EXPLORING ANTECEDENTS TO TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM CONFLICT: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEHAVIORAL INTEGRATION.

Top management teams ("TMTs") make strategic decisions that affect organizational performance. As a result, top management team decision making has become of great interest to researchers in the field of strategic management. Among other things, researchers have found that TMTs must manage conflict effectively in order to make effective decisions. Specifically, TMTs must learn how to gain the benefits cognitive conflict (task-oriented disagreement) while avoiding the costs of affective conflict (emotional and relationship disagreement). This study offers greater insight into conflict management during strategic decision making. Using data from 42 TMTs of public firms in 35 industries, we identify three factors affecting the level and type of TMT conflict: TMT heterogeneity, firm strategy, and behavioral integration. Furthermore, we provide evidence that behavioral integration, an indication of the degree to which the TMT acts like a team, is particularly important to conflict management as it moderates th...