Business Commons^™

Interpersonal Conflict In The Workplace: The Role Of Self-Awareness In Constructive Versus Destructive Approaches To Conflict, Christine Allee

Theses and Dissertations

Interpersonal conflict in the workplace is costly to employees, teams, and businesses. This study investigated the role of self-awareness in the effective handling of conflict and the efficacy of self-development training in raising self-awareness and conflict effectiveness. This mixed methods study utilized quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. Subjects reported their self-awareness and their conflict effectiveness via two self-assessment surveys. This study found a strong correlation between self-development training and conflict effectiveness, as well as a correlation between understanding the subjective construal of meaning and an ability to use that self-awareness during an interpersonal conflict at work. Given the enormous costs …

How Servant Leaders Navigate Conflict: An Analysis Of Acts 15:36–41, Joshua D. Henson, Justin R. Craun

Selected Faculty Publications

Greenleaf’s foundational work on servant leadership has evolved considerably over the past 50 years. Servant leadership has been found to have positive outcomes on group and organisational effectiveness. While servant leadership characteristics and outcomes have been measured, is a need to be better understand how servant leaders navigate when they disagree. Using a social and cultural analysis, the conflict between Paul and Barnabas is explored. Social and cultural analysis allows interpreters to understand what the characters in the narrative ‘see and hear.’ The analysis of Acts 15:36–41 yielded three emerging themes related to how these servant leaders navigated conflict: (1) …

The Effects Of Conflict Type And Conflict Expression Intensity On Conflict Management, Gergana Todorova, Kenneth T. Goh, Laurie Weingart

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: This paper aims to add to the current knowledge about conflict management by examining the relationships between conflict type, conflict expression intensity and the use of the conflict management approach. Design/methodology/approach: The authors test theory-based hypotheses using a field study of new product development teams in an interdisciplinary Masters program (Study 1) and an experimental vignette study (Study 2). Findings: Results show that people are more likely to respond to task conflict and conflicts expressed with less intensity using collectivistic conflict management approaches (i.e. problem-solving, compromising and yielding), and to relationship conflicts and conflicts expressed with higher intensity through …

The Importance Of Disagreements, Andrew P. Johnson

Elementary and Literacy Education Department Publications

Disagreements are good. Differing points of view are healthy for any organization or group. Conflicting ideas provide a broader view of situations and more potential possibilities. You see more sides of the problem and generate more potential solutions. Questioning new ideas or proposals allows them to be fully vetted. This is how programs, policies, schools, institutions, and teacher preparation programs grow and evolve.

Embracing a variety of ideas, philosophies, and viewpoints has always been healthy for any organization or institution. Repressing conflicting ideas, allowing only a single viewpoint has always led to extremely unhealthy situations. Sadly, idea repression occurs too …

Exploratory Analysis Of Individuals' Mobility Patterns And Experienced Conflicts In Workgroup, Nur Camellia Binte Zakaria, Kenneth T. Goh, Youngki Lee, Rajesh Krishna Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Much research argues the importance of supporting social interactions in teams and communities. The field of mobile sensing alone offers significant advances in recording and understanding human and group behaviours. However, little is known about behavioural changes as a consequence of in-group phenomena. One prominent example is intra-group conflict, which naturally arises between diverse groups of people. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach to extract mobility patterns of individual's group behaviours sensed from a WiFi indoor localisation system and explore how these patterns relate to their team processes. 62 students enrolled in a project-intensive module, Software Engineering, were tracked …

“Square Peg In A Round Hole” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Workers’ Experiences With Workplace Conflict, Katherine Joanna Sosa

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Conflict is a predictable aspect of organizational life. Research indicates that workers spend the majority of their lifetime at work and that unresolved conflict is one of the largest reducible costs in organizations. However, the majority of employee conflicts are not accurately addressed by rights-and-power based conflict management systems. This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study explored the experiences and perceptions of workers who had been involved in an unresolved or escalated workplace conflict that was of consequence in their lives. The study sought to learn how it impacted them and how they made sense of the conflict, their organizations, and …

Models Of Intragroup Conflict In Management: A Literature Review, Matthew W. Mccarter, Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Darcy Fudge Kamal, H. Min Bang, Steven J. Hyde, Reshma Maredia

