Effects of intra-group conflict on packaged software development team performance

Data from 40 packaged software development teams are used to test a path mo del that relates three antecedents, the presence of intragroup conflict and the level of conflict management to software development team performance. Findings indicate that a combination of the team's characteristics, team m ember characteristics and existing levels of intragroup conflict accounts f or nearly one-half of the variance between the best and worst-performing te ams. Furthermore, the level of conflict management moderates the relationsh ip between existing levels of intragroup conflict and performance. These re sults highlight both the complexity of the social processes of packaged sof tware development and the value of this perspective for gaining insight on software development performance.