| Course | MT340 Conflict Management and Team Dynamics |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 8 |
| Paper type | Virtual team conflict case |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT340 Unit 8
Eleven of Fourteen Rejected Overnight: An MT340 Unit 8 Virtual Team Case Between a Game Studio and Its Art Partner
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT340: Conflict Management and Team Dynamics
Unit 8 Virtual Team Case
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The studio, partner, contract and events are composite; the frameworks and research cited are real.
Timeline
The studio and partner are twelve hours apart in summer and thirteen in winter. Every exchange in the case landed while its recipient slept.
On a Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Austin, Wednesday 4 a.m. in Ho Chi Minh City, the studio's art director posted markup on fourteen delivered character models, rejecting eleven. The comments asked for changes to proportions and to how metal and leather were rendered.
At 9 a.m. Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City, 9 p.m. Tuesday in Austin, the partner's art lead read the comments. Her reply, sent before the studio woke, said the models matched the style guide exactly and asked whether the rejections were "about quality or about something else."
At 8 a.m. Wednesday in Austin, the art director read the reply as an accusation. His answer, sent before lunch, said the partner had ignored "the current guide."
By Thursday morning in Ho Chi Minh City, the partner had paused work on the next batch.
The Studio's Account
The studio's art director believed the partner had been careless. The models had the old body proportions, which the studio had changed a month earlier, and metal surfaces looked too shiny. He had posted the updated style guide on the studio's internal wiki and announced it in the studio's art channel.
The Partner's Account
The partner's art lead believed the studio was rejecting good work to avoid paying for it. The contract paid per approved model, and eleven rejections meant eleven unpaid models. The models matched the style guide the partner had: version two, a PDF sent at the start of the contract. She had never seen version three.
The Style Guide
Version three of the style guide, which changed body proportions and the rules for metal and leather materials, existed only on the studio's internal wiki. The partner had no access to the wiki. The announcement went to the studio's art channel, which the partner was not in. Both accounts were true from where each side stood.
The Mutual Knowledge Problem
Cramton (2001), studying dispersed teams, described a mutual knowledge problem: members of geographically distributed teams often fail to share, or to know that they have not shared, important information, and they tend to explain the resulting problems by blaming the other side's character rather than the situation. The case fits closely. The studio assumed the partner knew about version three because everyone at the studio did. The partner assumed the studio knew which guide it was using because the studio had sent it. Each side explained the failure through the other's motives: carelessness on one side, bad faith on the other.
Each side was right about its own facts and wrong about what the other side could see.
A Faultline Along Company Lines
Lau and Murnighan (1998) described faultlines as hypothetical dividing lines that can split a group into subgroups when several attributes align, such as location, organization and role. Here, everything aligned: company, country, time zone, language and payment. When the conflict arose, every attribute pointed the same way, and the team split cleanly into two sides. A group with cross-cutting ties, such as a studio artist embedded at the partner, would have had someone on both sides of the line.
Sorting the Grievances
Using the Unit 2 typology, each grievance can be sorted by type.
The proportions and materials disagreement was task conflict: it concerned the work.
The question of which style guide governed was process conflict: it concerned which document applied and who should have shared it.
The pay-per-approval contract created a second process conflict about who bears the cost of rework caused by unclear instructions.
The partner's question about "something else" and the art director's reply about ignoring the guide were relationship conflict: each attributed a motive to the other.
Jehn (1995) found relationship conflict harmful to satisfaction and performance, and here it arose from process failures, not from the task itself.
How Payment Shaped the Reading
The pay-per-approval contract made every rejection a financial event for the partner. From her side, eleven rejections meant eleven models her team had built without pay, which explains why her first reply asked about motives. From the studio's side, the contract was designed to protect quality, and rejections were a normal part of review. The same clause meant something different to each company, and neither had discussed how rework caused by changed instructions would be handled.
What Changed
Four changes followed a video call scheduled for the overlap hour, 8 a.m. in Austin and 8 p.m. in Ho Chi Minh City. First, the partner's art lead was given read access to the studio's art wiki and added to the art channel. Second, the studio now sends a dated changelog with every style guide update, and the partner confirms receipt. Third, rejections must cite the style guide section and version they rely on. Fourth, the contract was amended so that rework caused by a guide change the partner had not received is paid.
The Grievance That Outlasted the Fixes
The partner's art lead still believes the studio's first instinct was to blame her team, and that the eleven rejections would not have been questioned if the partner had not pushed back. The art director still believes the partner's reply was out of line. The process fixes removed the cause of the next dispute but did not repair the trust lost in this one.
