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Purpose: Based on affective event theory (AET), this study aims to unpack the association between team relationship conflict and employees' subjective career success by examining the mediating role of negative emotions and the moderating role of emotional intelligence. Design/methodology/approach: Using Mplus 8.1, the study analyzes multi-level, multi-wave data collected from 288 employees in 51 teams across Pakistan. Findings: The results indicate that team relationship conflict is negatively associated with employees' subjective career success, both in terms of career satisfaction and job satisfaction. While employees' negative emotions partially mediate this negative relationship, emotional intelligence moderates the association between team relationship conflict and negative emotions, such that individuals with higher emotional intelligence experience less negative emotions. Originality/value: This study advances career research by demonstrating how and when team relationship conflict is related to employees' subjective career success. It also extends current understanding of the mediating and moderating mechanisms behind the association between team relationship conflict and employees' subjective career success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how construction project managers' conflict management styles (CMSs) affect project team resilience from the perspective of social identity theory. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected paired data from 110 construction project managers and 474 employees in China. Based on the data collected, the authors tested the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis. Findings: The results show that a project manager's cooperative CMS positively affects team resilience, and a project manager's competitive and avoidant CMS negatively affects team resilience. Team followership plays a mediating role in this relationship. The team power distance moderates the effects of a project manager's cooperative and avoidant CMSs on team followership. Originality/value: This paper enriches the existing literature on conflict management in construction projects and have potential guiding significance and application value for team resilience management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the influence of religiosity on the relationship between abusive supervision and deviant work behavior (DWB). This paper examines whether the desire for revenge mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and DWB and whether the strength of this relationship is moderated by religiosity. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed relationships were examined by collecting primary data from 350 employees using multistage sampling procedures. Hayes' Process Macro was used to analyze the proposed moderated-mediation model of abusive supervision, DWB, religiosity and desire for revenge. Findings: The analytical findings indicate that an employee's desire for revenge mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and DWB. However, religiosity moderates the indirect effect of abusive supervision (mediated by the desire for revenge) on DWB. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that explores the role of individual-level religiosity in mitigating the harmful effects of abusive supervision on deviant behavior and revenge in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Given the growing relationship between Nigeria and the USA, the purpose of this study is to compare conflict communication of Nigerians and Americans. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 186 Nigerians and 214 Americans completed an online survey of Hammer's (2005) Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory as well as items about the effect of conflict on team collaboration. Findings: Contrary to expectations, Nigerians reported using more direct, whereas Americans reported using more indirect, communication when confronting conflict despite the stereotype that Americans are typically direct or more likely to say what is on their minds. However, consistent with expectations, Nigerians reported exercising more emotional restraint, whereas Americans favored the use of emotional expressiveness in conflict. Originality/value: Overall, Nigerians were more concerned than Americans about the negative effect of conflict on team collaboration in the workplace. This concern was associated with the use of directness, indirectness and emotional restraint. Further, an exploratory structural equation model showed that the use of emotional expression was affected, in different ways, by several aspects of work and communication. Implications of these results are discussed along with directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Using a within-subject vignette experiment, this study aims to disentangle the differential effect of task and relationship conflict on team effectiveness and interpersonal outcomes. In addition, the authors aimed to test the moderating role of the conflict inducing person's gender on task and relationship conflict outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected using four vignettes administered to 151 participants from an Air Force military organization. Findings: Relationship conflict was more damaging than task conflict for team effectiveness, the harmonious interpersonal relations and the expected positive affective team climate. Task conflict triggers more positive emotions than relationship conflict and, in consequence, team effectiveness is higher in scenarios with the task rather than relationship conflict. The groups in which conflict is induced by a woman are not expected to perform better than groups in which the conflict is induced by a man. The similarity between participant's gender and the gender of the person that generated the conflict accentuates rather than attenuates the effectiveness decline associated with relationship conflict. Task conflict triggers cooperative, while relationship conflict triggers assertive conflict management strategies. Research limitations/implications: This study provided only a snapshot on how task and relationship conflict are perceived to relate to the various team and individual-level outcomes, particularly in military settings. Originality/value: The findings evidence the differential effect of task and relationship conflict not only on team effectiveness but also on attitudinal and emotional team and individual-level outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine how and when task and process conflicts relate to relationship conflict by detailing the mediating role of negative emotions and the moderating effect of emotional intelligence. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data were collected from 462 employees working in different organizations in Pakistan. Findings: The results revealed that individuals engaged in task and process conflicts are more likely to feel negative emotions toward others and consequently are more likely to engage in relationship conflict in the workplace. This mediated relationship of task and process conflicts with relationship conflict via negative emotions is lower when employees are more emotionally intelligent. Practical implications: This study pinpointed a key mechanism, negative emotions, by which task and process conflicts lead to relationship conflict. Emotionally intelligent individuals are better at regulating their negative emotions; therefore, emotional intelligence training can be an effective tool for minimizing employees' negative emotions during task and process conflicts, which can help reduce relationship conflict. Originality/value: By examining the mediating role of negative emotions and the moderating effect of emotional intelligence, this study adds to the previous research by detailing how and when task and process conflicts lead to relationship conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 forcing, an individualistic conflict management approach. Information acquisition and negative emotions experienced by team members mediate these relationships. Practical implications: Knowing how the characteristics of the conflict (type and expression intensity) affect conflict management, managers can counteract the tendency to use dysfunctional, forcing conflict management approaches in response to high intensity conflicts, as well as to relationship conflicts and support the tendency to use collectivistic conflict management approaches in response to low intensity conflict, as well as task conflicts. Originality/value: The authors examine an alternative to the prevailing view that conflict management serves as a moderator of the relationship between conflict and team outcomes. The research shows that conflict type and intensity of conflict expression influence the conflict management approach as a result of the information and emotion they evoke. The authors open avenues for future research on the complex and intriguing relationships between conflict characteristics and the conflict management approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The literature on destructive leadership has largely ignored the perspective of the subordinate, especially in terms of conflict coping mechanisms. This study aims to integrate research on destructive leadership and subordinates' voice behaviour as a conflict coping mechanism. Drawing on the social exchange, conservation of resources and social identity theories, it argues that destructive leadership negatively affects employees' voice behaviour and that this relationship is moderated by subordinate personality and organization climate. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed model was tested on a sample of 275 professionals working in the banking and insurance sector in India using a temporal research design with data collected in two phases six months apart. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used for data analysis. Findings: The results support the main effect relationship between destructive leadership and subordinates' voice behaviour and the moderation of subordinates' personality and organizational climate. Temporal analysis indicates that the nature of some relationships changed across the two time periods. Practical implications: A greater understanding of destructive leader behaviour and resultant coping strategies of subordinates is likely to provide insights for managers facing such situations. The findings of this study will inform the creation of redressal and voice mechanisms in organizations. Originality/value: This is among the first studies to examine the impact of negative forms of leadership on subordinates' conflict coping mechanisms using a temporal lag design across two time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the differential association of three different workplace conflicts on employee-related outcomes, such as loneliness and well-being. Further, the study pursues to explore the perceived social support at the workplace as a conditional factor in the relation between different conflict types and employee loneliness. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected using a self-administered survey from 554 IT employees. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the study postulations. Findings: The findings indicated that all three types of conflicts differently associate on both loneliness and well-being. Besides, it found that loneliness works as a mediator between conflict types and employee well-being. Further, perceived social support at the workplace moderates the relationship between different types of conflict, such as relationship, process, task conflicts and employee loneliness at work. Practical implications: The study provides helpful directions to HR managers by providing a clear empirical understanding of the types of conflicts and its association on employee-related outcomes. Further, the study highlights the need for developing social support in an organisation during conflict episodes, to manage the adverse association of these conflicts on employee well-being and to restore employee well-being. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, for the first time, a study has been conducted highlighting the differential association of workplace conflict and employee outcome and indicating its intervening mechanisms and conflict management conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The primary objective of this paper is to extend the Activity Reduces Conflict Associated Strain (ARCAS) model. To test the ARCAS model, the study aims to examine the effect of process conflict on employee well-being and the role of negative affect as an intrapersonal mechanism linking process conflict and employee well-being. Further, to extend the emerging ARCAS model, the study examines whether the assumed indirect effect of process conflict on employee well-being through negative affect is conditional upon levels of conflict management styles. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 554 software engineers working in information technology firms responded to the administered questionnaire and hypothesised relationships were tested using Process Macros. Findings: The findings indicate that process conflict is negatively related to employee well-being and the negative affect state mediates the relationship between process conflict and employee well-being. As hypothesised, it was found that the indirect effect of process conflict on employee well-being through the negative affect state is conditional upon levels of conflict management styles of the employees. Research limitations/implications: The study contributes to the conflict literature by establishing the detrimental effect of process conflict on employee well-being. The study also established the explanatory mechanism linking process conflict and employee well-being. Further, the study extended the emerging ARCAS model by establishing the moderating role of conflict management styles as well as the conditional indirect effect. Practical implications: The study highlighted the within-individual effect of process conflict in deteriorating employee well-being. The study provides valuable insights to the managers and practitioners about how individuals' conflict management styles influence well-being. Originality/value: The study specifically examined the effect of process conflict, which was omitted from conflict literature considering it the same as task conflict, on employee well-being. The study established the within-individual mechanism through which process conflict diminishes employee well-being. Also, the study extended the ARCAS model by examining the effect of conflict management styles with the aid of Affective Events Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore family incivility as a source of stress originating in the family domain and empirically examine its spillover effects on the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: Through integrating the work–family interface model with conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study investigated the effect of family incivility as perceived by employees of the service industry on service sabotage, along with the mediating role of family-to-work conflict (FWC) and the moderating role of work–family centrality. Findings: The results of a three-wave survey of 335 employees in China and 62 of their immediate supervisors demonstrated that family incivility was positively related to service sabotage, and FWC also mediated this relationship. Moreover, work–family centrality was found to strengthen the effect of family incivility on FWC, as well as the mediating effect of FWC on the relationship between family incivility and service sabotage. Research limitations/implications: This study not only enriched the work–family interface literature but also suggested new insights into sabotage behaviors by focusing on antecedents in the family domain. Practical implications: By realizing that family incivility has detrimental effects on service employee behaviors, enterprises and managers should provide greater support for employees in managing family incivility and help them to maintain a better balance between work and family life. Originality/value: This study appears to be the first empirical evidence linking a family stressor (i.e. family incivility) with a workplace behavioral outcome in the service industry (i.e. service sabotage). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This study aims to offer insights regarding the impact of emotional conflict on innovation behavior. This study also explores the boundary conditions by examining the moderating effects of leader-member exchange (LMX) and team-member exchange (TMX) on the relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior.Design/methodology/approach This study used a questionnaire survey to collect data in China. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis. To test for inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior, the authors computed the squared term for emotional conflict. To investigate moderating roles of LMX and TMX, the authors carried out an interaction term between the main effect variables (emotional conflict and emotional conflict2) and the moderating variables (LMX and TMX).Findings The empirical findings indicated that emotional conflict had an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation behavior. Furthermore, LMX and TMX moderated the inverted U-shaped relationship between the emotional conflict and innovation behavior in such a way that the inverted U-shaped relationship was flatter in high-quality LMX and TMX than in low-quality LMX and TMX. That is to say, LMX and TMX may dampen the positive effects of lower levels of emotional conflict on innovation behavior; yet, it may also weaken the negative effects of higher levels of emotional conflict on innovation behavior.Research limitations/implications This research can be extended in several ways. First, future research can investigate the impact mechanism of emotional conflict on innovation behavior. Second, future research can analyze other types of moderators at different levels. The last but not the least, future research can test the results using heterogeneous samples. Despite these potential limitations, this study provides an elaborate understanding of the conflict–creativity relationship by outlining the inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior under the LMX and TMX contexts, which can make important contributions to the conflict management literature.Practical implications The findings of this study offer some guidance on how to stimulate innovation behavior through emotional conflict. It suggests that managers should maintain the emotional conflict at the moderate level. Furthermore, managers can strengthen the LMX and TMX to avoid the negative effects of high levels of emotional conflict, and several practices are provided as well.Originality/value This study develops an exhaustive understanding of the conflict–creativity relationship by figuring the curvilinear relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior, which is the response to the call of Posthuma to focus on the outcomes of conflict management. The findings further provide an empirical evidence of the conceptual argument that the consequences of conflict depend on the situational context by pointing out the important contingency factors of LMX and TMX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The aim of this paper is to present a model of the moderating role of emotional self-leadership on the cognitive conflict–affective conflict relationship and their effect on work team decision quality.Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon extant theoretical and empirical research on the conflict, leadership and emotions literature works to argue for the role of emotional self-leadership as a boundary condition of the intra-team conflict–work team decision quality relationship.Findings Key to understanding why cognitive conflict sometimes leads to improved decision quality and sometimes it does not is the role of emotional self-leadership. Through emotional self-leadership, team members can actively anticipate, guide and focus their emotional responses to cognitive conflict and reduce their experience of affective conflict, improving team decision quality.Research limitations/implications Identifying and explaining the moderating role of emotional self-leadership represents important progress for reframing emotion regulation and emotional intelligence into a new theoretical lens that may yield more meaningful insights into self-managed teams’ research. If empirically supported, this moderating effect would help explain the contradictory results obtained in prior empirical studies.Practical implications Practitioners can diminish or avoid the negative effect of the type of conflict that lowers work team decision quality and preserve the positive effect of the type of conflict that improves work team decision quality by identifying and implementing ways to improve a work team’s level of collective emotional self-leadership.Originality/value This paper extends the emotions, leadership and conflict literature works into the current research on self-directed work teams’ effectiveness by bringing attention to the moderating role of emotional self-leadership and calls for empirical research on this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine social conflicts with co-workers (SCCWs) as a predictor of job satisfaction with co-workers (JSCWs) on a daily basis. Moreover, dispositional emotion regulation (ER) was suggested to moderate the within-person relationship between daily conflicts at work and JSCWs.Design/methodology/approach Ninety-eight employees from German civil service agencies completed surveys across five consecutive work days. Dispositional variables and controls were assessed in a general survey which was completed before the start of the daily surveys.Findings Hierarchical linear modeling showed that SCCWs at noon were significantly related to employees’ JSCWs in the evening and that dispositional ER moderated this relationship, indicating that people with high abilities of ER reported higher levels of job satisfaction with their co-workers than people with low abilities of ER after experiencing SCCWs.Originality/value The present study links conflict research with organizational and personality research. The findings broaden the understanding of social conflicts in an organizational context and further highlight ER as an important factor which can buffer the negative effects of workplace conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to examine how leaders’ avoidance influences followers’ attitudes and well-being in China. Although conflict avoidance is one of the most commonly used conflict resolution styles in China, there has surprisingly been no explicit investigation of the effects of leaders’ avoidance.Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 245 subordinates in three large companies in the People’s Republic of China through an online survey. Multiple regression analysis was adopted to test three sets of competing hypotheses.Findings Leaders’ avoidance behavior is positively related to followers’ perception of justice, supervisory trust and emotional well-being in Chinese organizations.Originality/value This paper joins growing attempts to consider conflict management in the context of leadership. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine empirically the relationships between a team leader’s avoidance behavior and his or her subordinates’ perceptions of justice, supervisory trust and emotional well-being in a single study. The findings are provoking by illustrating positive effect of leader’s conflict avoidance behavior in China. This paper supports that conflict avoidance could be a sustainable rather than one-off strategy by a leader, and that identifying conditions (e.g. culture) that affect the outcomes of conflict avoidance is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore possible factors leading to a successful mediation in Chinese mediation shows. In China, media always play an indispensable role in information dissemination, morality advocacy and policy explanation.Design/methodology/approach This paper employed content analysis of 166 episodes of one representative mediation show, Gold Medal Mediation, and regression technique in data analysis.Findings Results of ordinal regression suggested that “secret talking”, rather than transparency, between disputants had significant influence on successful mediation. Function of mediators is limited in reaching full mediation. The effective factors leading to full mediation include compromise of rights, secret talking, attitude of the observer cohort. It suggests that the role of mediator is limited, rather than being over-exaggerated, in successful mediation. The successful mediation is largely dependent on disputants’ motivations. Additionally, “compromise of rights” by disputants is a key factor in solving disputes.Research limitations/implications Findings of this study revealed the role of Chinese mediation shows in propagating mediation in contemporary Chinese society and supporting upheld morality values. Due to the nature of the chosen mediation show, some disputes take more than one episode to solve. However, this study looks at each episode without considering the integrity of the dispute. That is, if the disputes take two episodes, the coder codes the two episodes as two separate disputes instead of looking at it as one dispute.Originality/value By exploring various aspects of mediations shows, including the role of mediators, disputants and a cohort of observers, this study can both explicitly show predicted factors to successful mediations on the shows, and can implicitly examine the power and perceived justification of mediation in contemporary China via media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The authors propose that angry individuals are much more likely to consider the