conflict management literature review

Conflict Management: A Literature Review and Study

PMID: 30514033

"Management of conflict is extremely important for the effective functioning of organizations and for the personal, cultural, and social development of individuals. The manner in which the conflict is managed can cause more tension in the situation rather than the conflict itself. " This literature review analyzes five modes to dealing with conflict along two dimensions of behavior: compet- ing (assertive and uncooperative), accommodating (unassertive and cooperative), avoiding (unassertive and uncooperative), compromising (falls into the middle), and collaborat- ing (assertive and cooperative). " In a study, technologists preferred a cooperating conflict management style when feelings have not yet esca- lated, and a compromising conflict management style after the conflict has become heated. The study also showed education.level did not have any effect on their preferred conflict management styles.

Publication types

Assertiveness
Avoidance Learning
Competitive Behavior
Conflict, Psychological*
Interprofessional Relations*
Negotiating
Personnel Management / methods*
Technology, Radiologic*

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Article contents

Conflict management.

Patricia Elgoibar , Patricia Elgoibar University of Barcelona
Martin Euwema Martin Euwema Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
and Lourdes Munduate Lourdes Munduate University of Seville
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.5
Published online: 28 June 2017

Conflicts are part of nature and certainly part of human relations, between individuals, as well as within and between groups. Conflicts occur in every domain of life: family, work, and society, local and global. Conflict management, therefore, is an essential competency for each person. People differ largely in their emotional and behavioral responses to conflict and need to learn how to behave effectively in different conflict situations. This requires a contingency approach, first assessing the conflict situation, and then choosing a strategy, matching the goals of the party. In most situations, fostering cooperative relations will be most beneficial; however, this is also most challenging. Therefore, constructive conflict management strategies, including trust building and methods of constructive controversy, are emphasized. Conflict management, however, is broader than the interaction of the conflicting parties. Third-party interventions are an essential element of constructive conflict management, particularly the assessment of which parties are intervening in what ways at what escalation stage.

cooperation
competition
conflict behavior
conglomerate conflict behavior
constructive conflict management
conflict resolution strategies

Definition of Conflict

Conflicts are part of nature, and certainly part of human relations. People experience conflict with other persons, in teams or in groups, as well as between larger entities, departments, organizations, communities, and countries. Conflicts appear at home, at work, and in our spare-time activities with friends, with people we love and with people we hate, as well as with our superiors and with our subordinates and coworkers. Parties need to accept conflicts as part of life dynamics and learn to deal with them effectively and efficiently. Conflict management refers to the way we manage incompatible actions with others, where others can be a person or a group.

Conflict is a component of interpersonal interactions; it is neither inevitable nor intrinsically bad, but it is commonplace (Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014 ; Schellenberg, 1996 ). In the 20th century , Lewin ( 1935 ) concluded that an intrinsic state of tension motivates group members to move toward the accomplishment of their desired common goals. Later on, Parker Follett ( 1941 ) explored the constructive side of conflict and defined conflict as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions or difference of interests. Deutsch ( 1949 ) developed this line of thought and analyzed the relation between the way group members believe their goals are related and their interactions and relationships.

A common definition of conflict argues that there is a conflict between two (or more) parties (individuals or groups) if at least one of them is offended, or feels bothered by the other (Van de Vliert, 1997 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ). Traditionally, conflict has been defined as opposing interests involving scarce resources and goal divergence and frustration (Pondy, 1967 ). However, Deutsch ( 1973 ) defined conflict as incompatible activities: one person's actions interfere, obstruct, or in some way get in the way of another's action. Tjosvold, Wan, and Tang ( 2016 ) proposed that defining conflict as incompatible actions is a much stronger foundation than defining conflict as opposing interests, because conflicts also can occur when people have common goals (i.e., they may disagree about the best means to achieve their common goals). The key contribution of Deutsch’s ( 1973 ) proposal is that incompatible activities occur in both compatible and incompatible goal contexts. Whether the protagonists believe their goals are cooperative or competitive very much affects their expectations, interaction, and outcomes as they approach conflict (Tjosvold et al., 2016 ).

Characteristics of Conflict

Euwema and Giebels ( 2017 ) highlighted some key elements of conflict.

Conflict implies dependence and interdependence. Parties rely to some extent on the other parties to realize their goals (Kaufman, Elgoibar, & Borbely, 2016 ). This interdependence can be positive (a cooperative context), negative (a competitive context), or mixed. Positive interdependence is strongly related to cooperative conflict behaviors, while negative interdependence triggers competitive behaviors (Johnson & Johnson, 2005 ). Interdependence also reflects the power difference between parties. A short-term contractor on a low-paid job usually is much more dependent on the employer than vice versa. Many conflicts, however, can be seen as “mixed motive” situations.

Conflicts are mostly mixed motive situations because parties have simultaneous motives to cooperate and motives to compete. Parties are, on the one hand, dependent on each other to realize their goal, and, on the other hand, they are at the same time competitors. For example, two colleagues on a team are cooperating for the same team result; however, there is competition for the role as project leader. In a soccer team, the players have a team goal of working together to win, but they can be competing to be the top scorer. The mixed motive structure is very important to understand conflict dynamics. When conflicts arise, the competitive aspects become more salient, and the cooperative structure often is perceived less by parties. Interventions to solve conflict, therefore, are often related to these perceptions and the underlying structures.

Conflict is a psychological experience. Conflict is by definition a personal and subjective experience, as each individual can perceive and manage the same conflict in a different manner. Conflict doesn’t necessarily have an objective basis (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). It depends on the perception of the specific situation, and the perception is by definition subjective and personal.

Conflict concerns cognitive and affective tension. When someone perceives blocked goals and disagreements, he or she can also, although not necessarily, feel fear or anger. Many authors consider that conflict is emotionally charged (Nair, 2007 ; Pondy, 1967 ; Sinaceur, Adam, Van Kleef, & Galinky, 2013 ), although the emotion doesn’t need to be labeled necessarily as a negative emotion. Some people actually enjoy conflict. Emotional experiences in conflict are also scripted by cultural, historical, and personal influences (Lindner, 2014 ).

Conflict can be unidirectional. One party can feel frustrated or thwarted by the other while the second party is hardly aware of, and doesn’t perceive the same reality of, the conflict.

Conflict is a process. Conflict is a dynamic process that does not appear suddenly, but takes some time to develop and passes through several stages (Spaho, 2013 ). Conflict is the process resulting from the tension in interpersonal interactions or between team members because of real or perceived differences (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; Thomas, 1992 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ).

Type of Conflict: Task, Process, and Relationship Conflict

Early conflict and organizational research concluded that conflict interferes with team performance and reduces satisfaction due to an increase in tension and distraction from the objective (Brown, 1983 ; Hackman & Morris, 1975 ; Pondy, 1967 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ). Jehn ( 1995 ) differentiated between task and relational conflict, and later also included process conflict (De Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012 ). Task conflict refers to different opinions on content (Jehn & Mannix, 2001 ). Examples of task conflict are conflict about distribution of resources, about procedures and policies, and judgment and interpretation of facts (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ). Process conflict refers to how tasks should be accomplished (Jehn, Greer, Levine, & Szulanski, 2008 ). Examples are disagreements about logistic and delegation issues (Jehn et al., 2008 ). Finally, relationship conflict refers to “interpersonal incompatibility” (Jehn, 1995 , p. 257). Examples of relationship conflict are conflict about personal taste, political preferences, values, and interpersonal style (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ). All three types of conflict—task, process, and personal (relational) conflicts—are usually disruptive, especially personal conflict, which is highly disruptive (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; Jehn, 1995 , 1997 ). A review and meta-analysis by De Wit et al. ( 2012 ) showed that, under specific conditions, task conflict can be productive for teams. Moreover, conflict can wreck a team’s efforts to share information and reach a consensus (Amason & Schweiger, 1994 ). Therefore, research supporting the benefit of task and relationship conflict is not conclusive and each situation varies. What seems to be clear is that managing conflict efficiently to avoid escalation is a priority for teams.

Conflict Behavior, Conflict Management, and Conflict Resolution

Conflict behavior, conflict management, and conflict resolution are different layers of a conflict process and therefore should be distinguished. Conflict behavior is any behavioral response to the experience of frustration, while conflict management is the deliberate action to deal with conflictive situations, both to prevent or to escalate them. Also, conflict management is differentiated from conflict resolution, which is specific action aimed to end a conflict.

Conflict Behavior

Conflict behavior is the behavioral response to the experience of conflict (Van de Vliert et al., 1995 ). Conflict behavior is defined as one party’s reaction to the perception that one’s own and the other party’s current aspiration cannot be achieved simultaneously (Deutsch, 1973 ; Pruitt, 1981 ; Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994 ). It is both what people experiencing conflict intend to do, as well as what they actually do (De Dreu, Evers, Beersma, Kluwer, & Nauta, 2001 ; Van de Vliert, 1997 ). In conflict situations people often respond primarily, following their emotions, more or less conscientiously.

Many factors affect how people respond to the experience of conflict. Social psychology shows the processes are largely unconscious (Wilson, 2004 ). For example, how people respond to intimidating behavior by their supervisor might be primarily influenced by the context and individual perception, as well as previous relations with persons in authority, including parents and teachers (Gelfand & Brett, 2004 ; Van Kleef & Cote, 2007 ). These natural behavioral responses are also referred to as “conflict styles.” They are rooted in our personality and can differ in context. Some people will naturally respond by being friendly and accommodating, where others will start arguing or fighting (Barbuto, Phipps, & Xu, 2010 ; Kilmann & Thomas, 1977 ; Van Kleef & Cote, 2007 ).

Conflict behavior becomes more effective once we are more aware of our natural tendencies and are also able not to act upon them, and instead to show flexibility in behavioral approaches. This is where conflict behavior becomes conflict management. Therefore, one can be a naturally highly accommodating person who will spontaneously give in to others who make demands, but one will be more effective after learning to assess the situation at hand and to carefully decide on a response, which might be quite different from the natural or spontaneous reaction.

Dual-Concern Model

The dual-concern model holds that the way in which parties handle conflicts can de described and is determined by two concerns: concern for self (own interests) and concern for others (relational interests) (Blake & Mouton, 1964 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ; Rahim, 1983 ; Thomas, 1992 ; Van de Vliert, 1999 ) (see Figure 1 ). Usually, the two concerns define five different conflict behaviors: forcing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and problem solving or integrating. These behaviors are studied at the level of general personal conflict styles, closely connected to personality, as well as at the level of strategies and tactics (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ).

The different conflict styles have been studied intensively, with three approaches. A normative approach, wherein integrating (also known as problem solving) is seen as the preferred behavior for conflict resolution; a contingency approach, exploring conditions under which each of the behaviors is most appropriate; and a conglomerate approach, focusing on a combination of the behaviors (see “ Conglomerate Conflict Behavior ”).

Figure 1. Dual-concern model.

In forcing, one party aims to achieve his or her goal by imposing a solution onto the other party. Concern for one’s own interests and own vision is what matters. There is little attention and care for the interests and needs of the other party, or the relationship with the other (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ). This style is appropriate when the outcome is important for one party but trivial to the opponent, or when fast decision making is necessary. It becomes inappropriate when issues are complex, when both parties are equally powerful, when the outcome is not worth the effort for one party, or when there is enough time to make a collective decision. Moreover, forcing decisions can seriously damage a relationship and contribute to bullying in the workplace (Baillien, Bollen, Euwema, & De Witte, 2014 ); however, normative forcing, which is referring to rules and imposing them, can be effective (De Dreu, 2005 ). Note that some alternative terms that have been used for forcing in the literature are competitive , contending , or adversarial behavior .

With avoiding, one party aims to stay out of any confrontation with the other. This behavior prevents efforts to yield, to negotiate constructively, or to compete for one’s own gains. The conflict issue receives little attention, usually because the avoiding party thinks he or she won’t gain from entering into the conflict (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ; Van de Vliert, 1997 ). Avoiding may be used when the benefits of resolving the conflict are not worth confronting the other party, especially when the problem is trivial or minor; when no good solutions are available for now; or when time is needed (Van Erp et al., 2011 ). An important motive for avoiding also is to prevent loss of face and to maintain the relationship. This is particularly true in collectivistic cultures, particularly in Asian societies (Oetzel et al., 2001 ). Avoiding is inappropriate when the issues are important to a party, when the parties cannot wait, or when immediate action is required (Rahim, 2002 ). Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim ( 1994 ) distinguished between long-term avoidance, which is a permanent move to leave the conflict, and short-term avoidance, defined as temporary inaction.

Accommodating

Accommodating is giving in or going along with the ideas, wishes, and needs of the other party. Accommodating usually is the result of a low concern for one’s own conflictive interests combined with a high concern for the interests and needs of the other party. Giving in often is related to a strong need for harmony and a sensitivity to the needs of the other. Accommodation is useful when a party is not familiar with the issues involved in the conflict, when the opponent is right, when the issue is much more important to the other party, and in order to build or maintain a long-term relationship, in exchange for future consideration when needed. Giving in also can be an educational strategy, giving space to the other to find out what the effect will be. Accommodating is less appropriate when the issue is of great concern, when accommodation creates frustration, or when accommodation reinforces dynamics of exploitation (Spaho, 2013 ). Note that an alternative term for this concept that can be found in the literature is yielding .

Compromising

Compromising involves searching for a middle ground, with an eye on both one’s own interest and the interest of the other. The premise is that both parties must find a middle ground where everyone receives equal consideration, meaning that each party makes some concession (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). Compromising is appropriate when a balance of forces exists and the goals of parties are mutually exclusive (Buddhodev, 2011 ). Compromise leads to a democratic solution; however, it may prevent arriving at a creative solution to the problem and a limited effort to increase resources before distributing them (Spaho, 2013 ).

Problem Solving or Integrating

Problem solving is a win–win strategy aimed at “optimizing rather than satisfying the parties” (Van de Vliert, 1997 , p. 36). Great value is attached to one’s own interests and vision, but also a lot of attention is given to the needs, ideas, and interests of the other. One looks for open and creative solutions that meet both interests. Problem solving or integrating is useful in dealing with complex issues, and it allows both parties to share skills, information, and other resources to redefine the problem and formulate alternative solutions. It is, however, inappropriate when the task is simple or trivial, and when there is no time. Also, it is more difficult to develop when the other party does not have experience in problem solving or when the parties are unconcerned about the outcomes (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ). Note that some alternative terms that can be found in the literature for this concept are cooperation and collaboration .

