Task conflict is usually associated with effective decisions, and relationship conflict is associated with poor decisions. The 2 conflict types are typically correlated in ongoing groups, however, which creates a prescriptive dilemma. Three explanations might account for this relationship--misattribution of task conflict as relationship conflict, harsh task conflict tactics triggering relationship conflict, and misattribution of relationship conflict as task conflict. The authors found that intragroup trust moderates the relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict in 70 top management teams. This result supports the "misattribution of task conflict" explanation. The authors also found a weak effect that is consistent with the argument that tactical choices drive the association between the 2 conflict types. We infer that trust is a key to gaining the benefits of task conflict without suffering the costs of relationship conflict.

This article explores 1 mechanism by which leader personality affects organizational performance. The authors hypothesized and tested the effects of leader personality on the group dynamics of the top management team (TMT) and of TMT dynamics on organizational performance. To test their hypotheses, the authors used the group dynamics q-sort method, which is designed to permit rigorous, quantitative comparisons of data derived from qualitative sources. Results from independent observations of chief executive officer (CEO) personality and TMT dynamics for 17 CEOs supported the authors' hypothesized relationships both between CEO personality and TMT group dynamics and between TMT dynamics and organizational performance.

The global economy and shifting political tides make the need for intercultural understanding and education obvious. Where historically the focus of intercultural training has been on preparing an individual to work in a new culture, today's organizations routinely ask managers to work in multinational environments and move from country to country. This challenge has created a strong debate about how to prepare managers for such challenging assignments. How ought people be assessed to understand their readiness for such assignments? Do high intelligence quotient (IQ) people adjust better than others to new cultural challenges? The topic of cultural adjustment and its assessment remains compelling but incomplete. Our focus here is the development and exploration of the concept of cultural intelligence, or, CQ (Earley, 2003; Earley & Ang, 2003), along with its implications for training and education for global work assignments. Our approach suggests that training for the global manager should include metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral components. The CQ approach represents a significant break from conventional wisdom of focusing on cultural values for intercultural education.

This article explores the linkages between strategies for managing different types of conflict and group performance and satisfaction. Results from a qualitative study of 57 autonomous teams suggest that groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share 3 conflict resolution tendencies: (a) focusing on the content of interpersonal interactions rather than delivery style, (b) explicitly discussing reasons behind any decisions reached in accepting and distributing work assignments, and (c) assigning work to members who have the relevant task expertise rather than assigning by other common means such as volunteering, default, or convenience. The authors' results also suggest that teams that are successful over time are likely to be both proactive in anticipating the need for conflict resolution and pluralistic in developing conflict resolution strategies that apply to all group members.

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