Business Faculty Articles and Research

The study of intragroup dynamics in management studies views conflict as a contingency process that can benefit or harm a group based of characteristics of the group and context. We review five models of intragroup conflict in management studies. These models include diversity-conflict and behavioral negotiation models that focus primarily on conflict within a group of people; social exchange and transaction cost economics models that focus primarily on conflict within a group of firms; and social dilemma models that focus on conflict in collectives of people, organizations, communities, and generations. The review is constituted by summarizing the insights of each …

Employee Narcissism’S Implications For Performance Management: A Review And Research Directions, Scott David Williams, Jonathan Rountree Williams

Organization Management Journal

The organizational literature reflects a growing interest in the personality trait of grandiose narcissism. Individuals high in grandiose narcissism are more arrogant, self-confident, and greedy, and have lower empathy than the average person. Narcissism injects biases and conflict into the performance management process, which decreases the benefits obtained and increases stress and frustration. We review research on narcissism and the components of performance management systems, and then integrate them to illustrate several important implications for performance management in organizations. Employee narcissism is negatively related to employees’ commitment to development goals that address competence deficits, acceptance of negative feedback, and the …

The Perception Of Power, Samuel B. Bacharach, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This study examines the impact of some basic exchange-theory variables, the value and scarcity of outcomes, on perceptions of Self and Other power in a conflict setting. Each respondent took the role of an employee in conflict with an employer, and assessed the magnitude of Self and Other (employer) power. Four variables are manipulated: Self’s outcome scarcity, the value of the outcome to Self, Other’s outcome scarcity, and the value of the outcome to Other. The results are consistent with predictions drawn from the Blau, and Emerson (a, b) treatments of dependence relations. The results suggest that the stakes contending …

Perceptions Of Power In Conflict Situations, Samuel B. Bacharach, H. Andrew Michener, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

Subjects rendered judgments regarding the power of the participants in a series of conflictual circumstances where an adversary threatened a target. These situations manipulated four independent variables: (a) the adversary's capacity to damage the target's interests, (b) the adversary's probability of actually attacking, (c) the target's ability to block the impending attack, and (d) the target's capacity to retaliate. Results showed that all of the independent variables affected the subjects' judgments of the adversary's power, while three of them (damage, blockage, and retaliation) affected judgments of the target's power. Differences in the predictive equations for judgments of adversary power and …

Comparison Of Dependence And Punitive Forms Of Power, Edward J. Lawler, Samuel B. Bacharach

Edward J Lawler

This paper deals with the impact of power on tactical action in conflict. The theory and research is organized around two conceptual distinctions: one between power based on dependence versus punitive capability, and the other between relative power (i.e., power difference) and "total power" in a relationship (i.e., across actors). The paper will argue that these distinctions are important on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, they are important to explicate the connection between conceptions of power that stress the coercive foundation of power (Bierstedt 1950; Tedeschi, Schlenker & Bonoma 1973) and those that treat power as dependence (Bacharach & …

Interpersonal Mistreatment, Organizational Attitudes And Well-Being: The Impact Of Instigator’S Hierarchical Position And Demographic Characteristics, Nurul Ain Hidayah Binti Abas, Kathleen Otto

Organization Management Journal

Identifying the consequences of interpersonal mistreatment on the targets' organizational attitudes and well-being is key to promoting a healthy organizational culture. Across two experiments, we explored the impact of an instigator’s hierarchical position and demographic characteristic on the targets’ organizational attitudes and situational well-being. In the first experiment, respondents were presented with a vignette describing an interpersonal mistreatment scenario in which an instigator’s hierarchical position and gender had been manipulated. As hypothesized, interpersonal mistreatment conducted by a supervisor significantly decreased the targets’ organizational commitment and increased turnover intentions. Also, higher turnover intentions and more positive emotions were experienced by those …

Conflict About Conflict: Antecedents, Consequences, And Moderators Of Conflict Asymmetry In Teams, Ayse Karaca

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

CONFLICT ABOUT CONFLICT: ANTECEDENTS, CONSEQUENCES, AND MODERATORS OF CONFLICT ASYMMETRY IN TEAMS

by

AYSE KARACA

December 2016

Advisor: Dr. Amanuel G. Tekleab

Major: Business Administration

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The main objectives of this dissertation were to examine the antecedents and consequences of conflict asymmetry from a multilevel perspective and to explore the impact of a contextual factor, team emotional intelligence, on the conflict asymmetry-outcome relationship. In addition, this study also sought to discover if the asymmetry measure used has an impact on the relationships tested and if the effects of conflict asymmetry can be generalizable to other team …