emotional state of their partner than are neutral individuals. They then apply a lay theory dictating that anger decreases cooperation and react accordingly by lowering their own level of cooperation.Design/methodology/approach The authors report four experiments involving different samples, manipulations, payment schemes and interfaces. The methodological approach was to capitalize on the positives of experimental research (e.g. establishing causality) while also trying to conceptually replicate the findings in different settings.Findings The authors found evidence for a lay theory (i.e. expectation) that anger decreases cooperation, but that actual cooperation was lowest when angry individuals were paired with other angry individuals, supporting the hypotheses.Research limitations/implications Anger can spill over from unrelated contexts to affect cooperation, and incidental anger by itself is not enough to decrease cooperation. However, the findings are limited to anger and cannot necessarily be used to understand the effects of other emotions.Practical implications Before entering into a context that requires cooperation, such as a negotiation, be wary of the emotional state of both yourself and of your partner. This paper suggests that only if both parties are angry, then the likelihood of cooperation is low.Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are the first researchers to address the question of how incidental anger affects single-round cooperation. By going back to the basics, the authors believe that the findings fill a gap in existing research and offer a building block for future research on anger and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to examine age differences in conflict management strategy use, effectiveness and in exposure to customer stressors in service interactions.Design/methodology/approach Moderated regression and mediation analyses were conducted to test hypotheses in a sample of 444 German service employees from different service branches with frequent customer contact.Findings Results revealed that older service employees experienced fewer customer stressors. Customer stressors mediated the negative relationship between age and burnout. Age was associated with use of passive avoidant (avoiding) and active constructive (problem solving) conflict management strategies. Furthermore, older employees used those strategies more effectively. Especially when avoiding conflicts, older employees reported more professional efficacy than younger colleagues. In contrast, younger employees benefited considerably less from strategy use and reported higher levels of burnout in general. Thus, results suggest older employees’ effective conflict management and their positive perception of customer stressors contribute to lower levels of burnout.Practical implications Results speak against a general deficit model for older workers as they show specific strengths of older employees in social conflicts. Their expertise in dealing with negative social interactions represents an important resource for organizations and training interventions, such as mentoring programs.Originality/value This study is one of the first to examine age-related conflict management skills with regard to customer conflicts, employee health and effectiveness of strategy use. It replicates existing findings on age and conflict management and extends them in several ways thereby ruling out alternative explanations for age effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of trait affectivity and momentary moods in conflict frames and conflict management. This paper goes beyond affect induction and focuses on the affective – rather than rational – antecedents of the choice of conflict management strategy. Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a within- and between-person approach and uses hierarchical linear modeling to test the hypotheses with group-mean centering. Over the course of 12 days within a three-week period, the authors collected participants’ momentary moods and how they thought about and would respond to conflict scenarios. Data were gathered from 1,545 observations, involving 180 individuals. Findings – After controlling for anger raised from the conflict scenario, both positive trait affectivity and positive momentary moods were found to be positively related to a compromise frame. Surprisingly, neither negative trait affectivity nor momentary mood was related to the win frame. A compromise frame predicted a cooperative strategy, and a win frame predicted a competitive strategy. The relationships between trait and momentary affects and conflict management strategy were partially mediated by conflict frame, but only for positive affects. Practical implications – If seeking a constructive resolution, choose the right person (i.e. an individual with positive trait affectivity) and the right moment (i.e. the individual is in a positive mood state) to communicate disagreements. Originality/value – This paper sheds light on the prediction of conflict frame and conflict management behavior by testing trait affectivity and momentary mood simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to suggest why the theoretically positive relationship between task conflict and team performance has received mixed empirical support. Design/methodology/approach -- We review the literature on task conflict and offer explanations for findings that contradict the expected positive relationship between task conflict and team performance. Findings -- High levels of correlation among task, relationship and process conflict, and measurement and data analysis issues make it difficult to isolate the effects of each type of conflict. Group-level moderators, including values congruence, goal alignment, norms for debate and the group's performance history and conflict history affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. The complex relationship between conflict and trust may cause task conflict to have mixed effects on performance. Individual differences and conflict management approaches also affect the relationship between task conflict and performance. Temporal issues and stages of group development are other relevant influences. Practical implications -- To better achieve the theorized performance benefits of task conflict, a context characterized by trust is needed. Then norms fostering task conflict can be cultivated and employees can be trained in conflict management. Individual differences that affect team members' ability to confidently accept task conflict