The dual-concern model is used as a contingency model, describing which conflict behaviors are used best under what conditions (Van de Vliert et al., 1997 ), and also as a normative model, promoting integrating behaviors as the most effective style, particularly when it comes to joined outcomes and long-term effectiveness. Forcing, in contrast, is often described as a noncooperative behavior, with risk of escalated and unilateral outcomes (Blake & Mouton, 1964 ; Burke, 1970 ; Deutsch, 1973 ; Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ; Rahim, 2010 ; Thomas, 1992 ). As a result, authors define forcing and integrating as two opposed behavioral approaches (Tjosvold, Morishima, & Belsheim, 1999 ). Following this model, many scholars during the 1970s and 1980s proposed that individuals use a single behavior in conflict, or that the behaviors should be seen as independent. Therefore, the antecedents and effects of different conflict behaviors are often analyzed separately (Tjosvold, 1997 ; Volkema & Bergmann, 2001 ). However, parties usually try to achieve personal outcomes, and try to reach mutual agreements by combining several behaviors in a conflict episode (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). This is the basic assumption of the conglomerate conflict behavior (CCB) theory (Van de Vliert, Euwema, & Huismans, 1995 ), which established that conflict behaviors are used in a compatible manner, sequentially or simultaneously.

Conglomerate Conflict Behavior (CCB)

In the dual-concern model, a contrast is made between forcing (contending with an adversary in a direct way) and integrating (reconciling the parties’ basic interests) as two opposed behavioral approaches (Tjosvold et al., 1999 ). However, the CCB framework assumes that individual reactions to conflict typically are complex and consist of multiple components of behavior (Van de Vliert, 1997 , Van de Vliert et al., 1995 ). The CCB theory covers the idea that behavioral components may occur simultaneously or sequentially and that the combination drives toward effectiveness (Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ; Medina & Benitez, 2011 ). The theory has been supported in studies analyzing conflict management effectiveness in different contexts, such as in managerial behavior (Munduate, Ganaza, Peiro, & Euwema, 1999 ), in military peacekeeping (Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ) and by worker representatives in organizations (Elgoibar, 2013 ).

The main reason that people combine different behaviors is because conflicts are often mixed-motive situations (Euwema, Van de Vliert, & Bakker, 2003 ; Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ; Walton & McKersie, 1965 ). Mixed-motive situations are described as situations that pose a conflict between securing immediate benefits through competition, and pursuing benefits for oneself and others through cooperation with other people (Komorita & Parks, 1995 ; Sheldon & Fishbach, 2011 ). Therefore, a person's behavior in a conflict episode is viewed as a combination of some of the five forms of conflict behaviors. An example of sequential complex behavior is to first put the demands clearly (forcing), followed by integrating (searching for mutual gains, and expanding the pie), and finally compromising, where distributive issues are dealt with in a fair way. An example of serial complexity can be found in multi-issue conflict, when for some issues conflict can be avoided, while for high priorities, demands are put on the table in a forcing way. Another CCB pattern is the conglomeration of accommodating and forcing. This pattern is sometimes referred to as “logrolling” (Van de Vliert, 1997 , p. 35), and it is a classic part of integrative strategies, to maximize the outcomes for both parties. Logrolling behavior consists of accommodating the high-concern issues of the other party and forcing one’s own high-concern issues. This approach is usually helpful in multi-issue trade negotiations; however, it requires openness of both parties to acknowledging key interests.

How to Explore Your Tendency in Conflict

The most famous and popular conflict behavior questionnaires are:

MODE (Management of Differences Exercise). MODE, developed in 1974 by Thomas and Killman, presents 30 choices between two options representing different conflict styles.

ROCI (Rahim's Organizational Conflict Inventory). The ROCI is a list of 28 items that measures the five styles of conflict behavior described.

Dutch Test of Conflict Handling. This list of 20 items measures the degree of preference for the five styles (Van de Vliert & Euwema, 1994 ; De Dreu et al., 2001 , 2005 ). It has been validated internationally.

Conflict management is deliberate action to deal with conflictive situations, either to prevent or to escalate them. Unlike conflict behavior, conflict management encompasses cognitive responses to conflict situations, which can vary from highly competitive to highly cooperative. Conflict management does not necessarily involve avoidance, reduction, or termination of conflict. It involves designing effective strategies to minimize the dysfunctions of conflict and to enhance the constructive functions of conflict in order to improve team and organizational effectiveness (Rahim, 2002 ).

Conflicts are not necessarily destructive (De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008 ; Euwema, Munduate, Elgoibar, Pender, & Garcia, 2015 ), and research has shown that constructive conflict management is possible (Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014 ). The benefits of conflict are much more likely to arise when conflicts are discussed openly, and when discussion skillfully promotes new ideas and generates creative insights and agreements (Coleman et al., 2014 ; De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008 ; Euwema et al., 2015 ; Tjosvold, Won, & Chen, 2014 ). To make a constructive experience from conflict, conflict needs to be managed effectively.

Deutsch’s classic theory of competition and cooperation describes the antecedents and consequences of parties’ cooperative or competitive orientations and allows insights into what can give rise to constructive or destructive conflict processes (Deutsch, 1973 , 2002 ). The core of the theory is the perceived interdependence of the parties, so that the extent that protagonists believe that their goals are cooperative (positively related) or competitive (negatively related) affects their interaction and thus the outcomes. Positive interdependence promotes openness, cooperative relations, and integrative problem solving. Perceived negative interdependence on the other hand, induces more distance and less openness, and promotes competitive behavior, resulting in distributive bargaining or win–lose outcomes (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ).

Whether the protagonists believe their goals are cooperative or competitive very much affects their expectations, interactions, and outcomes. If parties perceive that they can reach their goals only if the other party also reaches their goals, the goal interdependence is positively perceived and therefore parties will have higher concern for the other’s goals and manage the conflict cooperatively (De Dreu et al., 2001 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). On the contrary, if one party perceives that they can reach their goals only if the other party fails to obtain their goals, the interdependence becomes negatively perceived and the approach to conflict becomes competitive (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Goals can also be independent; in that case, conflict can be avoided (the parties don’t need to obstruct each other’s goals to be successful). Therefore, how parties perceive their goals’ interdependence affects how they negotiate conflict and whether the conflict is constructively or destructively managed (Alper et al., 2000 ; Deutsch, 1973 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ; Tjosvold, 2008 ).

Successfully managing conflict cooperatively requires intellectual, emotional, and relational capabilities in order to share information, to contribute to value creation, and to discuss differences constructively (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). In contrast, a competitive-destructive process leads to material losses and dissatisfaction, worsening relations between parties, and negative psychological effects on at least one party—the loser of a win–lose context (Deutsch, 2014 ).

Deutsch’s theory proposes that emphasizing cooperative goals in conflict by demonstrating a commitment to pursue mutually beneficial solutions creates high-quality resolutions and relationships, while focusing on competitive interests by pursuing one’s own goals at the expense of the other’s escalates conflict, resulting in imposed solutions and suspicious relationships (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ).

In summary, Deutsch’s theory states that the context in which the conflict process is expressed drives parties toward either a cooperative or a competitive orientation in conflicts (Alper et al., 2000 ; Deutsch, 2006 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ). In other words, a cooperative context is related to a cooperative conflict pattern, and a competitive context is related to a competitive conflict pattern. When parties have a cooperative orientation toward conflict, parties discuss their differences with the objective of clarifying them and attempting to find a solution that is satisfactory to both parties—both parties win (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992 ). On the contrary, in competition, there is usually a winner and a loser (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992 ) (see Table 1 ). In the CCB model, the patterns can include cooperative (i.e., integrating) and competitive (i.e. forcing) behavior; however, the cooperative pattern will be dominated by integrating while the competitive pattern will be dominated by forcing (Elgoibar, 2013 ).

Table 1. Characteristics of Cooperative and Competitive Climates

Source : Coleman, Deutsch, and Marcus ( 2014 ).

How to Manage Conflicts Constructively

The need for trust.

Trust is commonly defined as a belief or expectation about others’ benevolent motives during a social interaction (Holmes & Rempel, 1989 ; Rousseau et al., 1998 ). Mutual trust is one important antecedent as well as a consequence of cooperation in conflicts (Deutsch, 1983 ; Ferrin, Bligh, & Kohles, 2008 ). As Nahapiet and Ghoshal pointed out, “Trust lubricates cooperation, and cooperation itself breeds trust” ( 1998 , p.255). There is ample evidence that constructive conflict and trust are tightly and positively related (Hempel, Zhang, & Tjosvold, 2009 ; Bijlsma & Koopman, 2003 ; Lewicki, Tonlinson, & Gillespie, 2006 ).

Successful constructive conflict management requires maximal gathering and exchange of information in order to identify problems and areas of mutual concern, to search for alternatives, to assess their implications, and to achieve openness about preferences in selecting optimal solutions (Bacon & Blyton, 2007 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ; Tjosvold, 1999 ). Trust gives parties the confidence to be open with each other, knowing that the shared information won’t be used against them (Zaheer & Zaheer, 2006 ). Various studies revealed that trust leads to constructive conglomerate behaviors and to more integrative outcomes in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts (Lewicki, Elgoibar, & Euwema, 2016 ; Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998 ; Ross & LaCroix, 1996 ).

How can trust be promoted? Developing trust is challenging (Gunia, Brett, & Nandkeolyar, 2014 ; Hempel et al., 2009 ). Numerous scholars have noted that trust is easier to destroy than to create (Hempel et al., 2009 ; Meyerson et al., 1996 ). There are two main reasons for this assertion. First, trust-breaking events are often more visible and noticeable than positive trust-building actions (Kramer, 1999 ). Second, trust-breaking events are judged to have a higher impact on trust judgments than positive events (Slovic, 1993 ). Furthermore, Slovic ( 1993 ) concluded that trust-breaking events are more credible than sources of good news. Thus, the general belief is that trust is easier to destroy than it is to build, and trust rebuilding may take even longer than it took to create the original level of trust (Lewicki et al., 2016 ).

However, there is room for optimism, and different strategies have been shown to promote trust. As held in social exchange theory (Blau, 1964 ), risk taking by one party in supporting the other party has been found to signal trust to the other party (Serva et al., 2005 ). Yet, fears of exploitation make trust in conflict management and negotiation scarce. Therefore, the use of trust-promoting strategies depends on the specific situation, and parties need practical guidance on how and when to manage conflict constructively by means of promoting mutual trust.

How does the possibility of trust development between parties depend on the conflict context? Based on this practical question, some strategies for trust development have been proposed (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012 ; Gunia, Brett, & Nandkeolyar, 2012 ; Lewicki et al., 2016 ). In relationships where trust is likely, the following strategies can help: assume trustworthiness, prioritize your interests and give away a little information about them, engage in reciprocity (concessions), highlight similarities and spend time together, get to know your counterpart personally and try to be likable, behave consistently and predictably, and paraphrase your counterpart’s positions. In relationships where trust seems possible: emphasize common goals; focus on the subject, not on the people; look to the future and find a shared vision; mix questions and answers about interests and priorities—the fundamental elements of information sharing—with making and justifying offers; take a break; suggest another approach; call in a mediator; and forgive the other party’s mistakes. In relationships where trust is not possible, more cautious strategies can help: make multi-issue offers; think holistically about your counterpart’s interests; engage in reciprocity (concessions); express sympathy, apologize, or compliment your counterpart; and look for preference patterns in your counterpart’s offers and responses.

Constructive Controversy

C onstructive controversy is defined as the open-minded discussion of conflicting perspectives for mutual benefit, which occurs when protagonists express their opposing ideas that obstruct resolving the issues, at least temporarily (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Indicators of constructive controversy include listening carefully to each other’s opinion, trying to understand each other’s concerns, and using opposing views to understand the problem better. These skills are considered vitally important for developing and implementing cooperative problem-solving processes successfully and effectively.

Deutsch ( 2014 ) stated that there haven’t been many systematic discussions of the skills involved in constructive solutions to conflict, and he proposed three main types of skills for constructive conflict management:

Rapport-building skills are involved in establishing effective relationships between parties (such as breaking the ice; reducing fears, tensions, and suspicion; overcoming resistance to negotiation; and fostering realistic hope and optimism).

Cooperative conflict-resolution skills are concerned with developing and maintaining a cooperative conflict resolution process among the parties involved (such as identifying the type of conflict in which the parties are involved; reframing the issues so that conflict is perceived as a mutual problem to be resolved cooperatively; active listening and responsive communication; distinguishing between effective relationships between parties and positions; encouraging, supporting, and enhancing the parties; being alert to cultural differences and the possibilities of misunderstanding arising from them; and controlling anger).

Group process and decision-making skills are involved in developing a creative and productive process (such as monitoring progress toward group goals; eliciting, clarifying, coordinating, summarizing, and integrating the contributions of the various participants; and maintaining group cohesion).

Tjosvold et al. ( 2014 ) and Johnson et al. ( 2014 ) also elaborate on the skills needed for facilitating open-minded discussions and constructive controversy. They developed four mutually reinforcing strategies for managing conflict constructively:

Developing and expressing one’s own view. Parties need to know what each of the others wants and believes, and expressing one’s own needs, feelings, and ideas is essential to gaining that knowledge. By strengthening expression of their own positions, both parties can learn to investigate their position, present the best case they can for it, defend it vigorously, and try at the same time to refute opposing views. However, expressing one’s own position needs to be supplemented with an open-minded approach to the other’s position.

Questioning and understanding others’ views. Listening and understanding opposing views, as well as defending one’s own views, makes discussing conflicts more challenging but also more rewarding; therefore, the parties can point out weaknesses in each other’s arguments to encourage better development and expression of positions by finding more evidence and strengthening their reasoning.

Integrating and creating solutions. The creation of new alternatives lays the foundation for genuine agreements about a solution that both parties can accept and implement. However, protagonists may have to engage in repeated discussion to reach an agreement, or indeed they may be unable to create a solution that is mutually acceptable, and then they can both learn to become less adamant, to exchange views directly, and to show that they are trying to understand and integrate each other’s ideas so that all may benefit.

Agreeing to and implementing solutions. Parties can learn to seek the best reasoned judgment, instead of focusing on “winning”; to criticize ideas, not people; to listen and understand everyone’s position, even if they do not agree with it; to differentiate positions before trying to integrate them; and to change their minds when logically persuaded to do so.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution processes are aimed at ending a conflict. So, while conflict management can also include escalation, conflict resolution searches for a way of ending the conflict. The difference between resolution and management of conflict is more than semantic (Robbins, 1978 ). Conflict resolution means reduction, elimination, or termination of conflict.

To find a resolution, parties have to bring an extra piece of information, relate the information they have differently, or transform the issue, change the rules, change the actors or the structure, or bring in a third party (Vayrynen, 1991 ). The most popular conflict resolution processes are: negotiation, mediation, conflict coaching, and arbitration (Rahim, 2002 ). Conflict resolution can also be accomplished by ruling by authorities. Integration of the different techniques sequentially or simultaneously has been shown to support optimal conflict resolution (Jones, 2016 ).

Negotiation

Negotiation is a process in which the parties attempt to jointly create an agreement that resolves a conflict between them (Lewicki & Tomlinson, 2014 ). Walton and McKersie ( 1965 ) were the first to identify the two polar yet interdependent strategies known as distributive and integrative negotiation. Distributive negotiation means that activities are instrumental to the attainment of one party’s goals when they are in basic conflict with those of the other party. Integrative negotiation means that parties’ activities are oriented to find common or complementary interests and to solve problems confronting both parties. Other scholars also focused on the opposite tactical requirements of the two strategies, using a variety of terms, such as contending versus cooperating (Pruitt, 1981 ), claiming value versus creating value (Lax & Sebenius, 1987 ), and the difference between positions and interests (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ).