What Could Have Prevented It
A single question at the start of the batch would have prevented most of the dispute: which version of the guide are you working from? Neither side asked, because each assumed the answer. Cramton (2001) found that dispersed teams rarely notice what they have failed to share, so prevention has to be built into routine rather than left to memory. The changelog and confirmation step are that routine.
Lessons
Distance made the problem harder in three ways. It hid the missing information, because neither side could see the other's tools. It delayed every reply until the other side was asleep, so each message was written and read without conversation. And it aligned every attribute along the company line, so the dispute had two clear sides. The fixes address the first two. The third would need people who belong to both sides, such as a studio artist visiting the partner for a month each year.
References
Cramton, C. D. (2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science, 12(3), 346-371. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.3.346.10098
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(2), 256-282. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393638
Lau, D. C., & Murnighan, J. K. (1998). Demographic diversity and faultlines: The compositional dynamics of organizational groups. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 325-340. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.533229
The Purdue Global MT340 Unit 8 instructions
Unit 8 asks students to analyze a conflict in a team whose members work apart. The case should begin with a reconstruction of events, often a timeline, that shows how distance shaped what happened. Instructors expect each side's account to be presented fairly before any judgment. Frameworks for dispersed teams, such as the mutual knowledge problem and faultline theory, need to be tied to particular events in the timeline. Grievances can be sorted using the typology from earlier units. The case should report how the conflict was resolved or managed and what remained unresolved. A section on what could have prevented the dispute, and on lessons about distance, connects the case to practice. Both organizations' perspectives should carry equal weight.
How the MT 340 Unit 8 example is put together
The sample's timeline gives each step in Austin and Ho Chi Minh City time. The studio's and partner's accounts follow, each as its authors would tell it. A section shows the style guide gap. Cramton's mutual knowledge problem is applied, under the highlighted line that each side was right about its own facts and wrong about what the other could see. Lau and Murnighan's faultlines explain why every attribute pointed the same way. Grievances are sorted by type, with Jehn on relationship conflict. A section shows how the pay-per-approval clause read differently to each company. Four changes, a lasting grievance, the one question that would have prevented the dispute and three lessons about distance close the case.
MT340 Unit 8 rubric: what earns full points
Virtual team cases are mostly assessed on fair reconstruction, accurate application of dispersed-team research, classification of grievances and practical lessons. Graders reward timelines that make distance visible. Each side's account should be presented as its authors would present it. Frameworks should be applied to specific events rather than described in general. Sorting grievances by type shows how process failures created personal friction. Reporting a grievance that outlasted the fixes shows realism. Prevention lessons should be built into routines rather than reliant on memory. Research sources appear in APA 7. Cases that take one company's side from the start, or that blame time zones without identifying the missing information, tend to receive lower marks.
Common MT340 Unit 8 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Virtual team cases often blame communication or time zones in general without finding the specific information one side lacked. Another common weakness is telling the story from the writer's own company's perspective only. Some students apply frameworks loosely, naming the mutual knowledge problem without showing where it occurred. Fixes are often described as better communication. Before drafting, build a timeline in both locations' times and mark, for each step, what each side knew. The gap between those two columns is usually the case's central finding, and it points directly to the routine that would have closed it.
Get an MT340 Unit 8 example written to your instructions
If your Unit 8 case is supplied, forward it with the rubric; if the prompt invites your own, outline a dispute on a team that rarely or never met in person, noting where each party was based. A custom case analysis that treats both sides fairly arrives within 24-48h, free for a first order. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT340 Unit 8 questions, answered
Does the Unit 8 case have to involve different countries?
No. A virtual team can sit in one country or one city and still work almost entirely through written channels. Time zones add a layer, but the core problems, missing shared context and messages read without tone, appear in any team that rarely meets. The case should name whichever distance factors actually operated.
What research suits a virtual team case?
Work on dispersed teams, such as Cramton's study of the mutual knowledge problem and research on conflict in distributed groups, fits better than general conflict models alone. Sections often name a textbook chapter as well. The research should explain particular moments in the dispute, which is where most of the analysis marks sit.
Should the case include a resolution?
Most prompts ask for one, either what happened or what should happen. Where the dispute was never fully settled, saying so is stronger than inventing an ending. A resolution section that ties each change to a diagnosed cause, and names what remained unresolved, reads as analysis rather than a happy close.
Where can I find a free MT340 Unit 8 sample paper?
This page holds the complete MT340 Unit 8 case, reconstructing a dispute between a game studio and its overseas art partner.
What caused the rejections in the MT340 Unit 8 sample?
The partner worked from version two of the style guide, while version three, which changed proportions and materials, existed only on the studio's internal wiki.