CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

42 DE DREU AND GELFAND
mann, Griffin, & Gavin, 2000), wherein higher-level factors are predictors
of the amount and nature of conflict at lower levels. By contrast, the discussion
of top-down moderators of the conflict-to-outcome relationship is
consistent with a “slopes-as-outcomes” model, wherein higher-level factors
moderate the impact of conflict on outcomes (Hofmann et al., 2000).
ConClusion
Multilevel theory and techniques are relatively new to organizational
behavior and industrial and organizational psychology (Klein & Kozlowski,
2000). Conflict research and theory has a strong tradition in multilevel
thinking, but this has remained implicit. Throughout this chapter, we have
highlighted the (quasi)isomorphism of conflict at the individual, group, and
organization levels of analysis, showing that at each of these levels, conflict
can be traced back to similar sources—resources, identity formation
and maintenance, reality checking—and many functions of conflict can
be found at each of these three levels. We also provided examples of work
on bottom-up and top-down influences that cross levels of analysis, where
conflicts at one level may have consequences for performance, innovation,
or health and well-being at higher or lower levels.
Whereas the multilevel revolution is taking place in other areas in the
field, conflict scholars and researchers seem to continue to work multilevel
implicitly. In this chapter, we made this multilevel perspective explicit to
provide a basis for further understanding, integration, and new research
into cross-level influences in workplace conflicts.
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