If a distributive strategy is pursued too vigorously, a negotiator may gain a greater share of gains, but of a smaller set of joint gains, or, worse, may generate an outcome in which both parties lose. However, if a negotiator pursues an integrative negotiation in a single-minded manner—being totally cooperative and giving freely accurate and credible information about his/her interests—he or she can be taken advantage of by the other party (Walton & McKersie, 1965 ). The different proposals that have been formulated to cope with these central dilemmas in negotiation are mainly based on a back-and-forth communication process between the parties, which is linked to the negotiators’ interpersonal skills (Brett, Shapiro, & Lytle, 1998 ; Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Rubin et al., 1994 ).

Mediation is process by which a third party facilitates constructive communication among disputants, including decision making, problem solving and negotiation, in order to reach a mutually acceptable agreement (Bollen, Munduate, & Euwema, 2016 ; Goldman, Cropanzano, Stein, & Benson, 2008 ; Moore, 2014 ). Using mediation in conflict resolution has been proven to prevent the negative consequences of conflict in the workplace (Bollen & Euwema, 2010 ; Bollen et al., 2016 ), in collective bargaining (Martinez-Pecino et al., 2008 ), in inter- and intragroup relations (Jones, 2016 ), and in interpersonal relations (Herrman, 2006 ). However, mediation is not a magic bullet and works better in conflicts that are moderate rather than extreme, when parties are motivated to resolve the conflict, and when parties have equal power, among other characteristics (Kressel, 2014 ).

Conflict Coaching

Conflict coaching is a new and rapidly growing process in the public as well as private sector (Brinkert, 2016 ). In this process, a conflict coach works with a party to accomplish three goals (Jones & Brinkert, 2008 ): (a) analysis and coherent understanding of the conflict, (b) identification of a future preferred direction, and (c) skills development to implement the preferred strategy. Therefore, a conflict coach is defined as a conflict expert who respects the other party’s self-determination and aims to promote the well-being of the parties involved. Giebels and Janssen ( 2005 ) found that, when outside help was called in, parties in conflict experienced fewer negative consequences in terms of individual well-being than people who did not ask for third-party help.

Sometimes, the leader of a team can act as conflict coach. A study by Romer and colleagues ( 2012 ) showed that a workplace leader’s problem-solving approach to conflicts increased employees’ perception of justice and their sense that they had a voice in their workplace, as well as reduced employees’ stress (De Reuver & Van Woerkom, 2010 ; Romer et al., 2012 ). In contrast, the direct expression of power in the form of forcing behavior can harm employees’ well-being (Peterson & Harvey, 2009 ). A forcing leader may become an additional party to the conflict (i.e., employees may turn against their leader; Romer et al, 2012 ).

Conflict coaching and mediation are different processes. First, in conflict coaching, only one party is involved in the process, while in mediation, the mediator helps all the parties in conflict to engage in constructive interaction. Second, conflict coaching focuses on direct skills instructions to the party (i.e., negotiation skills). In that, conflict coaching is also a leadership development tool (Romer et al., 2012 ). There is a growing tendency to integrate conflict coaching and workplace mediation, particularly in preparation for conflict resolution, because the coach can help the coached party to investigate options and weigh the advantages of the different options (Jones, 2016 ).

Arbitration

Arbitration is an institutionalized procedure in which a third party provides a final and binding or voluntary decision (Lewicki, Saunders, & Barry, 2014 ; Mohr & Spekman, 1994 ). Arbitration allows the parties to have control over the process, but not over the outcomes. Therefore, arbitration differs from negotiation, mediation, and conflict coaching, in which the parties decide the agreement themselves (Posthuma & Dworkin, 2000 ; Lewicki et al., 2014 ). In arbitration, the third party listens to the parties and decides the outcome. This procedure is used mainly in conflicts between organizations, in commercial disputes, and in collective labor conflicts (Beechey, 2000 ; Elkouri & Elkouri, 1995 ).

Decision Making by Authorities

The strategies of negotiation, mediation, conflict coaching, and arbitration have in common that the parties together decide about the conflict process, even when they agree to accept an arbitration. This is different from how authorities resolve conflict. Decision making by authorities varies from parents’ intervening in children’s fights to rulings by teachers, police officers, managers, complaint officers, ombudsmen, and judges. Here, often one party complains and the authority acts to intervene and end the conflict. This strategy is good for ending physical violence and misuse of power. However, the authorities’ decisive power is limited, and therefore in most situations authorities are strongly urged to first explore the potential for conflict resolution and reconciliation among the parties involved. The authority can act as an escalator for the process, or as a facilitator, and only in cases of immediate threat can intervene or rule as a last resort. Authorities who employ this strategy can improve the learning skills of the parties and can impose upon the parties an acceptance of responsibility, both for the conflict and for the ways to end it.

It is important to emphasize the natural and positive aspects of conflict management. Conflict occurs in all areas of organizations and private lives and its management is vital for their effectiveness. Through conflict, conventional thinking is challenged, threats and opportunities are identified, and new solutions are forged (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Therefore, when conflict occurs, it shouldn’t be avoided but should be managed constructively.

Exploring the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion: From the emotional perspective

Associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

From the emotional perspective, this study explores how team leader’s conflict management styles affect team passion. A theoretical model is constructed which describes the mediating role of positive team emotional climate and the moderating impact of team emotional intelligence. We collect 101 teams paired data including 101 team leaders and 383 team members to test theoretical model. It is shown that leader’s cooperative conflict management style has a significant positive effect on both positive team emotional climate and team passion. Meanwhile, positive team emotional climate plays a mediating role between leader’s cooperative conflict management style and team passion. In addition, team emotional intelligence has a moderating effect between leader’s cooperative style and positive team emotional climate. This study not only provides a new perspective for follow-up research but also expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles. In addition, this study forms the underlying mechanism of team leader’s conflict management styles on team passion from the emotional perspective and investigates the mediating effect and moderating effect of emotional variable, which broadens the research on the mechanisms of conflict management styles on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Introduction

Team work, which emphasizes collaboration and division of labor, is very effective in improving the flexibility of enterprises to cope with the ever-changing internal and external environment. Due to this, teams are widely used in organizations. In a team, the leader and members, for the most part, differ in their backgrounds, preferences, needs, standards, norms, values, and ethics, but they need to actively cooperate and interact to achieve organizational goals ( García and Corbett, 2013 ). Therefore, conflicts within the team are everywhere and unavoidable. Conflict itself is harmless and its handling styles can greatly impact the team or the organization. If it is not properly handled, it may lead to the instability among teams or organizations in the short to long term. However, if it is properly handled, it can bring positive results to the long-term development of the team or the organization ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Way et al., 2016 ). Consequently, it seems studying conflict management is more worthy rather than conflict itself in this particular setting. Whether in organizational-level or team-level, conflicts occur either between employees or between employees and leaders. Raithel et al. (2021) propose that team leaders have a critical effect to deal with conflicts in the team. Therefore, team leader’s conflict management style (CMS) as one of the most important manifestations of leaders’ behaviors, which probably has a significant effect on team members’ attitudes and behaviors.

The existing literature on the influences of CMSs usually split them into two categories. One focuses on the impacts on team climate and team performance ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2020 ), the other is concerned about the impacts on employees’ attitudes and behaviors ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Leon-Perez et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2016 ; Einarsen et al., 2018 ). Generally, most of related studies are based on cognitive rather than emotional perspective. With the cognitive perspective, previous studies mainly investigate the impacts of CMSs on individual and team outcomes based on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory such as employee innovation ( Desivilya et al., 2010 ) and team coordination ( Tabassi et al., 2018 ). However, a few scholars attempt to probe the relationships between conflict management styles and emotional related outcomes including collective emotional exhaustion ( Benitez et al., 2018 ) and emotional intelligence ( Al-Hamdan et al., 2019 ) with an emotional perspective. Yin et al. (2020b) believes that emotion is a very vital notion for a team. Since many human emotions are generated in interpersonal communication, emotion is critical to a team, especially as the internal mechanism that helps us understand team state and behavior ( Chiang et al., 2020 ). Therefore, it is necessary to consider emotions when carrying out team related studies. Team passion is an important affective factor in teams. Passion refers to individual’s strong inclination to devote time and energy to activities that they like and think important ( Vallerand et al., 2003a ), which can be seen as an attitude based on affection. Permarupan et al. (2013) put forward that behaviors of team members can be evaluated by passions toward their given tasks and roles in the team. Therefore, team passion plays a crucial role in the team as a typical team emotional state. Some scholars explore the factors that affect team passion such as transformational leadership ( Peng et al., 2020 ), shared leadership ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ), temporal leadership ( Zhang et al., 2022 ), and empowering leadership ( Hao et al., 2017 ). It can be seen that leader’s behavior is an impossible-to-ignore antecedent of team passion. A few other scholars attempt to investigate the impact of another common typical leader’s behavior—team leader’s CMSs on team passion. Yin et al. (2020a) prove that team leader’s CMSs have a direct effect on team passion. However, there is no research to explore the mechanism through which that team leader’s conflict management styles impact on team passion by now. Do team leader’s CMSs have indirect effects on team passion by some mediators besides the direct effect? This manuscript is trying to response to the question by examining the intrinsic mechanism between them from the emotional perspective.

On the basis of affective events theory, it considers that work environment characteristics or work events can trigger employees’ affective reactions thus leading to changes of employees’ work attitudes and behaviors, we can infer that team leader’s conflict management styles, as a team event, are likely to influence team passion—a kind of team members’ attitude, through the mediation of some team emotional reaction. Therefore, it is expected that conflict management styles significantly influence team passion. Positive team emotional climate is an important variable of affective reactions ( Levecque et al., 2014 ). Some scholars demonstrated that leader’s behaviors helps to create a team emotional climate ( Chiang et al., 2020 ; Kim et al., 2021 ; Saleh et al., 2022 ). Therefore, this manuscript intends to probe the mediating role of positive team emotional climate. Furthermore, team emotional intelligence (TEI) is a kind of emotional abilities for people to comprehend, manage, and make use of affective information ( Salovey and Mayer, 1990 ). Barsade (2002) proposed that emotional contagion has great influence on individual attitudes and group processes. People who can better perceive other’s emotions have the ability to consider the influence of their behaviors on others ( Ingram et al., 2017 ), then decides the ways to adjust or express his emotions and his emotional impact. Similarly, a team with high TEI is more likely to infect other members’ emotions due that they are able to better perceive, understand and predict other members’ emotions. Consequently, this study posits team emotional intelligence moderates the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team emotional variables.

In conclusion, the purpose of this manuscript is to investigate the mediating mechanism of team leader’s conflict management style on team passion and to determine the boundary condition of these impacts with emotional perspective. The results of this paper can make the following contributions to existing studies of conflict management. On the one hand, this paper expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles. On the other hand, this manuscript investigates the mediating and moderating effects of emotional variables between CMSs and team passion, which broadens the study on the mechanisms of CMSs on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Structure of the other parts of the manuscript is as below. The second part discusses the relationships among team leader’s CMSs, positive team emotional climate, and team passion. Furthermore, this part also discusses how TEI plays a moderating role between CMSs and positive team emotional climate. The third part discusses the method of this manuscript, then is the results and the discussions of results. Finally, the fourth part presents theoretical and practical implications, and put forward research limitations and future research agenda.

Literature review and hypothesis

The conflict management theory is mainly originated from Management Grid Theory proposed by Blake and Mouton, which the management model is divided into five different degrees based on two dimensions. Rahim (1983) summarizes five types of CMSs in work teams, i.e., integrating, dominating, avoiding, compromising, and obliging. Then, Thomas (2008) divides CMSs into five kinds: cooperation, competition, avoidance, compromise, and adaptation. However, some scholars question the five-factor classification in virtue of high correlations between different styles ( Ross and DeWine, 1988 ). For example, both compromising and avoiding aim at reducing the differences between the two parties involved in the conflict through indirect and circuitous ways. Besides, collaborating/integrating and compromising concentrates on emphasizing the common interests of both parties so as to calm the contradiction. Tjosvold (1998) divides the conflict management styles into three types: cooperative, competitive, and avoidant.

Cooperative conflict management style embodies an attempt to integrate all people’s interests, which emphasize the openness of others’ viewpoints, considering the interests of both sides and seek a satisfactory solution. Competitive conflict management style only thinks about their own interest and its typical manifestation is that one party’s power dominates the other. Avoidant conflict management style is characterized by flickering words, usually adopting evasive and avoidant methods when facing conflicts. People who adopt this style are not concerned about the outcome of the conflict. Team leaders, as the core of teams, have the duty to organize team and solve problems by using the resources such as human, financial, and material in work teams. Hence, team leaders prefer positive conflict management styles including cooperative and competitive rather than negative ones such as avoidant. Based on this classification, many scholars choose the styles of cooperative and competitive to conduct related research ( Somech et al., 2009 ; Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Esbati and Korunka, 2021 ). Consequently, this manuscript selects cooperative and competitive conflict management styles for research.

Team leader’s conflict management styles and positive team emotional climate

The existing literature on the impacts of CMSs is able to split into two categories. One focuses on the impacts on team climate and team performance. Some studies confirm that different conflict management styles have different significant impacts on work performance ( Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2020 ). Others concern about the impacts on members’ attitudes and behaviors, such as job dissatisfaction, bullying behavior, voice behavior, trust, and emotional exhaustion ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Leon-Perez et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2016 ; Einarsen et al., 2018 ; Esbati and Korunka, 2021 ). As for the influences of leader’s conflict management styles, studies explore their impacts on team performance, employee behaviors, and team climate ( Hempel et al., 2009 ; Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ; Tabassi et al., 2018 ) according to social cognitive theory, social exchange theory, and other related theories from the cognitive perspective. Chiang et al. (2020) believe that emotional factors play important roles in team activities. Thus, it is necessary to explore how team leader’s CMSs influence team emotional factors from the emotional rather than the cognitive perspective, so as to provide greater values of conflict management for team development. Scholars generally divide emotions into two dimensions, positive and negative emotions. Positive emotions serve as markers of flourishing, or optimal well-being and in peoples’ lives can be expressed as joy, interest, contentment, and love ( Fredrickson, 2001 ). Negative emotions reduce individual pleasure, as shown in anxiety, sadness, anger, and despair ( Fredrickson, 2001 ; Rank and Frese, 2008 ). When the internal consistency coefficient of emotion in the team is high, which indicates that the emotions of team members are consistent, team emotional climate can be considered to exist ( George and Bettenhausen, 1990 ). Liu et al. (2008) propose that team emotional climate is a common perception of team members to moods and affective interaction in a team which characterizes a team and has a significant influence on teams and members.

