The Effects of Diversity and Communication Media on the Relationship Between Conflict and Cohesion in Teams

We explore the effects of diversity and communication media on the relationship between conflict and cohesion in teams. Communicating either face-to-face (FTF) or via computermediated (CM) communication, student teams with varying degrees of ethnic diversity performed a creative decision-making task. We found significant two-way and three-way interaction effects for diversity and communication media on the relationship between conflict and cohesion. Our findings suggest that CM communication insulates diverse teams from the negative effect of conflict on group cohesion, making it an effective medium for decisionmaking in diverse teams. This media benefit, however, does not extend to homogenous teams