專案團隊成員知覺衝突如何影響其創意發想與作品?

Abstract

過去研究指出衝突可增進團隊工作的成效，使團隊產生較具創意的結果 (Baron, 1991)。專案團隊因成員專業領域不同，更容易因對任務的見解與立場的相異而產生衝突(Yong, Sauer, & Mannix, 2014)，團隊內部衝突出現後，成員可能會以不同方式因應。本研究在高級職業學校社團的專案團隊中進行個案研究，以了解成員的衝突、因應策略如何影響創意的發想與作品。 本研究以Jehn (1995)提出的團隊衝突為理論基礎，觀察高中職學生專案團隊進行創意任務時，內部發生了哪些任務衝突及關係衝突，此兩大類衝突各可抽取出那些衝突次因素。黃囇莉(1999）指出華人文化有獨特的衝突因應方式，以滿足「自己的利益或意見」及滿足「他人的利益或意見」為兩軸，建構四類衝突因應策略，包含「協調類」(兼及自己與他人意見與利益)、「忍讓類」(僅顧及他人)、「抗爭類」(僅顧及自己)、「退避類」(不顧自己與他人)四類，此四類分佈在兩軸所形成的四個向量空間之中，本研究根據此華人衝突因應模式探究團隊成員採取了哪些衝突因應策略。歷程中蒐集團隊討論錄音紀錄、問卷及訪談的資料，進行內容分析並檢驗評分者間一致度。樣本包含四組專案團隊(2-3人)，團隊須共同策劃及完成一份專案(校刊專欄)，而團隊所產生的作品，分為「構想」及「成品」，採用共識評量技術(Amabile, 1996)為創意評分，評分規準分別為新奇性與實用性。 研究結果發現，專案團隊發生的「任務衝突」涵蓋三個因素：「對任務與執行想法相異」、「對任務認知差異的揣測與不安」、「對任務構想的負面評價」。「關係衝突」亦涵蓋三個因素：「行為不符合期待」、「地位不平等」、「團員陌生」。黃囇莉(1999）建構的華人衝突因應模式能有效描述專案團隊中成員的衝突因應策略，成員採用了12種華人衝突因應策略中的10種，只有兩種負面且較為激烈的因應策略並未出現。四組團隊依其衝突與因應方式，被命名為「同床異夢」、「十面埋伏」、「風平浪不靜」、「歡樂自在」團隊。創意得分最高的是「風平浪不靜」團隊，而「風平浪不靜」與「歡樂自在」兩組團隊被稱為高創意組，「同床異夢」與「十面埋伏」兩組團隊被稱為低創意組。四組團隊作品分別各有「高新奇性、高實用性」、「高新奇性、低實用性」、「低新奇性、高實用性」以及「低新奇性、低實用性」的特色。 「對任務與執行想法相異」以及「團員陌生」兩衝突因素影響團隊創意的表現；另外，「對任務認知差異的揣測與不安」及「對任務構想的負面評價」會影響團隊構想的執行。在衝突因應部分，高創意組使用較多的「協調類」策略，其餘衝突因應類別無明顯次數上差異。此研究結果能幫助我們了解專案團隊中所發生團隊衝突，以及團隊因應策略如何影響創意的產生。並提供企業、政府或學校機構，反思的新角度。

Previous studies indicated that conflicts could improve the efficiency and efficacy of teamwork and brought about more creativity in a team (Baron, 1991). In a project team, members came with diverse specialties, easily confronting conflicts because of different opinions and stances toward the task; besides, members tended to adapt themselves to a situation with various ways (Yong, Sauer, & Mannix, 2014). This research conducted in a vocational high school club aimed to understand how members perceived conflicts in a project team and how coping strategies affected creative thinking and products. This research takes team conflicts proposed by Jehn (1995) as the theory. It is observed what task and relationship conflicts occurred in a team when students carried on the creative task and what sub-factors between these two categories could be extracted from. Huang (1999), based on the analysis of Chinese culture and canons, has proposed a Chinese model of conflict copying to describe the unique coping strategies Chinese used when facing conflicts. She used self-benefiting or self-opinion concerning and other-benefiting or other-opinion concerning as the x-axis and y-axis respectively to distinguish four categories of coping strategies. Four categories of coping strategies denote negotiating (concerning both self and others’ benefits and opinions), tolerating (concerning only others’ benefits and opinion), contest (concerning only self benefits and opinions) and avoidance (concerning neither self nor others’ benefits and opinions). Each category is composed by three smaller-scale strategies. This research was based on Chinese model of conflict copying to explore what coping strategies were taken by team members of high school age. Data collections included recording of team discussion, questionnaire and interview; content analysis was used to analyze the collected data and inter-raters reliability was analyzed. Samples consisted of four project teams (two to three people per team) and each team should work together to design and complete a project (a column in school magazine). The scoring on ideas and the products of the column adopted the standard process of consensual assessment technique (Amabile, 1996) with rubric on the novelty and practicability of both team ideas and products. The results showed that “task conflict” contained three sub-factors: the disparity between idea generation and practice, the conjecture and anxiety about opinion difference, and the negative evaluation about ideas proposed. Dissatisfying behaviors and performance, unequal status and unfamiliarity among team members also comprised of three sub-factors in “relationship conflicts.” The Chinese model of conflict copying could effectively illustrate members’ coping strategies in which 10 out of 12 coping strategies were adopted among team members while only two most negative copying strategies were not used. Based on the conflict types, the coping strategies adopted, the four groups in the study were thus given the names of Couple With Different Schemes, Team of Flying Daggers, Calm and Rocky, and Happy and Easy. The highest score of the product creativity fell on the Calm and Rocky, followed by Happy and Easy. The columns conducted by Couple With Different Schemes and Team of Flying Daggers were graded as the lower creativity. The products of four groups were characterized as high novelty and high practicality, high novelty and low resolution, low novelty and high resolution and low novelty and low resolution respectively. Two conflict factors, the disparity between idea generation and practice toward the task and unfamiliarity among team members, affected creativity level of the final product while the conjecture and anxiety about opinion difference of the task, and the negative evaluation about proposed ideas affected the creativity level of ideas about column. In coping strategies, the high creative team used more negotiating strategies whereas other coping strategies showed insignificant differences between high and low creative teams. Thus, the result of this study may bring a new perspective to ultimately benefit future industries, government/schools and other institutes to realize what conflicts occur in a project team, and how members’ coping strategies affect creativity level of idea generating and final product.