As mentioned above, affective events theory emphasizes that work environment characteristics and work events can trigger emotional reactions of employees. Team leader’s behavior, as an event, can affect team members’ emotions and create some team emotional climate. Some researches suggest that leader’s behavior is essential to create team emotional climate ( Chiang et al., 2020 ; Kim et al., 2021 ; Saleh et al., 2022 ). Eisenbeiss et al. (2008) discover that transformational leadership positively impact on team climate shaping. Chiang et al. (2020) declare that authoritarian leadership has a positive relationship with motion suppression climate. Therefore, as one of the significant manifestations of team leader’s behaviors, team leader’s conflict management styles should be able to influence team climate. When dealing with conflicts, team leaders who adopt the cooperative approach usually show respects for team members’ views and actively take a relatively fair way to communicate with team members so as to promote cooperation among the teams, which make team members feel relaxed, equal, free and happy, thus promoting a positive team emotional climate ( Liu et al., 2008 ). Instead, team leaders who adopt the competitive approach tend to impose their opinions on team members. It will lead team members in a passive state which may make them produce negative emotions such as disappointment, tension, suspicion, and fear. It can be inferred that these negative emotions are possible to hinder communications among team members and even aggravate interpersonal relationships, resulting in the deterioration of positive team emotional climate. According to the analysis above, we put forward the following hypotheses:

H1: Team leader’s conflict management styles significantly affect positive team emotional climate.

H1a: Team leader’s cooperative conflict management style has a positive relationship with positive team emotional climate.

H1b: Team leader’s competitive conflict management style has a negative relationship with positive team emotional climate.

Team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion

By now, most of current researches on the influences of conflict management styles are conducted from a cognitive perspective. As emotions have always influenced behaviors, it is valuable to probe the influence of CMSs on emotional factors at team level ( Yin et al., 2020a ). Team passion is a kind of emotional factor which plays a vital role in teams ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2020 , 2022 ; Mindeguia et al., 2021b ). Based on self-determination theory, Vallerand et al. (2003b) define passion as an intensive inclination for people to invest time and effort toward an activity that they like and think is important and categorized it into both harmonious and obsessive passion. The meaning of harmonious passion is internalization by self-determination, which conducts people to join in an activity choicefully and freely. In comparison, obsessive passion comes from an interesting activity that is internalization by non-self-determined method. This kind of passion adjusts actions that are inconsistent with one’s self-concept ( Vallerand et al., 2003b ). This manuscript discusses about harmonious passion. Although passion is not clearly defined at the team level ( Cardon et al., 2009 ), many scholars research the role of passion at the team level ( Permarupan et al., 2013 ; Hao et al., 2017 ; Peng et al., 2020 ; Uy et al., 2021 ; Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Hence, this manuscript defines team passion as the degree with which a team experiences strong enthusiasm and investment to the team. Because work is indispensable in life, scholars have paid more attention to the passion in the workplace recently ( Vallerand et al., 2003b ; Zigarmi et al., 2009 ; Perttula and Cardon, 2012 ). One line of research has investigated how leaders influence employees’ passion. It is found that leader’s behavior significantly impacts staffs’ work passion, for example, ambidextrous leadership ( Ma J.F. et al., 2018 ) and shared leadership ( Salas-Vallina et al., 2022 ) positively influence members’ work passion. When team leaders adopt cooperative CMS, they usually encourage team members to actively share different viewpoints for discussion, deepen mutual understanding, and promote better cooperation between them. This can help members establish their values in the team and make them willing or even eager to benefit the team and the organization, thus enhancing the team passion. Whereas, team leaders adopt competitive conflict management style tend to impose their thoughts on members. Team members in a passive state may have negative emotions, which hinder the willingness of communication and even aggravate the degree of interpersonal conflicts, thus negatively affecting team passion. According to the analysis above, we propose the following hypotheses:

H2: Team leader’s conflict management styles have significant impacts on team passion.

H2a: Team leader’s cooperative conflict management style is positively related to team passion.

H2b: Team leader’s competitive conflict management style is negatively related to team passion.

The mediating role of positive team emotional climate

The positive team emotional climate refers to the shared perception of the moods and affective interactions among team members as mentioned above ( Liu et al., 2008 ). With positive team emotional climate, there is likely to create a positive emotional “infection” effect within teams, which can produce or maintain a positive emotional state within teams. Based on affective events theory, emotion is considered as a mediating mechanism in the event-outcome relationship. Team members develop shared attitudes, emotional responses, and behavioral patterns through shared experiences or events, and then it will have an influence on team attitudes and behaviors at a higher level conversely. Work passion requires strong positive emotions and internal driving forces and includes the emotional experience of strong work orientation, which leads employees to consider their work as an inner part and want to devote time and energy in it ( Vallerand et al., 2003a ; Birkeland and Nerstad, 2016 ). That is to say, team leader’s conflict management style, as a kind of leadership behavior, can be regarded as a common experience by team members, thus shaping team emotional climate and further stimulating team passion. Yin et al. (2020a) propose that team leader’s conflict management style positively affects positive team emotional climate. Zhu et al. (2022) also prove that paternalistic leadership is positively related to positive team emotional climate. In addition, Permarupan et al. (2013) confirm that the positive organizational climate is conducive to promoting employees’ work passion. Moreover, Mindeguia et al. (2021a) prove that positive climate is a mediating variable between transformational leadership and team passion.

Leaders who adopt a cooperative conflict management style are usually committed to achieving satisfactory results for both parties ( Tjosvold et al., 2006 ). They try to integrate the interests of all members together to form a common best solution ( Tjosvold et al., 2006 ; Desivilya et al., 2010 ). Then, they pay attention to members’ feedback in time and form a free and pleasant environment for communication, thus stimulating the positive emotions of team members and building a positive team emotional climate. Meanwhile, the positive emotional climate makes team members feel comfortable and motivates their passion. Therefore, leader’s cooperative CMS improves team passion by building a positive team emotional climate. Similarly, leader’s competitive CMS reduces team passion by inhibiting positive team emotional climate. Based on hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, and the above illustration, we propose the following hypotheses:

H3: Positive team emotional climate mediates the relationships between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion.

The moderating effect of team emotional intelligence

The meaning of team emotional intelligence (TEI) is the competence of teams to formulate a series of standards to manage the processes of emotion ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). TEI is very important to improve the cooperation and cohesion of team members and promote the behavior of improving team efficiency ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). Wong and Law (2002) divide TEI as consisting of four dimensions: others’ emotion appraisal (OEA), self-emotion appraisal (SEA), regulation of emotion (ROE), and use of emotion (UOE). Among them, OEA is considered as the ability of individual to sense, comprehend and forecast other emotions. People who have such competence highly are more sensitive to others’ affections ( Wong and Law, 2002 ). Ma and Liu (2019) propose that the impact of emotional intelligence in the context of conflict rests with OEA. Therefore, this manuscript adopts the dimension of OEA to represent and operationalize TEI. TEI is often considered as a method to solve challenging interpersonal relationships ( Samiuddin et al., 2017 ). Miao et al. (2016) proved that emotional intelligence is possible to improve the degree of team members’ satisfaction. TEI can enhance the connection among coworkers, improve the quality of information exchange and decision-making, and reduce conflict in teams ( Lee and Wong, 2017 ). Team with higher emotional intelligence can inspire the confidence and cooperation of team members, thereby building a positive and harmonious working atmosphere, thus promoting communication among members and reducing conflicts ( Rego et al., 2007 ). Therefore, higher emotional intelligence is preferable to perceive the emotional fluctuations of team members in teams. A high TEI team can timely detect members with negative emotions and prompt them to revitalize themselves ( Stubbs and Wolff, 2008 ), which can help create a more positive team emotional climate. We could inferred that high TEI is conducive to communication and conflict resolution in team, and thus improve the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and weaken the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate. Teams with low emotional intelligence may not easily recognize the tensions among members and the changes of members’ emotions, in which the barriers to communication between team members become more severe. Thus, low TEI could weaken the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and enhance the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate. Then the following hypotheses are proposed:

H4: Team emotional intelligence plays a moderating role between team leader’s conflict management styles and positive team emotional climate.

H4a: High team emotional intelligence enhances the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and weakens the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate.

H4b: Low team emotional intelligence weakens the positive influence of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate and enhances the negative influence of competitive CMS on positive team emotional climate.

Mindeguia et al. (2021b) propose that high emotional intelligence teams take on the role of “emotion manager” so as to create positive affective events for team members, which can arose passion of team members. Similar to the positive team emotional climate, high TEI teams could rapidly find out the members who lack passion for work and enhance their love for the team. By increasing less-passion members involvement in work, team passion could also be enhanced, which is conducive to the harmonious resolution of conflicts. Mindeguia et al. (2021b) put forward that there is a significant positive relationship between team emotional intelligence and passion. Therefore, this paper infers that teams with high TEI are sensitive to low-passionate members, while teams with low TEI are not. Consequently, high TEI could enhance the positive influence of cooperative CMS on team passion and weaken the negative influence of competitive CMS. On the contrary, low TEI could weaken the positive influence of cooperative CMS on team passion and enhance the negative influence of competitive CMS. Furthermore, Yin et al. (2020b) prove that the moderating role of TEI between team leader’s CMSs and team passion. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed.

H5: TEI has a moderating role between team leader’s conflict management styles and team passion.

H5a: High TEI enhances the positive influence of cooperative conflict management style on team passion and weakens the negative influence of competitive conflict management style on team passion.

H5b: Low TEI weakens the positive influence of cooperative conflict management style on team passion and enhances the negative influence of competitive conflict management style on team passion.

Therefore, the hypothesized model is displayed in Figure 1 .

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Conflict management styles on positive team emotional climate and team passion.

Materials and methods

Sample and data collection.

In this paper, we conduct surveys to state-owned enterprises and internet enterprises in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shenyang, China, such as Baidu, Tencent, JD.COM, and Original Chemical by contacting relevant managers of these enterprises ahead of time and visiting the work places with the help of acquaintances and MBA alumni. This study collected team data in departments, which mainly work in a small group, such as sales, R&D, and propaganda, were chosen for the research. Because of the different size of work teams, each team surveyed a team leader and 3–6 team members. Finally, 484 valid surveys were collected, including 101 team leaders and 383 team members. We used anonymous questionnaire to ensure that it can truly reflect the respondents’ ideas. Questionnaires related to conflict management style were responded by leaders, while those related to team passion, positive team emotional climate and TEI were responded by team members. In order to match team leaders and members, we designed three items such as “what’s you last name” and “what’s your team leader’s last name.” For team leader, 86.79% respondents were males. On the aspect of age, 62.86% of the respondents was between 26 and 35 years, which is the most. The largest proportion held a bachelor degree, reaching 65.7%. After that, master degree or above reached 13.3%. The rest are below bachelor degree. In terms of working years, 50.48% respondents have been working for 6–10 years. For team members, 75.82% respondents were males. On the aspect of age, respondents between 26 and 35 years arrived 60.71%, which is the most. 84.9% respondents held a bachelor degree, then master degree or above reached 7.5%, the rest are below bachelor degree. 51.13% respondents have been working for 0–5 years.

We selected internationally established scales and translated into Chinese to measure these variables. To ensure the equivalency of meaning, we translated questionnaire from English to Chinese and back to English. We adopted Likert five-point scale to measure the items of the questionnaire.

Conflict management styles

In this paper, we measured team leader’s cooperative and competitive conflict management styles by the scale established by Tjosvold et al. (2006) . It measured cooperative and competitive conflict management style with nine items, which is answered by leaders. Specifically, cooperative conflict management style included five items such as “My work so that to the extent possible we all get what we really want” and competitive conflict management style contained four items such as “I demand that others agree to my position.”

Team passion

This study adopted the scale designed by Vallerand et al. (2003b) . The scale had total seven items. For example, “This activity allows me to live a variety of experiences,” “This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself” and etc.

Positive team emotional climate

This study used three items of the positive team emotional climate scale derived from team emotional climate measure created by Liu et al. (2008) . Example items included “In our team, members are optimistic and confident” and “Working in my team, members feel hopeful.”

Team emotional intelligence

As mentioned above, since the dimension of OEA reflects the vital role of TEI in the context of conflict, which can help people to perceive, understand, and predict other emotions ( Ma and Liu, 2019 ). We adopted the items about OEA in the scale created by Wong and Law (2002) . Example items included “I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others” and “I have good understanding of the emotions of people around me.”

Control variables

In this paper, the gender, age, education level, and working years of participants, which may have potential impacts on CMS, team climate, and team passion are taken as control variables ( Rahim, 1983 ; Lewis, 2000 ; Beitler et al., 2018 ).

Data analysis and results

In this manuscript, SPSS 24.0 and AMOS24.0 ( Podsakoff et al., 2003 ) were used for descriptive statistical analysis, reliability analysis, and structural validity test. Mplus 8.0 was used both for the multiple regression analysis and hypotheses testing ( MacKinnon et al., 2002 ; Muthén and Muthén, 2012 ). We adopted bootstrapping method to enhance the statistical effectiveness ( Grant and Berry, 2011 ) by extracting 5,000 a * b values repeatedly from the raw data and confirm their unbiased interval.

Table 1 summarized the means, variances, correlation coefficients, and reliability test results for each major variable. According to Table 1 , the Cronbach alpha values of all variables is over 0.7, thus each scale has good reliability.

Descriptive statistical analysis and reliability.

Bold value is Cronbach’s alpha. N = 101; ** p < 0.01.

Structural validity

Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in this study. We used Mplus8.0 to test the structural validity. Table 2 was the results.

Structural validity test of different source scales.

N = 101, PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; TP, team passion; COO, cooperative conflict management style; and COM, competitive conflict management style.

At team-member level, the fitting degree of three-factor model is good (χ 2 /df = 2.36, GFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.98, NFI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.06). And three-factor model is superior to single-factor model (combine PTEC, TEI, and TP) and two-factor models (combine PTEC, TEI, and TP in pairs). At team-leader level, the fitting degree of two-factor model is good (χ 2 / df = 1.58, GFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.86, RMSEA = 0.07), which is superior to single-factor model.

Data convergent testing at team level

In this paper, the consistency reliability ICC(1), ICC(2), and Rwg were calculated to test whether the data is able to converge at team level. According to the test, the ICC(1), ICC(2), and Rwg of team passion were 0.23, 0.47, and 0.893, separately. PTEC were 0.23, 0.48, and 0.893 separately. TEI were 0.28, 0.53, and 0.885 separately. Therefore, the above variables are able to converge at team level.

Hypotheses test

In this manuscript, variance inflation factor (VIF) was tested by Model 1 to prevent multicollinearity. All VIF values were less than 5, illustrating that there was no multicollinearity problems. Refer to Table 3 for details.

Hierarchical regression results.

N = 101, *** p < 0.001, * p < 0.01. COO, cooperative conflict management style; COM, competitive conflict management style; PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; and TP, team passion.