can be considered in selection. Originality/value -- Suggestions are presented for future research that may explain discrepant findings in the past empirical literature. In particular, it may be difficult for some team members to perceive task conflict in well-functioning teams. Measures of task conflict that avoid the use of words with a negative connotation should be tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – In order to shed light on whether and how leaders should help manage group members' emotions related to intragroup conflict, the aim of this paper was to investigate the effects of several outcomes associated with two cognitive emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and distraction, in the presence of two distinct types of conflict, relationship or task-oriented. Design/methodology/approach – A 2×3 between subjects' experimental design was employed to investigate the influence of intragroup conflict and emotion regulations strategies on individual-level discrete emotions and group processes and outcomes. Findings – Results suggest that emotion regulation plays an important role in moderating the negative consequences associated with relationships conflict. Specifically, distraction served a critical function to those in the relationship conflict conditions such that both cohesion levels and task performance levels were elevated when group members used distraction as a means of regulating emotions. Research limitations/implications – This study extends research in the area of emotion regulation into a group context and extends other research that suggests distraction may have potential as a means of regulating emotion. Long-term groups with experience in problem solving may have behaved in different ways than participants in this study. Originality/value – Emotion regulation strategies have been studied only in an individual context. This study is particularly valuable in understanding how emotion regulation strategies work differentially when applied to multiple individuals in a shared setting. Additionally, it incorporates the use of distraction as a viable regulation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the rational and experiential systems according to the cognitive-experiential self theory (CEST) are related to conflict-handling styles. Design/methodology/approach – Using a correlational design, data were collected using an on-line survey system examining CEST information-processing systems and five conflict-handling styles. A total of 426 undergraduate students, with paid jobs, complete the on-line survey. Findings – Results showed that the rational system, experiential system and constructive thinking had significant positive relationships with both the integrating and compromising conflict-handling styles. Additionally, the rational system had a positive relationship with the dominating conflict-handling style and the experiential system and constructive thinking had a positive relationship with the obliging conflict-handling style. The rational system and constructive thinking had a negative relationship with the avoiding conflict-handling style. Research limitations/implications – The study established a positive connection between CEST information-processing systems and conflict-handling styles among undergraduate students, however the results of the study may not be as directly comparable with real and established leaders. Originality/value – Being the first study to examine the connection between the CEST information-processing systems and the five conflict-handling styles, the paper offers interesting insights about how the choice of information-processing systems can influence the choice of conflict-handling styles across a wide range of situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the triple interaction of task conflict, emotion regulation and group temporariness on the emergence of relationship conflict. Design/methodology/approach – A field study was conducted to test the interaction of emotion regulation and task conflict on the emergence of relationship conflict in 43 short-term (temporary) groups and 44 long-term groups. Findings – The results show that the highest chance for task conflict to evolve into relationship conflict is when groups (both short-term and long-term) have less effective emotion regulation processes, while task and relationship conflict are rather decoupled in long-term groups scoring high on emotion regulation. Research limitations/implications – The paper concludes with a discussion of the obtained results in terms of their implications for conflict management in groups. Further research should explore the moderation effects in longitudinal studies in order to fully test the variables in the model. Originality/value – The paper answers the call for contingency models of intra-group conflict and tests the moderating effect of two such contingencies in the relationship between task and relationship conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the affective factors underlying conflict behavior. Traditional conflict research assumes that when individuals face conflicts they follow a rational process, thus denying the role of emotion-relevant variables. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 358 undergraduate students from the University of Santiago de Compostela were classified into four different affective groups (happy, inactive, sad, and surprised) based on their actual emotional experience and asked to complete ROCI-II. ANOVA were conducted to test hypotheses. Findings – Results reveal that affective groups statistically differ in their self-reported conflict management styles. Positive moods and feelings have been found to be related to the preference for more cooperative strategies. Research limitations/implications – This study is exploratory in nature and since hypotheses were only partly supported, future research should address this topic in depth. Practical implications – It has been suggested that, in order to handle conflicts properly, individuals should take into account both their cognition and emotion. Originality/value – This paper sheds light on current research in the prediction of conflict behavior by examining the impact of affect out from the lab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effects task conflict has on agreement seeking behavior and interpersonal conflict. In addition, it seeks to examine the moderating role of trust on the effects of agreement seeking behavior and interpersonal conflict on the styles of handing