriptions were adapted into behavioral items that made up a group style instrument. This instrument was administered at two points in time to an independent sample of subjects participating in similar groups. Descriptions of the facilitating and interfering interaction behaviors are provided. Group interaction is examined in terms of changes in responses to the items over time. The instrument was sensitive to levels of group performance, and descriptions of interaction behaviors that discriminated between performance levels are discussed. Applications for group feedback are described and implications for future research are given.

Members of more than 50 student groups involved in a team problem-solving environment were surveyed with the Group Style Instrument (GSI) to examine interpersonal group processes for task groups. Analyses of the GSI data resulted in team-oriented and self-oriented dimensions for both samples by comparing several factor models. In a second sample, more than 80 culturally diverse and nondiverse groups involved in a similar team problem-solving format completed the GSI at three points in time after they had completed team projects involving substantial collaborative member effort. For Sample 2, culturally diverse teams reported more self-oriented behaviors (SOBs) over time and performed better that nondiverse teams on two of the three projects. Periodic feedback regarding team performance and interpersonal processing was given to all teams. By the third team project, nondiverse teams performed better. Emphasis is given concerning the importance of managing the balance of team-orientated behaviors and SOBs within teams over time.

This article is aimed at achieving two purposes: (a) challenging the common and often unrecognized assumption that the only way to ensure that students are exposed to course concepts is by personally going over the material in class and (b) describing how minitests (i.e., individual test -+ group test -+ appeals -- instructor input) can be used to ensure that students master basic content in a fraction of the class time that would normally be devoted to lectures. Other benefits of minitests are also described. These include increased focus on higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills, development of students' interpersonal and group interaction skills, and providing students with experience as a member of an effective team.