Test of direct effects

As shown in Table 3 , control variables were gender, working years, age, education level of team leaders and average working years, age, and education level of team members, the regression results of different independent variables to dependent variables were obtained, respectively. In model 2, cooperative and competitive conflict management styles were independent variables and positive team emotional climate were dependent variables. We found that the cooperative CMS positively influence positive team emotional climate ( β 1 = 0.785, p < 0.001), hypothesis 1a was supported; while competitive CMS had no significant influence on the positive team emotional climate ( β 2 = −0.082, p > 0.05), which not supported hypothesis 1b. In model 3, cooperative and competitive conflict management styles were independent variables and team passion was dependent variable. We found that cooperative CMS positively affected team passion ( β 3 = 0.729, p < 0.001), hypothesis 2a was supported; however competitive CMS had no significant influence on team passion ( β 4 = −0.001, p > 0.05), hypothesis 2b was not supported. We took positive team emotional climate was independent variable and team passion as dependent variable in model 4. Model 4 had a path coefficient β 5 of 0.895 ( p < 0.001), which illustrated that positive team emotional climate was significantly related to team passion, hypothesis 3 was initially validated. On the basis of above models, model 5 took positive team emotional climate as a mediating variable. Because the competitive style has no significant influence in models 2 and 3, it is unnecessary to keep on discussing the mediating impact of positive team emotional climate between competitive style and team passion and the moderating impact of team emotional intelligence between CMS and dependent variables. Consequently, model 5 did not contain competitive conflict management style. The path coefficient β 6 between CMS and team passion was 0.069 ( p > 0.05) and coefficient β 7 was 0.842 ( p < 0.001), which further supported hypothesis 3.

Test of indirect effects

Then, we used bootstrapping to exam indirect effects and confidence interval. According to the above, the path coefficients of independent variable-mediating variable ( β 1 ) and mediating variable-dependent variable ( β 7 ) were significant. Then repeated sampling 5,000 times, the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate was significant ( β = 0.258, p < 0.001, 95% CI of β 1 * β 7 is [0.583, 0.813], excluding 0).

Finally, this manuscript investigated the moderating impact of TEI. Because positive team emotional climate completely mediated the relationship between cooperative CMS and team passion, it was not necessary to test its moderating role between them. Therefore, hypothesis 5 was not supported. The following analysis only examined its moderating effect between cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate, and the results were shown in model 6. The path coefficients between interaction variable and positive team emotional climate was significant ( β 8 = −0.226, p < 0.01), which was opposite to hypotheses 4. In this study, method of Aiken and West (1991) was used to further describe team emotional intelligence’s moderating effect. The results are shown as Figure 2 . According to Figure 2 , we can find that whether in higher emotional intelligence teams or in lower emotional intelligence teams, leader’s cooperative CMS positively impact positive team emotional climate ( β 9 = 0.671, p < 0.001; β 10 = 0.921, p < 0.001). In addition, with team emotional intelligence higher, the positive effect of cooperative CMS on positive team emotional climate was weaker.

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Cooperative styles × TEI influence on positive team emotional climate.

Table 4 showed that cooperative CMS was beneficial to creating a positive team emotional climate and improving team passion. This is because the cooperative CMS requires both parties involved to solve the conflict through open, cooperative, peaceful, and friendly methods. It can not only help create a happy and harmonious team climate, but also mobilize the working motivation of teams. The results also verified the positive impact of positive team emotional climate on team passion. For indirect effects, it showed that positive team emotional climate completely mediated the relationship between cooperative CMS and team passion. Moreover, team emotional intelligence played a moderating effect between cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate.

Hypotheses results.

CMS, conflict management styles; COO, cooperative conflict management style; COM, competitive conflict management style; PTEC, positive team emotional climate; TEI, team emotional intelligence; and TP, team passion.

Nevertheless, some hypotheses were not supported. First of all, the effects of competitive conflict management style on positive team emotional climate and team passion were not significant. This may be related to the fact that the survey data came from China. The power distance of Chinese society is large. Members who grew up under Chinese traditional education are used to obeying the orders of leaders, even though the current working environment encourages teamwork and reduces the power distance. China is a high power distance society ( Ma Z. et al., 2018 ), and employees accustomed to the commanding work style of leaders. Employees think that leaders have the right to dominant and order them and accept the competitive conflict management style of leaders when confront conflicts. Therefore, team leader’s competitive CMS may not negatively affect team passion and team positive emotional climate. In addition, Chinese culture emphasizes “harmony is precious.” When confronted with conflict, team members are more concerned about escaping from the conflict situation as soon as possible. At that time, even if leaders adopt a competitive conflict management style which members do not like, it is acceptable for team members in order to escape from the conflict environment. We assume that team members’ negative emotions brought by team leader’s competitive conflict management styles and their positive emotions brought by escaping from conflicts may cancel each other out. Therefore, it can be speculated that team leader’s competitive CMS will not affect team members’ emotions. Secondly, TEI plays a negatively moderating role between cooperative CMS and team positive emotional climate. It is likely that team members with high emotional intelligence can regulate and infect other members within the team. According to emotional contagion theory, individuals can influence others or groups through emotional transmission ( Barsade, 2002 ). Consequently, when the level of team emotional intelligence is high, even if team leaders adopt a highly cooperative CMS, positive team emotional climate does not necessarily increase a lot, but keeps a stable standard.

Conclusion and implications

With the perspective of emotion, this manuscript carries out the intrinsic mechanism of two typical conflict management styles on team passion and builds a corresponding theoretical model including the mediating impact of positive team emotional climate and the moderating influence of TEI. The model is tested empirically by investigating the paired data of 101 team leaders and 383 team members. We can find that cooperative CMS is conducive to creating a positive team emotional climate, which can effectively improve team passion. That is to say, positive team emotional climate plays the fully mediating effect between team leader’s cooperative CMS and team passion. Furthermore, TEI plays the moderating effect between leader’s cooperative CMS and positive team emotional climate.

Theoretical implications

First of all, this manuscript explores the impacts of conflict management styles on team outcomes based on affective events theory with emotional perspective. Previous researches on the results of conflict management are mostly based on cognitive perspective and the outcome variables are mainly individual and team performance ( Somech et al., 2009 ; Shih and Susanto, 2010 ; Tabassi et al., 2017 ). Some scholars take organizational identification ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ), team coordination ( Tabassi et al., 2018 ), and workplace bullying ( Einarsen et al., 2018 ) as outcome variables, but pay less attention to the impacts on team attitudes related to emotions. This manuscript probes the impacts of CMS on an important team attitude related to emotional called team passion from the emotional perspective which not only provides a new perspective for follow-up research but also expands the research scope of impacts of conflict management styles.

Secondly, this study uses cross-level research method to verify the relationships between team leader’s styles of managing conflict and team emotional outcomes. In the past, when examining the impacts of team leader’s behavior on team’s emotion, most studies focus on the influences of leadership behaviors, such as spiritual leadership ( Afsar et al., 2016 ), transformational leadership ( Arnold, 2017 ), empowering leadership ( Kim et al., 2018 ), and authentic leadership ( Agote et al., 2016 ), while few researches concentrate on that of leader’s conflict management styles. Because conflict is inevitable in the team, we can infer that team leader’s CMS as one of the most important manifestations of his/her behaviors should have important effects on team results. Based on this idea, this manuscript explores the relationship between team leader’s CMSs and team emotional outcomes, so as to enrich the literature on the antecedents of team outcomes.

Lastly, this manuscript investigates the intrinsic mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion, confirms the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate between them, and the moderating influence of TEI between CMSs and positive team emotional climate. Previous studies have focused on mediating or moderating effects of cognitive variables, such as team effectiveness ( Cheng et al., 2012 ) and psychological safety ( Erkutlu and Chafra, 2015 ). Since emotions is critical to help individuals comprehend the internal mechanism of team attitudes and behaviors, this manuscript explores the underlying mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion from the emotional perspective and investigates the mediating and moderating effects of emotional variables. This, in turn, broadens the study on the mechanisms of CMSs on team outcomes to a certain extent.

Managerial implications

There are three main managerial implications as well.

Firstly, team leader’s CMSs have a major effect on team climate and team attitude. When teams occur conflicts, team leaders should consider adopting cooperative conflict management style because it is conducive not only to good communication and information exchange within teams, but also to the creation of the positive emotional climate and inspiration of team passion, which helps find more effective solutions to conflicts, ease the relationship between two parties involved in conflict as soon as possible, reduce the loss caused by conflict, improve team performance and etc. Therefore, organizations should guide team leaders to emphasize and adopt cooperative conflict management style to cope with conflicts. Organizations can use case analysis, role-playing, mentor guidance, and other training methods to enhance team leaders’ skills of using cooperative conflict management style. In addition, organizations can also create a harmonious and cooperative working atmosphere that encourages leaders to adopt a cooperative conflict management style in the workplace, so as to improve team innovation performance.

Secondly, as employees’ emotions and working conditions are inseparable, employees’ emotional factors which cannot be ignored since they significantly affect the performance of enterprises or teams should be highly valued by managers. This paper proves that team emotional climate has a significant influence on team outcomes. In addition, leaders and managers should pay more attention to team passion which is the motivation for members to work hard. Therefore, team leaders should not only care about the management of team members’ personal emotions, but also emphasize the shaping of team emotional climate and the stimulation of team passion. On the one hand, it is suggested that team leaders create an open, relaxed, free and friendly atmosphere within the team through team building to arouse team passion. On the other hand, team leaders also can inspire team passion by setting clear and promising goals for team prospects.

Finally, researchers have already found the significance of emotional intelligence at work ( Alkahtani, 2015 ; Lee and Wong, 2017 ; Jamshed and Majeed, 2018 ; Mindeguia et al., 2021b ). The result of this study shows that TEI weakens the influence of cooperative conflict management style on positive team emotional climate. This shows that we do not want to promote the idea that members in teams with high emotional intelligence should be superior, because all members have emotion swings and even individuals with high emotional intelligence cannot avoid negative emotions ( Jordan et al., 2002 ). Moreover, too high TEI is likely to inhibit the promotion and dissemination of a team’s positive emotions since teams with emotional intelligence at a high level may have a strong ability to influence team members’ emotions. Therefore, team leaders should not blindly pursue too high team emotional intelligence, but keep it on a relatively moderate level, so as to play its biggest role.

Limitations and future research directions

Firstly, this manuscript investigates the intrinsic mechanism of team leader’s CMSs on team passion with the perspective of emotion and discovers the mediating effect of positive team emotional climate between them. Future researches can further probe the mediating effect of other emotional variables such as emotional control and affective tone ( Rank and Frese, 2008 ). Secondly, this manuscript only chooses team leader’s CMSs of cooperation and competition. of course, leaders can also adopt other conflict management styles. Thus, future studies can further probe the influence of other CMSs on team outcomes based on emotional perspective. Thirdly, this study just chooses OEA dimension to measure team emotional intelligence. Although it makes sense to some extent, it is relatively simple and not necessarily able to stand criticizing. Consequently, future studies can add other dimensions to measure team emotional intelligence. Fourthly, the data in this manuscript totally came from questionnaire and are measured by self-report lacking of data from multiple evaluation sources. Future researches will consider combining various survey methods to obtain sample data and expand the survey subjects to reduce the impact of homologous data. Finally, we adopt the cross-sectional design in this manuscript. We can collect more longitudinal data in the future.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

JY contributed to the conceptual design of the study. JY, MQ and MJ contributed to the drafting of the article. GL and ML contributed to the data analyzes. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The research was supported by Beijing Knowledge Management Institute (5212210983) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72002016).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Conflict in virtual teams: a bibliometric analysis, systematic review, and research agenda

International Journal of Conflict Management

ISSN : 1044-4068

Article publication date: 6 June 2022

Issue publication date: 6 January 2023

The purpose of this study is to map the intellectual structure of the research concerning conflict and conflict management in virtual teams (VT), to contribute to the further integration of knowledge among different streams of research and to develop an interpretative framework to stimulate future research.

Design/methodology/approach

A data set of 107 relevant papers on the topic was retrieved using the Web of Science Core Collection database covering a period ranging from 2001 to 2019. A comparative bibliometric analysis consisting of the integration of results from the citation, co-citation and bibliographic coupling was performed to identify the most influential papers. The systematic literature review complemented the bibliometric results by clustering the most influential papers.

The results revealed different intellectual structures across several types of analyses. Despite such differences, 41 papers resulted as the most impactful and provided evidence of the emergence of five thematic clusters: trust, performance, cultural diversity, knowledge management and team management.

Research limitations/implications

Based on the bibliometric analyses an interpretative research agenda has been developed that unveils the main future research avenues. The paper also offers important theoretical contributions by systematizing knowledge on conflict in identifying VTs. Managerial contributions in the form of the identification of best practices are also developed to guide conflict management in VTs.

Originality/value

The uniqueness of this paper is related to its effort in studying, mapping and systematizing the knowledge concerning the topic of handling conflicts in VTs. Considering the current contingencies, this research is particularly timely.

Virtual teams
Conflict management
Bibliometric analysis
Remote working

Caputo, A. , Kargina, M. and Pellegrini, M.M. (2023), "Conflict in virtual teams: a bibliometric analysis, systematic review, and research agenda", International Journal of Conflict Management , Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-07-2021-0117

Emerald Publishing Limited

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Handling conflicts properly in teams is crucial for possible success ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ). Due to the specific contingencies experienced by virtual teams (VTs), this aspect becomes even more prominent ( Gilson et al. , 2015 ). The Covid-19 pandemic forced many organizations to implement remote working, often in an abrupt and fast way, indicating a particularly favorable historic momentum to systematize previous knowledge on the topic and to offer ways forward. With such a purpose in mind, this paper aims to provide an overview of the evolution of the literature regarding conflict and conflict management in the context of VTs over the past two decades. For this study, we broadly define conflict as the situation where parties within a VT perceive that their goals or interests are incompatible or in opposition ( Ayoko and Konrad, 2012 ); whereas we consider conflict management to refer to the understanding of conflict as a whole, its antecedents, the process, the styles and strategies of handling conflicts and associated behaviors in the context of VT ( Caputo et al. , 2018a ). Even in the context and dynamics of the virtuality of VTs, we concur with Caputo et al. (2018a , 2018b , p. 11) that:

The main objective of conflict management is not to eliminate conflict, but to find different ways to manage it properly by controlling the dysfunctional elements of the conflict while facilitating its productive aspects.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the already rapid development of technologies in information and communication, further reducing the distances and increasing remote work interactions ( Garro-Abarca et al. , 2021 ). The hyper-globalization processes of the past decades have led, already before the pandemic, to the growing importance of VTs in today’s organizations ( Gibson et al. , 2014 ). VTs can be considered as groups of geographically dispersed co-workers who work interdependently, share common objectives, practices and procedures using technology to communicate and collaborate across time and space ( DeSanctis and Monge, 1999 ). These teams may come from different cultures, yet they operate in the same organizational cultural framework, can bring together a variety of knowledge and experience and deal with a high degree of technologically mediated interactions ( Batarseh et al. , 2017 ). These factors contribute to making today’s organizations more diverse and possibly more conflictual.