Thinking About You: Perspective Taking, Perceived Restraint, And Performance, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

Conflict often arises when incompatible ideas, values or interests lead to actions that harm others. Increasing people’s willingness to refrain from harming others can play a critical role in preventing conflict and fostering performance. We examine perspective taking as a relational micro-process related to such restraint. We argue that attending to how others appraise events supports restraint in two ways. It motivates people to act with concern and enables them to understand what others view as harmful versus beneficial. Using a matched sample of 147 knowledge workers and 147 of their leaders, we evaluate the impact of appraisal-related perspective taking …

The Unburdening Effects Of Forgiveness: Effects On Slant Perception And Jumping Height, Zheng Xue, Ryan Fehr, Kenneth Tai, Jayanth Narayanan, Michele J. Gelfand

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research shows that in the aftermath of conflict, forgiveness improves victims’ well-being and the victim–offender relationship. Building on the research on embodied perception and economy of action, we demonstrate that forgiveness also has implications for victims’ perceptions and behavior in the physical domain. Metaphorically, unforgiveness is a burden that can be lightened by forgiveness; we show that people induced to feel forgiveness perceive hills to be less steep (Study 1) and jump higher in an ostensible fitness test (Study 2) than people who are induced to feel unforgiveness. These findings suggest that forgiveness may lighten the physical burden of unforgiveness, …

Mncs And Csr Engagement In Asia: A Dialectical Model, Angela Ka Ying Mak, Suwichit Chaidaroon, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using the Circuit of Culture as a guiding framework, this study highlighted how MNCs in Asian developing countries engage and negotiate with local stakeholders as they implement their CSR initiatives. Twenty-one qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with PR practitioners responsible for CSR projects in Asia. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes related to the framework elements. Results demonstrated how MNCs practice CSR in Asia through the five moments (identity, regulations, production, representations, and consumption). MNCs faced a number of dialectical tensions (e.g. following the country's laws, lack of CSR comprehension among employees, and resistance from the stakeholders). Effective strategies …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Friends And Foes: The Dynamics Of Dual Social Structures, Maxim Sytch, Adam Tatarynowicz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates the evolutionary dynamics of a dual social structure encompassing collaboration and conflict among corporate actors. We apply and advance structural balance theory to examine the formation of balanced and unbalanced dyadic and triadic structures, and to explore how these dynamics aggregate to shape the emergence of a global network. Our findings are threefold. First, we find that existing collaborative or conflictual relationships between two companies engender future relationships of the same type, but crowd out relationships of the different type. This results in (a) an increased likelihood of the formation of balanced (uniplex) relationships that combine multiple …

Identifying The Factors That Influence Conflict Management Behavior Of Human Resource Professionals In The Workplace: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Personality And Conflict Management Behavior, Gail Joyce Shapiro

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Effective conflict management in the workplace can reduce the negative consequences of conflict. These negative outcomes can include low productivity, health-related stress, increased employee turnover, or litigation. A Human Resource (HR) professional can help mitigate these negative outcomes in the workplace when using effective conflict management behavior with employees. However, there is a void in research pertaining to HR professionals’ use of conflict management behavior.

This quantitative, correlational research study examined whether personality has an impact on assertive or cooperative conflict management behavior of HR professionals in the workplace. Statistical testing found a significant relationship between the harmonious, people-person (a …

Bargaining And Influence In Conflict Situations, Edward J. Lawler, Rebecca Ford

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] This chapter examines bargaining as an influence process through which actors attempt to resolve a social conflict. Conflict occurs when two or more interdependent actors have incompatible preferences and perceive or anticipate resistance from each other (Blalock 1989; Kriesberg 1982). Bargaining is a basic form of goal-directed action that involves both intentions to influence and efforts by each actor to carry out these intentions. Tactics are verbal and/or nonverbal actions designed to maneuver oneself into a favorable position vis-a-vis another or to reach some accommodation. Our treatment of bargaining subsumes the concept of "negotiation" (see Morley and Stephenson 1977). …

