The virtue and vice of workplace conflict: food for (pessimistic) thought CARSTEN K.

W DE DREU In this article published in the Journal of Organizational behavior, De Dreu shares his conclusions regarding the literature on workplace conflicts. According to him, the positive function of the conflict has been over estimated by the scholars during those last decades. The positive virtue of conflict has been recognized for the task-related issues, as opposed to relationship issues, and in the case of a perceived cooperative goal interdependence, as opposed to competitive goal interdependence. According to research findings, those two types of conflicts can improve the group decision-making, the team effectiveness, performance and creativity. In the first part of his article, De Dreu underlines how difficult it is to really assess the outcomes of a conflict. In a multi-level perspective, the conflict affects the group, but also the individuals and the organization. Plus, the conflict has distal repercussions which cannot be asses, such as lowered job satisfaction. De Dreu demonstrates that this positive effect only occurs under very specific conditions. The author studied the work of Jehn and Amason which found that task-related conflicts have positive outcomes: first, the work treated very particular situations in which the group member had a cooperative goal and evolved in an atmosphere of trust and psychological safety, the conflict was also moderated. This situation is very restrictive, group members often have different interests which interfere with an open-minded debate. Second, the work of Jehn and Amason is based on situations in which the individuals had suboptimal preferences before the group decision, then the discussion can potentially lead them to the best solution. However if most members had the optimal solution before the debate, nothing can guarantee that the exchange of information will lead the group to the optimal solution. Finally, in most of the studies the group had to take a decision. In real situations, a group experiencing a conflict can be tempted to delay or to

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The second part is a critical assessment of two problem solving methods found in the literature of conflict management. The constructive controversy occurs when parties perceive cooperative goal interdependence, leading in an exchange of position for their mutual benefit. Studies demonstrate numerous positive outcomes, for instance learning, innovative teamwork and deeper understanding of the issue under scrutiny. However those studies lacked the proper control condition, the situation in which there would not have been any work place conflict. Without it, it is impossible to know if the constructive controversy benefits the organization or only reduces the negative effects. Integrative negotiation is a method of conflict resolution in which each party decides what to give and take. The author found that this method had positive outcomes under the condition that both parties adopt pro-social motivations, as opposed to selfish motivation. Once again, the same proper control condition was missing.

In the third part, De Dreu underlines three hidden costs of workplace conflicts which tend to be forgotten. First of all, conflicts require time, the same time actors could have used to perform tasks or chase business opportunities. Plus, even if an integrative agreement is reached, it may go at the expense of stakeholders or individuals outside of the organization. Also, studies by Spector have shown a correlation between conflicts at work and psychosomatic complaints, even if the conflict was handled with constructive controversy or integrative negotiation agreements.

Finally, De Dreu recommends the integration of a conflict-free comparison in the experiments in the future and leading multi-level studies, in time and repercussions upon actors at other levels. De Dreu disagrees on the fact that organizations need conflicts in order to keep constructive opposing tendencies, he believes in alternatives with less collateral damages.

To conclude with, conflict management rather than creating positive outcomes, permits to mitigate the negative effects of conflicts on individuals, groups and collaboration between organizations.