Previous reviews and conceptual work have touched on the issues related to conflict and conflict management in the context of VTs. In particular, Schiller and Mandviwalla (2007) highlighted the issues related to conflict management in VT in an early theoretical piece that looked at the use of theories in VT research. More recently, Gilson et al. (2015) presented a seminal overview of the research in VTs that unveiled 10 themes and 10 opportunities for future research. According to the authors, conflict management was mostly studied as a mediator in a unidimensional relation, resulting in the suggestion that conflict is more likely to happen in VTs and it negatively affects team dynamics, processes and outcomes. A similar suggestion is made by Jimenez et al. (2017) , in reviewing the works about global VTs, and Raghuram et al. (2019) , reviewing studies about virtual work, who highlighted how conflicts emerge mostly from cultural and language differences affecting team dynamics. The fragmentation of empirical literature about conflict in VTs and the limited conceptual attention given to the topic calls for an investigation and systematization of the literature about conflict and conflict management in VTs as timely and necessary to support both research and practice to navigate the uncertainties of today’s world.

Shedding light on the evolution of the study of conflicts and their associated management in VTs, a bibliometric analysis of 107 relevant articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals has been performed to first identify the most influential studies and second, to systematize the academic knowledge by unveiling the existence of five thematic clusters: trust, performance, cultural diversity, knowledge management and team management. In particular, an innovative approach has been adopted by comparing results from alternative, complementary bibliometric tools, i.e. citations, normalized citations and bibliographic coupling, to identify the most influential articles in the field ( Caputo et al. , 2021 ).

This study provides several contributions theoretically, methodologically and practically. First, it contributes to strengthening the integration and systematization of the two bodies of literature in conflict management and VTs. Second, it provides a rigorous and systematic identification of the most influential papers in these fields and identifies thematic areas to bring forward the research. Third, it contributes to bibliometric and reviews studies by advancing the use of comparative bibliometric approaches. Finally, the paper interprets in an integrative framework the current knowledge on the field comprising nonlinear and recursive loops between its elements and, thanks to that, elaborates future research avenues.

The paper is organized into five sections, including this introduction, as follows. Section 2 describes the protocol adopted for selecting the paper and the analyses performed. Section 3 presents the results of the analyses and determines the most impactful papers. Section 4 uses the most impactful papers to propose a framework aimed at suggesting an agenda for future research. Section 5 summarizes the contributions of the paper and its limitations.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive yet succinct and timely knowledge map of the studies investigating conflict management in VTs. Such a knowledge map is purposed to provide both scholars and practitioners with an overview of what we know i.e. best practices and main findings, and what we still do not know i.e. future research directions about managing conflict in virtual workplaces. The Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in large part of the office workforce working remotely is disrupting social relationships in the workplace. A review of conflict management in VTs is therefore necessary and needs to be carried out in a timely fashion to serve its purpose.

To achieve these objectives, we have built upon best practices in systematic literature review and bibliometric studies and complemented the two methodologies to fulfill simultaneously the breadth and depth of the analysis. The simultaneous use of these two complementary methods, albeit recent, is not entirely new as it has been validated in several studies ( Caputo et al. , 2021 ; Caputo et al. , 2018b ; Dabić et al. , 2020 ). It allows researchers to investigate a topic in depth through the systematic review while maintaining a wider picture of the evolution of knowledge through bibliometric analysis. In this study, we have also included a methodological innovation in the complementary use of alternative bibliometric analyses to identify the most influential papers in the field.

2.1 Sampling protocol

Consistent with the systematic review method ( Thorpe et al. , 2005 ; Tranfield et al. , 2003 ), a panel of experts was formed to define the field of research, choose the keywords, the database and the set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The panel of experts consisted of two professors, one an expert in strategy, negotiation and conflict management and the other in organizational studies and team working, together with a PhD student specifically focused on the organizational dynamics of dispersed teams. A step-by-step process was followed as outlined in this section.

Step 1 . The database Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection® (research areas “Business Economics” and “Psychology”) was chosen after several alternative searches in Scopus and EBSCO because it retrieved a sample of high-quality articles representative of the best conflict in VTs research published to date. The choice of WoS Core Collection® is also supported and validated as appropriate for the field of inquiry by recent bibliometric studies in conflict management ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ).

Step 2 . A wide search string based on multiple levels of keywords was used ( Caputo, 2013 ) to ensure the capture of the most relevant papers on the topic. The first level included the keyword “Conflict”. The second level included the keywords about the remote/virtual nature of the investigated relationships: “smart OR virtual OR distributed OR distant OR remote”. The third level included keywords related to the organizational aspect of the teams, including “team OR group OR workplace OR workspace”. The search was run with Boolean operators (AND and OR) via the TS command, which searches among Title, Abstract, Author Keywords and Keywords Plus®. Consistent with best practices in bibliometric research and to ensure the comparability among the indicators, the year 2020 was excluded ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ). The search was carried out among peer-reviewed articles written in the English language and resulted in the first sample of 397 papers.

Step 3 . Due to the wideness of the search string, we proceeded to the manual “cleaning” of the data set by reading all the titles and abstracts of the selected papers to eliminate those that were not relevant to our search. When it was not possible to assess the relevance of the abstract, we obtained a digital copy of the full text of the paper. Excluded papers fall into two main categories: a large number of papers do not investigate conflict at all ( Ebrahim, 2015 ; Presbitero and Toledano, 2018 ), although the word “conflict” is presented in the search items. This situation mainly occurs because many papers had a declaration of conflict of interest that was caught by the search; others were eliminated because they simply mentioned “conflicting results” in the abstract or where conflict was just mentioned incidentally; a smaller portion of papers investigated conflict but not in a virtual environment ( Sheehan et al. , 2016 ). Following these criteria, two-hundred-ninety-three papers were eliminated because they were not relevant.

2.2 Analyses

The final data set of 107 papers was used as a basis for both the bibliometric analysis and a qualitative systematic literature review to develop a comprehensive map of the knowledge of the field.

Bibliometrics is a subset of scientometrics and applies statistical methods to the study of scientific activity in a scientific community ( Zupic and Čater, 2015 ). For our research, we followed the perspective known as positive bibliometrics ( Todeschini and Baccini, 2016 ). This is because we aim to describe and explain phenomena in science via the analysis of its scientific communication. In this view, bibliometric indicators represent phenomena or proxies of phenomena. For example, the citations received by an article that expresses a concept are a proxy of the diffusion and impact of said concept in the scientific community. Examples of positive bibliometrics are citation analysis, co-citation analysis, citation networks and productivity analysis.

Complementary bibliometric analyses were instrumental to identify the sample of the most influential papers to review. Prior studies argue for the use of more than one indicator ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ; Dabić et al. , 2020 ) as an effective way to limit the intrinsic bias that every indicator has.

First, we undertook a performance analysis based on indicators of activity. These indicators provide data about the volume and impact of research during a given timeframe via word frequency analysis, citation analysis and counting publications by the unit of analysis (e.g. authorship, country, affiliation, etc.).

Second, we built a science map based on indicators that provide spatial representations of how different scientific elements are related to one another to picture the structural and dynamic organization of knowledge about conflict management in VTs. We combined results from co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling to identify the most influential papers, authors and journals and the co-occurrence of keywords analysis to identify the thematic structure of the field. Co-citation analysis “constructs measures of similarity between articles, authors or journals by using the frequency with which two units are cited together, i.e. co-citation counts” ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ). Therefore, co-citation analysis is powerful in showing a picture from the past, and it is biased by the time-dependency i.e. an older paper has the probability of obtaining more citations than a newer one. Bibliographic coupling is often used to aggregate papers by similarity, and it “measures the similarity between papers through their common cited references” ( Todeschini and Baccini, 2016 ). The advantage of a bibliographic coupling is to compare recent papers even if not been cited yet. The analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords uses the article’s keywords to investigate the conceptual structure of a field. According to Caputo et al. ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ):

This is the only bibliometric method that uses the content of the articles to directly measure similarity in which others use indirect measures such as citations and authorships, co-word analysis is particularly powerful and appropriate to develop a semantic map that helps in understanding the conceptual structure of a field.

By comparing and contrasting the results from activity indicators, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords, it is possible to provide a systematic overview of the field ( Caputo et al. , 2021 ). The activity indicators will show the evolution of the field and its impact. Co-citation and bibliographic coupling will show an unbiased view of the most influential articles, authors and journals, whereas the co-occurrence of keywords will show the thematic map of the topics investigated.

The software VOSViewer ( van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ) was used to calculate the bibliometric indicators and provide the graphic representation of the networks. For a detailed explanation of the scripts and mathematical algorithms adopted in VOSViewer, please see van Eck and Waltman (2007 , 2010 ).

Combining the results of co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling allowed us to identify a list of the most influential papers that were then considered for the qualitative systematic literature review. We have combined the top 20 papers resulting from three indicators: absolute citations, normalized citations and bibliographic coupling strength. Absolute citations are represented by the total number of citations received by a paper. Normalized citations are represented by the number of citations of the paper divided by the average number of citations of all papers published in the same year and included in our data set ( van Eck and Waltman, 2016 ). The bibliographic coupling strength is measured by the bibliographic coupling total link strength algorithm in VOSViewer, indicating the level of similarity and interconnectedness of a paper in the field regardless of the received citations ( van Eck and Waltman, 2016 ). Integrating these three measures allows us to reduce the age bias of papers and include in the evaluation the influence of a paper, not only the number of citations received but also how the content of the paper relates to other papers in the same scientific community.

The resulting data set of unique papers in the top 20 list from each indicator is composed of 41 papers, which constituted the data set for the literature review.

Having selected the most influential articles to review, we proceeded to the literature review based on the content analysis of selected papers ( Duriau et al. , 2007 ). Following best practices, each article was read in full and analyzed qualitatively ( Barclay et al. , 2011 ; Pittaway and Cope, 2007 ). Articles were coded, tagged and later grouped into clusters based on their content; the articles were allowed to be part of more than one cluster ( Caputo et al. , 2016b ). The process was dynamic, allowing new tags to be included during the process of reading articles to allow flexibility in categorizing information and reducing biases that may arise from a rigidly pre-set system ( Caputo et al. , 2016b ; Dabić et al. , 2020 ). Short and Palmer (2008 , p. 279) categorize content analysis into three methods: “human-scored systems, individual word-count systems, and computerized systems that use artificial intelligence”. We combined computer-aided techniques with human-scored techniques, integrating rigor and insights from the bibliometric analyses with the interpretation of researchers.

3. Results of the bibliometric analyses

3.1 activity bibliometric indicators.

Our bibliometric analysis confirms a constant growth of attention to the handling problems in VTs over time with an increasing number of journal outlets.

Figure 1 shows how the field started in 2001 and is in a growing directory, although the number of papers published is still limited, making the study of conflict in VTs a niche.

In terms of journals, 58 unique outlets have published 107 papers in the data set. Table 1 shows the 20 most cited journals and indicates also the number of published papers and average citations received by them. In terms of total citations, Organ Sci., Acad. Manage. J., J. Manage. Inform. Syst., J. Int. Bus. Stud. and Inf. Manage., are the most influential outlets. However, if we consider the number of papers published, which is a proxy of the interest of a journal on the topic, Small Group Res., J. Manage. Inform. Syst., Organ Sci., Inf. Manage. and J. Manag. are the five most interested journals. Instead, looking at the impact of the individual articles, the situation changes again with J. Int. Bus. Stud., Acad. Manage. J., Organ Sci., Int. J. Confl. Manage. and Inf. Manage. It can be noted how Organization Science and Information Management are the journals appearing in the top five in all three measures.

Looking at the authors, 290 scholars have authored the 107 papers in the data set. Out of these, only three, Ahuja, Staples and Zornoza, have authored at least three papers and can, therefore, be considered the most prolific in the field. Table 2 lists the most prolific authors who have authored at least two papers. Interestingly, if we look at the most cited authors, only three of them (Hinds, Majchrzak and Staples) appear in the top 10 of most cited ( Table 3 ).

The studies in the data set were authored by affiliates of 186 research institutions from 28 different countries. The research in the field of conflict in VTs appears to be predominantly made in the USA (65 papers) and other western countries.

3.2 Co-citation analysis: the foundations of the field

The co-citation analysis is a powerful tool to investigate the foundations of the research about conflict in VTs through the analysis of the references cited by the papers in our data set. The analysis reveals those that are the most cited references, authors and journals. Table 4 shows the statistics and criteria used for the co-citation analysis.

By performing a co-citation analysis, we were able to identify the 10 most cited papers, authors and journals that constitute the theoretical pillars of the research on the conflict in VTs. The results show how such research is grounded in the literature about VTs and remote working ( Cramton, 2001a ; Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999 ) pillar studies in conflict management ( Jehn, 1995 ) and the early studies integrating the two ( Hinds and Bailey, 2003 ; Mortensen and Hinds, 2001 ).

A combined reading of the most influential cited references and the network of similarities ( Figure 2 ) show that the research about conflict in VTs relies on a coherent and homogeneous network grounded in the scientific community of the fields of management and organization studies ( Table 5 ).

3.3 Bibliographic coupling: the structure of the field

Bibliographic coupling analysis is used to evaluate the current structure of a field based on a clustering technique that allows us to compare recent papers even if not yet cited; therefore, not being biased by time. However, the method has severe limitations in cases like ours that analyze smaller research fields ( Jarneving, 2007 ); hence, the technique was adopted to complement citation and co-citation analysis and was not used to create clusters but rather to identify the network relevance of papers, authors and journals. All papers (107), authors (290) and journals (58) from the data set were included in the analysis ( Figure 3 ) ( Table 6 ).

By performing a bibliographic coupling analysis, we were able to identify the 10 most connected papers, authors and journals that constitute the current structure of the research in the conflict in VTs. Via the visualization of networks technique, is it also possible to show how the field is well interconnected across the three levels of analysis, confirming the finding that the research about conflict in VTs relies on a coherent and homogeneous scientific community.

3.4 Co-occurrence of keywords

The analysis based on the co-occurrence of keywords allows us to show the intellectual structure of the field by identifying and grouping the main topics that have been subject to investigation. This method is particularly useful to complement the previous analysis as it offers a direct measure of similarity of topics by analyzing the actual content of the papers via the keywords.

The keyword analysis was performed by adopting the Keyword Plus tool from WoS. Even though the Keyword Plus is usually chosen to ensure consistency across the classification of articles’ keywords, it was necessary to perform a manual harmonization of the spelling of those keywords.

Previous studies have considered Keyword Plus to be effective as the keywords provided by the authors in terms of bibliometric analysis, investigating the knowledge structure of scientific fields ( Zhang et al. , 2016 ). The adoption of Keyword Plus allows the researcher to limit biases and risks associated with the manual tagging of content. Only keywords that occurred at least five times were kept; this resulted in having only 39 keywords to constitute the largest usable set of connected terms ( Table 7 ).

The network diagram and overlay visualization of the keywords ( Figure 4 ) show that the intellectual structure of the topics is quite homogeneous and has evolved. In particular, the research on conflict in VTs started with the investigation of technological topics and issues related to cultural diversity, personality and leadership.

3.5 Synthesis of results

Having shown the individual results of activity indicators, co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords, we moved our attention to a synthesis that allowed us to identify the most influential papers to be included in the systematic literature review.

