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Because of the interest of enterprises and unions are often conflicting. For unions, how to promote union instrumentality is a critical issue. This study aims to apply the resource dependence theory to examine the role of cooperative approach to conflict in the relationship between union–enterprise guanxi and union instrumentality under the moderation of union leader humility.

A questionnaire survey was undertaken to collect data from enterprise human resource (HR) manager and union stewards in Taiwanese firms using a dyadic approach. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping with a mediation model and moderated-mediation model were used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that cooperative approach to conflict is a prominent mediator between union–enterprise guanxi and union instrumentality, while union leader humility strengthens the positive association between cooperative approach to conflict and union instrumentality. Moderated-mediation analysis further demonstrates that the influence of the cooperative approach to conflict is stronger when there is a higher level of union leader humility.

The study offers an integrated picture about how union–enterprise social relationships promote union instrumentality.

The ability to reflect upon and manage their internal functioning may very much help teams contribute to their organizations. This study suggests that managing conflict cooperatively and productively provides a foundation for effective team task reflexivity. 200 employees in 100 work teams in China completed measures of their team's cooperative, competitive, and avoiding approach conflict management and task reflexivity and 100 managers indicated the team's in‐role and extra‐role (organizational citizenship behavior) performance. Results support the theorizing that conflict management can contribute to team task reflexivity. Structural equation analyses were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative conflict management promotes task reflexivity that in turn results in team performance. These results, coupled with previous research, were interpreted as suggesting that cooperative approaches to conflict and task reflexivity are complementary foundations for effective teamwork.

Given the susceptibility of cross‐cultural interaction to misunderstandings and disagreements, conflict management may be especially useful for helping employees develop quality leader relationships with their foreign managers. One hundred and eleven Chinese employees from various industries in Shanghai were interviewed on specific incidents where they had a conflict, defined as incompatible actions, with their Japanese manager or American manager. A qualitative analysis of the incidents and statistical tests of the data supported the hypotheses that a cooperative approach to conflict, rather than competitive or avoidance approaches, help Chinese employees and their foreign managers strengthen their relationship and improve their productivity. Cooperative conflict management may be an important way to overcome obstacles and develop an effective leader relationship across cultural boundaries.

This study aims to identify mechanisms to manage conflicts that occur when organizations with different cultures, habits and experiences try to coordinate effectively in international joint ventures (IJV). This study proposes that partners can promote their joint venture performance to the extent that they rely on cooperative rather than competitive conflict management. This study further hypothesizes that adopting collectivist values strengthens relationships and thereby provides a foundation for cooperative conflict management.

The authors collected data for this study in Shanghai, which is currently the most attractive province in China for FDI (FDI Intelligence, 2014). In all, 75 pairs of foreign and Chinese managers at middle and senior levels, knowledgeable about the joint venture relationships, completed their respective questionnaires.

Results of the structural equation analyses support the hypotheses that collectivist values support cooperative conflict management that in turn facilitates joint venture learning and performance. In contrast, individualistic values promoted competitive conflict management which in turn frustrated IJV performance.

Results suggest that IJV managers can strengthen their venture by developing collective values and training such cooperative conflict management skills as self-expression and demonstrating understanding of opposing views.

This study directly documents that while conflicts may interfere they can also stimulate discussions and decisions that promote coordination and performance of IJVs. This study contributes to conflict management research that has largely focused on investigating the consequences of approaches by examining conditions that promote constructive conflict management approaches.

This study aims to introduce a new cognitive style, dialectical thinking, to demonstrate how it can influence a leader’s impact on team conflict and employee performance. Specifically, this study intends to answer the research questions “whether and how leader’s dialectical thinking would influence employee performance” with conflict management perspective in the Chinese context.

Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical model with 222 employees in 43 teams from Chinese high-tech manufacturing firms.

The authors found that the leader’s dialectical thinking had positive relationships with employee creativity and in-role performance and that the relationships were mediated by the leader’s conflict management approach and team conflict in sequence.

Selecting, recruiting or promoting of leaders with a dialectical thinking style or providing training to enhance leaders’ dialectical thinking is important for facilitating team conflict management and employee performance.

This is the first empirical paper to introduce dialectical thinking into the leadership, conflict and employee performance literatures.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of cooperative conflict management on agreement-seeking behavior, agreement-seeking behavior on decision outcomes, moderating role of competence-based trust on the relationship between agreement-seeking behavior and decision outcomes, and mediating role of agreement-seeking behavior between cooperative conflict management and decision outcomes.

Using a structured survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 348 students enrolled in a strategic management capstone course that features strategic decision-making in a simulated business strategy game. The data from 94 teams were collected from the student population using a carefully administered instrument. The data were aggregated after running the inter-rater agreement test and the analyzed to test the hypotheses.