Natural Born Peacemakers? Gender And The Resolution Of Conflict, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Two males sit apart, staring at each other from the corners of their eyes. A female approaches one and takes him by the arm, pulls him towards the other male. She alternates between the two and eventually brokers peace. In a different scenario, two males are again in conflict. A third male inserts himself between them, screaming at them or physically separating them to prevent the conflict from escalating. He keeps them separate and harangues them into submission (De Waal, 2009). Female as peacemaker, male as peacekeeper. These examples fit with our intuitions about how gender might shape the way …

Power And Tactics In Bargaining, Samuel B. Bacharach, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This paper develops and tests an analytical framework for analyzing the selection of tactics in bargaining. Using a variant of power-dependence theory, the authors propose that bargainers will use different dimensions of dependence, such as the availability of alternative outcomes from other sources and the value of the outcomes at stake, to select among different tactics. To test this model, the authors conducted two simulation experiments that portrayed an employee-employer conflict over a pay raise, manipulating four dimensions of dependence: employee's outcome alternatives, employee's outcome value, employer's outcome alternatives, and employer's outcome value. Within this context, respondents estimated the likelihood …

From Revolutionary Coalitions To Bilateral Deterrence: A Nonzero-Sum Approach To Social Power, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This chapter reviews a program of work investigating how social power, defined as a structurally based capability, affects the tactics chosen in a conflict. A nonzero-sum approach to power stipulates that the total amount of power in a relationship can have effects distinct from those of relative power or power difference. This assumption is grounded in Emerson's power dependence theory and reminiscent of Tannenbaum's concept of control. The basic ideas are that (1) higher total power in a relationship has an integrative effect on that relationship, resulting in more conciliatory and less hostile responses to conflict; and (2) larger power …

Common Criteria Meets Realpolitik Trust, Alliances, And Potential Betrayal, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation has the ambition to be a global standard for IT-security certification. The issued certifications are mutually recognized between the signatories of the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement. The key element in any form of mutual relationships is trust. A question raised in this paper is how far trust can be maintained in Common Criteria when additional signatories enter with conflicting geopolitical interests to earlier signatories. Other issues raised are control over production, the lack of permanent organization in the Common Criteria, which leads to concerns of being able to oversee the actual compliance. As …

Where Perception Meets Reality: The Effects Of Different Types Of Faultline Perceptions, Asymmetries And Realities On Intersubgroup Conflict And Group Outcomes, Lindred Greer, Karen Jehn

Karen A. Jehn

No abstract provided.

Not All Groups Are The Same: The Importance Of Connectedness For Workgroup Outcomes, Sonja Rispens, G Ruel, Karen Jehn

Karen A. Jehn

No abstract provided.

The Alignment Of Multiple Interdependencies And Workgroup Effectiveness: An Empirical Investigation, Sonja Rispens, Karen Jehn

Karen A. Jehn

No abstract provided.

When Subgroups Fuse And Divide: Effects Of Faultlines On Team Learning And Customer Satisfaction, Joyce Rupert, Karen Jehn

Karen A. Jehn

No abstract provided.

Persistence And Visibility Of Group Faultlines: The Effects Of Team Identity On The Group Faultlines-Conflict Link, Katerina Bezrukova, Karen Jehn, Madhan Grounder

Karen A. Jehn

We expand the group faultline theory by taking into account the relative importance of various demographics within the group that can trigger the formation of strong group faultlines. We draw on group faultline theory (Lau & Murnighan, 1998), social identity and categorization theories (Turner & Tajfel, 1986), social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and evolutionary psychology (Kurzban & Leary, 2001) to predict how group faultlines affect conflict. We propose that the visible demographic characteristics (age, race, and gender) will be more influential than the non-visible (education, tenure, and function) in determining the interaction patterns within the group (Thatcher & …

Negotiations In Organizations: A Sociological Perspective, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] The paper begins by elaborating on the utility of viewing organizational conflict and negotiations in social movement terms, and some of the implications of this approach for negotiations research. It then turns to a review of the traditional sociological literature on power and conflict in organizations, and of current research on social movements, discussing the points of complementarity of these two literatures. Finally, the implications of the combination of the social movement and organizations literatures for research on negotiation are discussed, focusing on the way in which negotiating issues, strategies and outcomes are likely to vary among different types …