Table 8 shows the top 20 articles according to three complementary metrics: the normalized citations, the total citations and the link strength. The total citations are computed by counting all citations received by a paper in the WoS Core Collection at the time of the study. The normalized number of citations in a paper equals the number of citations in the paper divided by the average number of citations of all papers published in the same year and included in the data set ( van Eck and Waltman, 2016 ). The total link strength indicates the total strength of the links of an article with the other articles in the data set calculated via the bibliographic coupling analysis ( van Eck and Waltman, 2016 ). By comparing these three measures, we can countereffect the biases of each of them in terms of age of the article, relative impact and connectedness in the field. As a result, 41 unique articles were discovered to be included in at least one of the metrics and formed the basis for our systematic literature review.

4. Systematic literature review

This section presents the results of the systematic literature review that has been based on the most influential articles belonging to each cluster and the classification obtained by analyzing the content of each article. We have identified five thematic clusters: trust, performance, cultural diversity, knowledge management and team management.

4.1 Trust cluster

The issue of trust is among the key topics in conflict and conflict management studies ( Caputo et al. , 2019 ). Trust is an extremely important variable for successful collaboration ( Donovan, 1993 ) and increased relational capital ( Connelly and Turel, 2016 ). Nevertheless, trust is also regularly perceived as a challenging issue for team effectiveness ( Breuer et al. , 2016 ), particularly under virtuality, due to the lack of clarity on interaction mechanisms ( Bierly et al. , 2009 ; DeRosa et al. , 2004 ). Being a crucial construct for any variation of teams, trust is proved as more difficult and important to achieve in the circumstances of physical dispersion of team members ( Brahm and Kunze, 2012 ; Breuer et al. , 2016 ; Connelly and Turel, 2016 ; Staples and Webster, 2008 ; Yakovleva et al. , 2010 ). Peñarroja et al. (2013) concluded that the level of virtuality negatively influences team trust, whereas trust is also vital for reducing both interpersonal and task conflicts ( Connelly and Turel, 2016 ; Curseu and Schruijer, 2010 ) as well as for successful conflict management processes ( Bierly et al. , 2009 ). Virtuality is mainly considered to be a moderating variable in the relationship between trust and conflict ( Bierly et al. , 2009 ), where trust may be both an output and an input of the group processes, such as conflict ( Marks et al. , 2001 ). A further explanation is provided by studies that determined that the greater the degree of virtuality, the greater the negative impact on trust by relationship conflict ( Bierly et al. , 2009 ; Peñarroja et al. , 2013 ). In this vein, Breuer et al. (2016) showed that a high degree of virtuality increases internal team risks that in turn increase the necessity for trust, thus forming a loop relationship between a group functioning, conflict and trust ( De Dreu and Weingart, 2003 ). In general, the relationship between team functioning, conflict and trust could be described as a negative association between conflicts and trust exacerbated by the degree of virtuality ( Bierly et al. , 2009 ; Polzer et al. , 2006b ).

4.2 Performance cluster

The next cluster is based on team performance which is considered to be highly influenced by internal team communication in VTs ( Massey et al. , 2014 ; Montoya-Weiss et al. , 2001 ; Sarker et al. , 2011 ). VTs have different characteristics than traditional teams ( Brahm and Kunze, 2012 ), and it was found that people are capable of adapting to the conditions of VTs, such as restricted communication channels, probable instability of internet connection and lacking opportunities for informal communication ( van der Kleij et al. , 2009 ). Moreover, video communication and similar technologies reduce the main differences between teams that are co-located and geographically dispersed teams ( Bradley et al. , 2013 ). A great number of studies have shown that geographical distance between team members may complicate conflict management ( Cramton, 2001b ; Hill and Bartol, 2016 ). However, the extensive usage of mediated communication technologies may exaggerate the negative impacts of conflict in teams ( Kankanhalli et al. , 2006 ) due to complexities such as the unavailability for frequent discussions, information exchange and clarifications regarding personal and task issues, which may result in misunderstandings and further communication closure ( Mortensen and Hinds, 2001 ). In other words, virtuality increases the complexity of the triggers and the dynamics of conflicts as well as their management and resolution ( Friedman and Currall, 2003 ). In turn, such communication complexities among team participants (conflicts) negatively influence team performance ( Connelly and Turel, 2016 ; Turel and Zhang, 2010 ). However, the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of how conflicts work and their influence on team performance in VTs still demands additional research ( Connelly and Turel, 2016 ). There are several debates about the impact of conflict on VT performance. For instance, Hinds and Mortensen (2005) state that the virtuality of teams increases the vulnerability to conflicts due to the lack of casual, unplanned communication between team members, which, in turn, negatively influences the overall team performance. However, in a review of the literature, Ortiz de Guinea et al. (2012) emphasize contrasting findings where virtuality and performance correlate both in positive and negative directions. The recent body of research regarding conflicts and team performance in VTs admits that virtuality should be perceived as a continuous rather than binary variable to avoid clashing results ( Griffith et al. , 2003 ; Malhotra and Majchrzak, 2014 ; Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). It was discovered that a level of virtuality should include distance indicators of separation, the configuration of a proportion working virtually and face-to-face and time parameters of virtual collaboration ( Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). For studies looking at team performances, it is crucial to consider contextual conditions, degrees of virtuality and mediating technologies as they may significantly alter the relationship ( Malhotra and Majchrzak, 2014 ). For example, research where virtuality is treated as a continuous variable shows less presence of conflicts in more VTs and no impact on the performance ( Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). Kankanhalli et al. (2006) propose a theoretical framework where both task conflict and relationship conflict do not have a direct influence on VT performance, contingent upon the conflict resolution approach (for both), task complexity (for task conflict) and task interdependence (relationship conflict). Looking at conflict management, research has indicated that the conflict management style ( Paul et al. , 2004b ) and conflict management behavior ( de Dreu and van de Vliert, 1994 ; Montoya-Weiss et al. , 2001 ) are critical conditions for successful team performance in the dimension of virtual collaboration. Additionally, collaborative conflict management style was indicated as a positive influencing factor on team performance, whereas group heterogeneity was found to be a barrier to successful conflict management and effective group performance ( Paul et al. , 2004b ).

4.3 Cultural diversity cluster

Cultural diversity is one of the most ambiguous concepts regarding communication, teams and organizational studies. A series of meta-analyses validate this point stressing the nature of the complex notion to be both a benefit and a challenge ( Smith et al. , 1994 ; Stahl et al. , 2010 ). In the context of teams and team working, cultural diversity refers to the different cultural backgrounds of the team members ( Harush et al. , 2018 ), including diversity in nationality ( Gibbs et al. , 2017 ) and broader cultural aspects ( Kankanhalli et al. , 2006 ), such as linguistic diversity ( McDonough et al. , 1999 ) and cultural dimensions ( Hofstede, 1991 ). As a concept, cultural diversity is perceived as a key to a greater and innovative performance ( Polley and McGrath, 1984 ) or the contrary, as a reason for ingroup miscommunications ( Brett et al. , 2006 ; Staples and Zhao, 2006 ). Globalization dynamics and technological advancements ( Paul et al. , 2004b ) are increasing virtuality and multiculturality in teams ( Gibson et al. , 2014 ), resulting in the prevalence of geographically dispersed international teams over face-to-face ones ( Stahl et al. , 2010 ). The combination of physical dispersion and cultural diversity ( Shachaf, 2008 ) increases the complexity of VTs due to the more radical differences between team members’ attitudes and perceptions ( Zimmermann, 2011 ). As a result, communication and the gaining of possible benefits associated with diversity may become more problematic ( Gibson and Gibbs, 2006 ). Implementing cultural diversity may result in misunderstandings and conflicts between team members ( Maznevski et al. , 2006 ; Paul et al. , 2004b ; Stahl et al. , 2010 ) due to reasons such as the communication ( Shachaf, 2008 ) and social categorization ( Harush et al. , 2018 ). Hence, conflict management is of significant importance as often team dynamics are complicated not only in the virtual settings but also by the cultural heterogeneity ( Paul et al. , 2004a ; Paul, Seetharaman, et al. , 2004b ). The debate whether cultural diversity increases or decreases conflicts in VTs is continuing ( Kankanhalli et al. , 2006 ; Mortensen and Hinds, 2001 ). Kankanhalli et al. (2006) discovered from their in-depth study that cultural diversity in VT leads to relationship and task conflicts, which they explain by the similarity attraction theory ( Wells and Aicher, 2013 ) and social identity theory ( Ashforth and Mael, 1989 ). Usage of the latter theory is also supported by Mortensen and Hinds (2001) and Harush (2018) , who emphasized the vital role of forming a global identity as a self-categorization process to a shared team ingroup identity to reduce the level of relational conflicts in GVT’s environment, especially in the circumstances of low task interdependence. Paul, Seetharaman, et al. (2004b) support the negative impact of team members’ cultural diversity on conflict resolution processes and group interactions due to the variations in values. Furthermore, Staples and Zhao (2006) concluded that culturally diverse teams indicated lower levels of satisfaction and cohesion and higher levels of conflicts. However, it was also pointed out that culturally diverse VTs showed higher performance rates and fewer conflicts than face-to-face ones. This finding emphasizes the importance of taking under consideration not just every separate characteristic of a team but the combinations of the teams’ settings. Whilst to some, cultural heterogeneity of teams can negatively impact interactions and communication processes, increasing conflicts ( Pelled, 1996 ), to others, diversity can be very beneficial for teams’ dynamics and conflict reduction ( Staples and Zhao, 2006 ). These opposing viewpoints could be explained by several factors. For instance, Paul et al. (2004a) , in contrast to a widespread belief about the negative impact of cultural diversity on group dynamics, found that higher levels of agreement within international groups could be achieved by conflict management ( Paul et al. , 2004a ) and relevant media choices ( Klitmøller and Lauring, 2013 ). Additionally, according to Stahl et al. (2010) , the physical dispersion of team members tends to moderate the impact of cultural diversity on conflicts as the virtual international teams showed lower levels of conflicts and higher social integration compared with multicultural collocated teams. These findings were similarly indicated by Mortensen and Hinds (2001) in their earlier research with the reason that the notion of reduced conflicts could be a result of either stronger ingroup integration or an adverse environment for conflicts to arise.

4.4 Knowledge management cluster

Efficient knowledge management is vital for the success of a company, project or team ( Chiravuri et al. , 2011 ). The process of knowledge transferring, sharing and exchanging provides additional challenges for collocated teams ( Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). Due to the globalization dynamics, knowledge sharing between geographically distributed team members and experts has become an integral part of international companies and VTs ( Raab et al. , 2014 ). Consequently, knowledge management in VTs and presumed conflicts came to the scholars’ attention due to the complex settings of geographically distributed teams. The implied challenges are explained as difficulties in sharing comprehensive knowledge with no face-to-face communication potentially creating sub-groups ( Boh et al. , 2007 ) and reducing the attention of team members under virtual circumstances ( Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). This, in turn, may lead to misunderstandings ( Hinds and Bailey, 2003 ), failure of information sharing ( Hinds and Mortensen, 2005 ) and other interpersonal difficulties ( Boh et al. , 2007 ). Ortiz De Guinea et al. (2012) argue that the predominantly multicultural composition of geographically dispersed teams issues such as language diversity may jeopardize the knowledge sharing process and boost the frequency of conflicts. Chiravuri et al. (2011) indicated that a combination of a lack of face-to-face cues ( Klitmøller and Lauring, 2013 ) and probable culturally contrasting behavioral models can cause different patterns of information exchange, which in turn leads to misunderstandings ( Cramton, 2001b ; Kayworth and Leidner, 2002 ) and conflicts during the knowledge capture process. At the end of the study, the authors emphasized a repertory grid cognition-based technique (“cognitive mapping technique that attempts to describe how people think about the phenomena in their world” [ Tan and Hunter, 2002 , p. 40]) as a reliable measure for decreasing conflicts in VTs in the knowledge capture process ( Chiravuri et al. , 2011 ). Furthermore, Klitmøller and Lauring (2013) put a value on the multicultural element of VTs and its important role in the process of selecting particular types of media for knowledge exchange (e.g. using a rich media for more ambiguous matters and a lean media in case of canonical knowledge exchange). Raab et al. (2014) researched the mechanisms of knowledge sharing in a globally dispersed context identifying a link between the imbalance of the geographical distribution of group members and the low efficiency of knowledge sharing due to the strong social categorization processes ( Polzer et al. , 2006a ) and potential conflicts between subgroups ( Fiol and O’Connor, 2005 ; Hinds and Mortensen, 2005 ). Indeed, a proper mix of technological and organizational elements is believed to be crucial for proper knowledge exchange, open knowledge sharing and all other issues connected to knowledge management in the conditions of virtual collaboration ( Zammuto et al. , 2007 ). Tools of virtual communication may reduce cultural differences ( Stahl et al. , 2010 ) and positively impact knowledge-sharing processes ( Klitmøller and Lauring, 2013 ).

4.5 Team management cluster

“E-communicational”, i.e. a manager positions himself as a part of a VT and takes under consideration teleworking specificities maintaining informal communication, interpersonal trust, increasing perceived proximity and also exposing a strong shared identity that tends to prevent conflicts ( Mortensen and Hinds, 2001 ); and

“Control mode”, i.e. managers are not co-teleworkers as they manage VTs prevailingly, focusing on work objectives with high levels of institutionalization and formalization.

On the one hand, managerial interference may impede establishing social connections between group representatives ( Gulati, 1995 ). On the other hand, managers should intervene in the virtual setting of a team, stimulating frequent and effective communication. In this way: team members could build better social relationships ( Malhotra et al. , 2007 ; Raab et al. , 2014 ; Saunders and Ahuja, 2006 ) and not experience conflicts due to obstacles in the technological adaptation ( Thomas and Bostrom, 2010 ). The latter claim is also supported by Chiravuri et al. (2011) , who consider that a manager has to be involved in the in-group processes to discern the nature of conflicts. In the case of a cognitive conflict, this should be closely monitored as it is capable of causing either stagnation of the process or improved solutions ( Chiravuri et al. , 2011 ). In the study by Raab et al. (2014) , managerial involvement was found to be a mitigator of cultural boundaries but had no moderating effect on the relationship between trust and satisfaction with knowledge sharing in globally dispersed groups. Thus, managers may be concerned with tracking the essence and type of a conflict in VT’s dynamics and implementing appropriate conflict management techniques to increase the productivity of a project.

5. Setting-up a research agenda

The purpose of this paper is the systematization of the accumulated knowledge of the field and, because of that, paving interesting and promising research avenues ( Caputo et al. , 2018b ; Tranfield et al. , 2003 ), especially about the results of the systematic literature review, the clear focus characterizing research of emerging conflicts and conflict management in VT, and these are interpreted in a framework stressing possible interconnections and relationships among them.