conflict, namely, avoidance, collaboration, and third party intervention. Design/methodology/approach – Using a structured survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 252 senior executives from Mainland China and analyzed these using the regression technique to see how interpersonal trust between executives moderates the relationship between conflict and conflict response mechanisms. The study also investigates the relationship between task and relationship conflict as well as agreement-seeking behavior among Chinese executives in Mainland China. Findings – Results show that the presence of interpersonal trust among executives affects the conflict responses for the benefit of organization. The results show that task conflict in top management teams is positively related to relationship conflict and negatively related to agreement-seeking behavior. The data support the view that intra-group trust moderates the relationship between agreement-seeking behavior and collaborating responses such that high-trust groups will have greater collaboration than low-trusting teams. Results also support that intra-group trust moderates the relationship between agreement-seeking behavior and third party responses such that high-trust groups will have greater third-party responses than low-trusting teams. Research limitations/implications – Self-report measures may have some inherent social desirability bias. Despite this potential weakness, this study examines Chinese executives and therefore provides insights into top management team literature. Practical implications – This study contributes to both practicing managers as well as to strategic management literature. This study suggests that administrators need to focus on interpersonal trust while dealing with the outcomes of task and relationship conflict. Originality/value – Although the study is related to Chinese executives, the findings from the study, that task conflict has its affect on interpersonal conflict and agreement-seeking behavior, contribute to the strategic decision making literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper attempts to connect the literature on conflict and that of emotions. The argument presented is that emotions have until recently been understudied in conflict literature and vice versa. On the basis of the review of literature on both conflict and emotions, the paper points to new areas of exploration for researchers in both domains. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review of two separate sub-fields of study, namely conflict and emotions is provided with the intent of pointing towards gaps in connecting the two streams of research and towards a more holistic understanding of the role of emotions in conflict. Findings - It is observed that the link between emotions and conflict has received little attention both in the literature on conflict and that of emotions. Insights into the role of emotions at the time of conflict and towards its subsequent resolution are provided. Future directions for study and potential linkages between the two streams are offered. Originality/value - Connects two different streams of research and offers potential areas of exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to examine the preferences for conflict management styles of Thais and Americans in multinational corporations in Thailand. Gender and the length of exposure to other cultures were also taken into account as influences on the preference for conflict management styles. Design/methodology/approach — Quantitative methodology was used. A total of 250 Thais and 64 Americans from 73 multinational companies were asked to complete the questionnaires consisting of conflict management style instrument and a set of demographic information. ANOVAs and Pearson's correlations were used for data analysis. Findings — Thais, compared with Americans, preferred avoiding and obliging conflict management styles and exhibited no differences in preferences for other styles. Males and females did not exhibit differences in preferences for conflict management styles. There was a negative correlation between length of stay abroad for Thais and preference for avoiding and obliging conflict management styles, and a positive correlation between length of stay abroad for Thais and preference for a dominating conflict management style. Research limitations/implications — The language of the instrument, the small number of American female participants, and the positions of the participants may limit the generalization of the findings. Practical implications — The paper presents a very useful source of information for people working in multinational corporations and trainers in the area of intercultural communication. Originality/value — This paper provides new insight into the preference of conflict management styles in a multinational context, the entity in which people from many cultures directly interact (intercultural perspective). The length of exposure to other cultures was also investigated in relation to the preference of conflict management styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this study is to investigate how national culture and proximity to national borders can influence the conflict styles that co-workers use between themselves. Design/methodology/approach — In this experiment, samples were drawn from regions near the US Mexican border further north in the USA and further South in Mexico. Total n = 549. Participants were presented with different conflict styles of co-workers and asked how they would respond. A new measure of national origin was developed and used to assess affinity with a particular culture based on familial lineage. Findings — This study shows that conflict resolution styles of co-workers in the USA are different from those in Mexico. Culture also moderates the relationship among the conflict resolution styles of the co-workers themselves. Mexicans were generally more contending and less yielding to co-workers than Americans. However, Mexicans were also more likely than Americans to respond to contending co-workers by accommodating or by compromising with the co-worker. National Origin and border location influenced choice of conflict resolution styles in both American and Mexican workers. Originality/value — Proximity to national borders can influence degrees of cultural identity, which can in turn, influence preferred conflict styles. Degrees of national cultural identity can be measured using familial lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]