The results from the hierarchical regression of the complex moderated mediation model reveal that cooperative conflict management is positively related to agreement-seeking behavior, and agreement-seeking behavior mediates the relationship between cooperative conflict management and decision outcomes. The results also suggest that competence-based trust acts as a moderator in the relationship between agreement-seeking behavior and decision quality; agreement-seeking behavior and team effectiveness, and agreement-seeking behavior and decision commitment. Results also support mediation of agreement-seeking behavior between cooperative conflict management and decision outcomes.

The present research is based on self-report measures, and hence, the limitations of social desirability bias and common method bias are inherent. However, adequate care is taken to minimize these limitations. The research has implications for the strategic decision-making process literature.

In addition to the strategic management literature, this study contributes to practicing managers. The study suggests that competence-based trust plays a vital role in decision effectiveness. Administrators need to select the members in the decision-making process who have competence-based trust on one another and engage in agreement-seeking behavior.

The findings from the study help in creating a fruitful social environment in organizations.

This study provides new insights about the previously unknown effects of cooperative conflict management and agreement-seeking behavior in strategic decision-making process.

This study seeks to explore team goal orientation as a team characteristic that affects team members' self‐regulation, and conflict management approach as a self‐regulation tactic. Its purpose is to investigate the moderating effect of team goal orientation and conflict management approach on the linkage between task conflict and relationship conflict.

Data were received from 529 team members in 120 R&D teams in Taiwan. The hypothesis is tested using hierarchical regressions.

The results indicate that team goal orientation and a conflict management approach moderated the relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict. The positive relationship between task conflict and relationship conflict was weaker under conditions of higher team learning orientation and lower team performance orientation. The positive association between task conflict and relationship conflict was also weaker among teams that engaged in cooperative conflict management and did not engage in the avoiding conflict management approach.

The study is cross‐sectional in design, limiting the ability to make causal assertions about links between task conflict and relationship conflict.

To prevent detrimental relationship conflict triggered by task conflict, supervisors may need to use goal orientation disposition as a criterion in selecting team members. Supervisors also could frame the tasks and discussions of team members towards learning rather than performance goals, enabling team members to openly share divergent opinions and take advantage of task conflict.

The study facilitates understanding of how to unbundle the linkage between task conflict and relationship conflict in teams, along with making contributions to conflict theory.

Although the value of trusting, long‐term relationships for supply chain management is increasingly recognized, how conflict might contribute to quality supply chain partnerships is not well understood. This study uses research on cooperative and competitive conflict to identify when conflict can help develop productive relationships. Results of structural equation analyses suggest that manufacturers and suppliers who feel interdependent rely upon cooperative approaches to conflict, not competitive or avoiding approaches. Cooperative conflict in turn strengthens trust and a long‐term orientation which result in quality enhancing relationships with suppliers. These results challenge the value of conflict avoidance in East Asia. The theory of cooperative and competitive conflict, although developed largely in North America, seems useful for understanding and building quality supply chain partnerships in East Asia.

Funding small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may be especially valuable in China to stimulate innovation and its emerging market economy. These firms have been advised to build on the Chinese value of guanxi to manage conflicts and develop relationships with banks. This study aims to explore the nature of relationships that help SMEs inform banks and convince them to provide credit.

As this study’s theorizing is about whether banks and firms that manage their conflicts for mutual benefit set the foundation for bank’s confidence in extending credit, therefore, both the bank officers and the company managers were asked to provide information for the study. In total, 106 pairs of bank officers in the loan department of four banks and SME managers in Shanghai, China, completed a questionnaire survey for this study.

Results support the argument that marketing research on customer orientation and organization behavior research on conflict management identify how to develop effective marketing relationships between SMEs and banks in China. Banks that were customer-oriented laid the groundwork for managing conflict cooperatively and not competitively with borrowing firms. Cooperative conflict management in turn was found to convince banks that they could confidently provide credit and to convince borrowers that their transaction costs will be reasonable.

This study identifies that developing guanxi and the capacity to manage conflict cooperatively are an important foundation for providing credit to SMEs in China.

A recent national survey of the US workforce suggests that adult attention related disorders are producing a wide range of negative outcomes in the workplace. The symptoms typically associated with the disorder (difficulties with activation, concentration, effort, emotional interference and accessing memory) suggest that team work may represent a problematic situation for adults with the disorder. Subjects were one hundred and fifty‐five student teams (subjects=628) from universities in both Canada and the United States. The study begins by confirming a hypothesis arising out of previous qualitative research that team members with adult attention deficit have relatively greater difficulty with necessary but uninteresting tasks. The hypothesis that team members with the disorder will be extraordinarily reliant on their teammates was also supported. The need to secure situations of particular fit, and to do so without undermining the support of fellow teammates, suggests that cooperative conflict management styles are especially important for clinical AAD vs. non‐clinical team members. The specific hypotheses, that cooperative styles (problem solving and compromising) are especially important for producing positive team experiences/expectations and efficacy for working in teams, were supported. Future research needs to sample more workplace teams.