The logic of the framework is consistent with the traditional input-process-output (IPO) approach to studies on VT and has been used in previous systematic literature reviews ( Garro-Abarca et al. , 2021 ; Gilson et al. , 2015 ). Differently from that, however, the linearity of a pure IPO logic did not emerge from the results of that literature. For this reason, our interpretative framework cannot postulate a single or cause-effect directionality between its theoretical blocks, hypothesizing fuzzy and yet to be untangled relationships. The “fuzziness” refers to a nonlinearity, i.e. a block seems to have several impacts on others e.g. direct, indirect, moderated or mediated effects; recursive relationships, i.e. most of the blocks have bi-directional relationships with the others; thus, self-reinforcing loops based on previous interaction either positive and negative may occur; configurational approach, i.e. a single block when considered in isolation seems to hold a limited explanatory power, and better results would be achieved analyzing several factors together. Thus, it would be reasonable to say that it is not so much the presence or the intensity of a single element/block to determines the outcomes but the co-presence or, conversely, the co-absence of a set of elements that is the key interpretation. In Figure 5 , we only adopted the categorization of the IPO framework, specifically the antecedents, dynamics and outcomes, and we also depicted rippled lines among these categories to represent the fuzziness of these relationships. However, any category of the theoretical blocks potentially influences and is influenced by the others; thus, the arrows are present at both ends of the lines.

The first category of antecedents is fixed elements that come from the structural contingencies in which a VT operates its composition. These structural elements refer to the demographic, cultural and individual characteristics of team members, and they can be grouped under the umbrella concept of the heterogeneity existing in a team. This heterogeneity is the root of several latent or actual conflicts and conflict-related dynamics that may affect individual team members or the whole group ( Schaubroeck and Yu, 2017 ). For example, different personalities or intensity of traits, e.g. consciousness and extraversion, may increase or lessen dyadic conflicts among members ( Turel and Zhang, 2010 ). However, these elements do not affect only conflicts but also shape different strategies to manage them, opening the debate to a contingent and contextual approach to conflict management in VTs. As evidenced from the thematic clusters, heterogeneity may pertain to different cultural backgrounds that may hinder the process of cohesion due to the homophily phenomenon, thus preferring individuals with similar characteristics or common shared culture. This stimulates the formation of sub-groups ( Gibson and Gibbs, 2006 ), highlighting the necessity of specific strategies to reduce conflicts and the fault-lines within a team. Heterogeneity, however, is a broader concept than merely culture ( Boh et al. , 2007 ). As the geographical dispersion of team members increases, the higher is the likelihood of having team members with diverse institutional, economic and other contingencies that may stimulate an increment of conflicts, stricter management of them and other problems in the functioning of a team ( Jimenez et al. , 2017 ). This heterogeneity may directly influence a team or individual performance, but its indirect effect via conflicts, conflict management strategies and functioning processes of a team are still yet to be explored (dynamics). Future research avenues could inquire what type of heterogeneity factors can have a different impact in VT from those traditionally stressed for co-located teams. Even more interesting could be a study of whether heterogeneity plays a different role in the strategy to manage those conflicts or affect the team functioning of a VT in different ways. For instance, are these potential tensions more marked in VTs related to the fact that interactions are less frequent and with less embedded exchanges ( Hinds and Bailey, 2003 )? Conversely, as individual differences seem to play a minor role in VTs, can these tensions be lessened when in co-located teams ( Wakefield et al. , 2008 )? Paying attention to the heterogeneity of a VT also holds strong implications for practice; managers and leaders should first carefully design the composition of a VT not only for reasons of technical competencies but also of cultural and soft skill aspects related to the team members. This may reduce potential conflicts at several levels. Second, even if a proper design is not implementable, the heterogeneity of a VT should be fully acknowledged to counterbalance the tendency to disengage.

The second category of this interpretative framework is represented by what has been termed as dynamics, as all these elements pertain to interactions among members and the several processes through which VT functions and performs ( Breuer et al. , 2016 ). In our framework based on identified clusters, we consider these categories: the conflicts, in terms of their nature and level of impact, the conflict management process and other relevant dynamic interactions occurring in a team, called team functioning that specifically includes the process of building trust and that of managing knowledge flows. As premised, the fuzziness of these relationships also reveals that blocks of the same category have internal relationships e.g. conflict management impacts, and is impacted by, the characteristic of conflicts in VTs and by the team functioning elements of VTs. Similarly, we expect conflicts to impact team functioning directly and via the various degrees of conflict management and vice versa.

In terms of conflicts in VTs, discrimination should be made of the nature of the conflict. Virtuality, on the one hand, may stimulate relational conflicts, as misunderstandings in communication and lack of trust occur more readily ( Hinds and Bailey, 2003 ). Caputo et al. (2019) , in a bibliometric overview of conflict management studies, highlighted the important role of culture in the relationship between trust and conflict. It is expected that building trust and managing trust-based conflicts are more complex in virtual settings due to their enhanced multicultural composition and the difficulty for individuals to decodify clues in a virtual environment. However, in task-based conflict, such a clear negative influence does not seem so prominent ( Gibbs et al. , 2017 ). To summarize, can conflicts of different nature be affected by virtuality, and in which ways? Are there interactional effects? Similarly, the specific level at which conflicts are embedded is also relevant. Conflicts may spur at an individual level, for example, a team member that has to juggle between work and personal life ( Clark, 2000 ). The Covid-19 pandemic poses serious questions about the ambivalence of flexible work arrangements and also in VTs, especially concerning team members with care duties ( Hilbrecht et al. , 2008 ). Conflicts can be related to a dyadic sphere from a faction of the team members to the whole group ( Park et al. , 2020 ). These different levels are not well addressed in team literature, and the virtuality adds complexity to the debate. How do individual, dyadic and group-level conflicts influence each other? How does virtuality impact the propagation of a specific level of conflict onto others? Is it stronger or more insulated?

Conflict and conflict management strategies should also be clear prerogatives of the leaders of VT. Leaders should determine the specific nature and level of impact of this conflict to design proper conflict management strategies. Escalating or de-escalating strategies should be in place to keep a high level of engagement and other team dynamics.

There are several dynamic processes, such as communication ( Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999 ), leadership ( Hill and Bartol, 2016 ) and temporality ( Saunders and Ahuja, 2006 ), all of which may cause or redeem conflicts in VTs. In turn, when properly (or poorly) executed, these dynamics create sediment (or detriment) for social identification and trust, fueling (or hindering) any further in-group interactions, exchanges and conflicts ( Brahm and Kunze, 2012 ; Harush et al. , 2018 ). Future studies are required to untangle the nexus between such dynamics, especially as moderators and mediators ( Gilson et al. , 2015 ). This is also true about the structural elements: are there joint processes influencing each other to cause conflicts? In addition, as Garro-Abarca et al. (2021) highlighted, the Covid-19 pandemic has quickly changed organizational routines moving traditional co-located teams into the virtual space. Did the changes induced by the pandemic create alternative processes and their related conflict? Does a “new normal” exist in which processes will be managed differently from the past, blending elements of virtuality into traditional teams? All these considerations are research avenues to be considered.

Virtuality, in general, seems to reduce the ability of a VT to manage knowledge ( Raab et al. , 2014 ), but some positive effects have also been depicted ( Klitmøller and Lauring, 2013 ). These contrasting results are probably because knowledge management is a broad concept traditionally articulated in sub-processes: knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing or transferring, accumulation or retrieving and application or usage ( Inkinen, 2016 ). Each of these processes may be influenced differently from virtuality, the heterogeneity of the team and the other team functioning dynamics. For example, knowledge sharing is reinforced by participative leadership styles ( Pellegrini et al. , 2020 ), but participation and engagement may be reduced in VT due to latent conflicts. Conversely, knowledge accumulation in a virtual environment may be enhanced as to properly function; most VTs need a large stock of codified knowledge. Thus, future studies should address the relationships between every single process of knowledge management and their interactional effects with the antecedents of conflicts, the type and level and strategies to manage them, not forgetting to consider the indirect and interactional effects of other team functioning processes. To summarize, how do the different processes of knowledge management relate to conflicts, conflict management strategies and team functioning in a VT context? Future studies may consider the fast-changing technological environment of the past decade, for example, considering the advent of the 4.0 revolution. If more inclusive and far-reaching information and communications technology tools alleviate the differences between co-located and VTs ( Bradley et al. , 2013 ), the sophisticated approaches of the 4.0 such as the Internet of Things ( Caputo et al. , 2016a ), big data ( Rialti et al. , 2020 ) and artificial intelligence algorithms may offer interesting modifications about the impact on knowledge management and team performance in general ( Manesh et al. , 2020 ). How will the 4.0 revolution affect conflicts in VTs?

Considering the practical implications related to several teams’ functioning processes, leaders may consider constructing a managerial grid to keep control of either the individual performance or the overall group-level results. These ongoing evaluations can help to detect conflicts earlier and thus structure a proper conflict management strategy.

Considering the final category of outcomes, conflicts have been generally studied concerning their negative impacts on the performance of VTs. Virtuality tends to exacerbate conflicts and may reduce the consequentially a VT’s performance ( Hinds and Mortensen, 2005 ). However, as already presented in this framework, a relationship of linearity must be excluded. Too many other co-factors may intervene due to the heterogeneity of the composition of the team, the way conflicts are handled, and their impacts on other crucial dynamics. Conflicts cannot be reduced in this univocal direction ( Ortiz De Guinea et al. , 2012 ). Future studies are, thus, invited to clearly define their performance variables and hopefully consider virtuality as a continuum ( Malhotra and Majchrzak, 2014 ) to avoid partial conclusions. Adopting this framework, interesting avenues may be explored about the interactional effects of its several theoretical building blocks. For example, does the different nature of conflicts impact differently on performance? Are these impacts also affected by the specific sources of conflicts (processes of latent elements)?

Further future research avenues may also come from the adoption of newer methodologies in the field of conflict management, such as fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), a methodology we could not find in the analyzed data set but that is receiving growing attention in management research ( Kraus et al. , 2018 ; Pappas et al. , 2021 ). FsQCA is a set-theoretic approach that is used to investigate complex causality, and therefore, allows for the identification of specific combinations of conditions called configurations that are nonexclusive and lead to the same outcome ( De Crescenzo et al. , 2020 ; Ragin, 2008 ). Future studies could use fsQCA to test empirically our proposed framework allowing the complexity of conflict and conflict management in VTs to be investigated.

6. Conclusion

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the existing literature published over the past two decades about conflict management and VTs. To provide a thorough and systematic analysis in support of the growing needs of managing virtual workforces and projects, innovative bibliometric methods have been deployed, displaying an overall view of the field of research and a systematic review has provided us with the details of the five identified thematic clusters enabling a holistic framework to be developed. Results have shown the importance of the interlinkages between the five clusters such as trust, performance, cultural diversity, knowledge management and team management are well-defined topics that rely on each other’s findings for advancing knowledge and practice.

Although this study adopted a rigorous and systematic methodology of review, some limitations remain. Specifically, a limitation may lie in focusing on management studies that contribute to focusing and positioning the paper in a clear discipline of research and homogeneity of data, but it may result in overlooking contributions from other fields. Moreover, to fulfill the need for homogeneity of bibliographic data, the study focused only on published journal articles omitting books, book chapters, conference papers and nonpeer-reviewed papers. This limitation is balanced by the higher quality and rigor of studies that have been peer-reviewed and future studies, perhaps using a meta-analytic approach, may also consider these outputs. As in previous systematic review studies, our study has been privileged to offer a wider overview and research agenda rather than deepening into fine-grained details. However, as this tradeoff is a natural consequence of review studies, our review and agenda offer a solid ground for future studies to build upon and further advance our knowledge of conflict management in VTs, satisfying the latest needs of organizations and societies linked to the increase in remote working conditions.

Number of papers published per year

Network diagram of co-citation analysis

Network diagram of bibliographic coupling analysis

Network diagram and overlay visualization of keywords

A framework for conflict management in virtual teams

Most cited journals

Most prolific authors

Most cited authors

Criteria of the co-citation analysis

Co-citation analysis

Bibliographic coupling analysis

Main topics from the co-occurrence of keywords analysis

Most influential articles

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Corresponding author

About the authors.

Andrea Caputo is an Associate Professor in Management at the University of Trento, Italy, and at the University of Lincoln, UK, where he is part of the UNESCO Chair in Responsible Foresight for Sustainable Development. His main research interests include entrepreneurial decision-making, negotiation, digitalization and sustainability, internationalization and strategic management of SMEs. He is the editor of the book series “Entrepreneurial Behaviour” (Emerald), and Associate Editor of the Journal of Management and Organization. His research was published in over 100 contributions, including articles in highly ranked journals, e.g. HRM Journal , Journal of Business Research, Small Business Economics , International Journal of Conflict Management , Journal of Knowledge Management , Business Strategy and the Environment and IEEE TEM among the others.

Mariya Kargina is a PhD Candidate in Organizational Behavior at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. She holds a Master of Science from the University of Lincoln, UK. Her research interests are cross-cultural management, cultural intelligence and global virtual teams. Her research was published in the Journal of Marketing Analytics and presented at several international conferences.

Massimiliano Matteo Pellegrini is an Associate Professor of Organizational studies and Entrepreneurial behaviors at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. Previously, he worked at Roehampton University Business School and University of West-London. He is the editor of the book series “Entrepreneurial Behaviour” (EmeraldPublishing), Associate Editor at International Journal of Transition and Innovation System, and past Chair of the Strategic Interest Group of Entrepreneurship (E-ship SIG) at the European Academy of Management (EURAM). He published in highly ranked journals as e.g. Journal of Business Research , Small Business Economics , Journal of Business Ethics , IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management and Journal of Small Business .

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Literature Review Re Conflict Management

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(2016). Family conflict and managing strategies: implication for understanding emotion and power struggles. Abstract Family which is the main trust of socialization is faced with many challenges in the contemporary world. Couples no longer fancy each other. Children are in constant struggle with parents. Many marriages are experiencing either divorce, separation or face off as a result of conflict. The present study deals primarily with causes, consequences and strategies in managing family conflict and how it applies to one's understanding of emotion and struggling of power. The study made use of descriptive survey design. The sample of the study was 300 parents from different States of the Federation on Masters and Bachelor sandwich programme in the Department Educational Foundations who offers Sociology of Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka drawn through random sampling technique. A 54 item Strategies for Managing Family Conflict Questionnaire (SMFCQ) developed by the researchers was used for data collection. Data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Result indicated that infertility, financial difficulties, poor communication between family members, lack of sexual satisfaction/gratification can lead to conflict in the family. Family conflicts inflict people for the course of their life and prevent them from experiencing their full potential. It causes feeling of fear, of insecurity, rejection, and guilt which may lead to the development of ill-health, separation, divorce or even death. Strategies. (2016). Family conflict and managing strategies: implication for understanding emotion and power struggles. Global Journal of Psychology Research: New Trends and Issues. 6(3), 148-159. 149 for dealing with conflict which such as focusing on the area of interest, striving to stay positive focusing on cooperation instead of control, approaching conflict with the aim to understand, resolve and respond are identified among others. It was recommended that conflict education be giving to couples at the period of courtship.

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