CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

24 DE DREU AND GELFAND
well-being, life and/or job satisfaction, relationship commitment, community
values, justice, and so forth. In studying other consequences of
conflict and conflict management, the time horizon of short- versus longer-term
effects becomes critical (Thomas, 1992). Conflict may increase or
decrease the likelihood of short-term achievement of a shared goal such
as making profit. In the longer run, the positive or negative effects may
persist, become stronger, or disappear. For example, an intense but relatively
short-lived conflict in a hospital between the head of operations
and the nursing staff may lead to inefficiencies and medical errors in the
short run but, in the long run, result in better working conditions, more
participative decision making, and improved health care. In other words,
conflict consequences may be found at the individual, group, and organization
levels of analysis, but also across time. We discuss the issue of time
in more depth at the end of this chapter.
In the sections below, we discuss four functions in more detail—the creating
force of conflict, the influence on health and well-being, the effects
on in-role and extra-role work performance, and the shaping of social
structures. The creating force of conflict and the influence on health and
well-being are treated extensively by Schulz-Hardt et al. (chapter 5, this
volume) and Spector and Bruk-Lee (chapter 9, this volume). We will therefore
devote more space to the effects on performance and on the shaping
of social structures. In each section, however, and in keeping with our
overarching goal in this chapter, we link our discussions to different levels
of analysis and argue that effects are “quasi-isomorphic” at different
levels of analysis. We also discuss whether and when these outcomes are
likely to be invariant across national cultures. 2
2 It is important to note that when discussing the consequences of conflict, a distinction
needs to be made between two classes of comparison. The first is that
different ways of managing conflict can have different effects on individual wellbeing,
creativity and innovation, performance, and so forth. Most research on
conflict and conflict management is concerned with this analysis, and many of
the insights gleaned from this work are reviewed in the chapters in this volume.
For example, Beersma and colleagues (chapter 4, this volume) review the quality
of negotiated agreement when conflict parties adopt a prosocial instead of a
proself motivation. The second type of analysis implicitly or explicitly compares
situations in which there is (intense) conflict with situations in which there is no
(or mild) conflict. Obviously, both types of analyses are highly complementary.
For example, compared with a no-conflict situation in which there is harmony,
conflict may promote decision quality when the conflict is managed through
cooperative problem solving and undermine decision quality when the parties
withdraw and remain inactive. More elaborate discussions of the ways different
conflict strategies influence decision quality and negotiated agreement can be
found elsewhere (De Dreu, Harinck, & Van Vianen, 1999; De Dreu & Weingart,
2003b; Jehn & Bendersky, 2003; Tjosvold, 1991, 1998) and in other chapters in this
volume (e.g., Olekalns et al., chapter 3; Beersma et al., chapter 4; Schulz-Hardt
et al., chapter 5).