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Innovativeness is crucial for industrial cluster firms to gain sustained competitive advantage. This study aims to investigate the effects of inter-firm coopetition on firm innovativeness within a cluster and examines the moderating role of institutional support.

This research adopts an empirical survey method using multi-source data from 181 industrial cluster firms. Regression is used to test the hypotheses of this study.

The results show that cooperation and constructive conflict promote firm innovativeness, while destructive conflict is detrimental to firm innovativeness. Moreover, the study also finds that cooperation interacts with both types of conflict to affect firm innovativeness, where cooperation and constructive conflict interact negatively on firm innovativeness, while cooperation and destructive conflict interact positively on firm innovativeness. In addition, institutional support weakens the effects of cooperation and destructive conflict on innovativeness, respectively, but has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between constructive conflict and innovativeness.

These findings enrich the current research on coopetition. The interaction effects of cooperation and both types of conflict on innovativeness deepen the concept of coopetition and responds to the call to further explore the interaction effects within coopetition. The moderating role of institutional support fills a gap in the empirical research on the role of institutional factors affecting coopetition on innovation and also provides valuable suggestions for firm managers and governments in industrial clusters.

The purpose of this study is to show how outsourcing partners can maximise the benefits of outsourcing while containing the negative effect of destructive conflict (the “bad apple”) on trust and commitment.

The study reviewed existing literature on the benefits and limitations of outsourcing from the principal’s (outsourcer) and the agent’s (service provider) perspectives. The study further draws on empirical evidence from studies conducted across ten industries in three countries within the Asia–Pacific Rim and the Middle-East, namely, Australia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

Long-term orientation and ethical norms are robust ex-ante (i.e. before the destructive conflict) handling strategies, whereas integrative conflict handling style and (to a lesser degree) accommodating and compromising conflict handling styles are effective ex-post (i.e. after the destructive conflict) handling strategies. Forcing and avoidance conflict handling styles can escalate destructive conflict and should be completely avoided by outsourcing partners at all times.

The benefits of outsourcing outweigh its challenges. Trust and commitment are positively affected by ex-ante and ex-post (destructive conflict) strategies. Destructive conflicts (or the bad apple effect) can be contained through these strategies. Firms should leverage the upsides of outsourcing relationships and contain the downsides by integrating long-term orientation and ethical norms that can help to pre-empt and forestall destructive conflict. They should adopt an integrative conflict handling strategy in the event of a manifest conflict. Other strategies that can be applied to manifest conflict (albeit more sparingly) are accommodating and compromising strategies. Each has the potential to increase trust and commitment in the relationship.

The authors unveil before and after (the destructive conflict) handling strategies that do not depend on contextual factors or industry/sectoral differences.

The research is aimed at investigating how relational mechanisms and formal contracts affect alliance success under constructive and destructive conflict.

While relational mechanisms and formal contracts are widely used in strategic alliances to manage a variety of issues among partners, recent research has indicated that effects of these governance mechanisms may change in distinct contexts. Adopting the lens of new institutional economics, this study provides insights on the comparative and interactive effects of relational mechanisms and formal contracts on alliance success, and the differential contingency effects of two types of inter-partner conflict, i.e. constructive and destructive conflict, on the above relationships. The authors use hierarchical multivariate regression analyses through a survey dataset of 392 alliance firms in China with the approach of two key informants.

The empirical results confirm that relational mechanisms have a stronger positive effect on alliance success than formal contracts and these two governance mechanisms complement each other in driving alliance success. When facing a high level of constructive conflict, partner firms rely to a greater extent on relational mechanisms than on formal contracts to achieve alliance success. When a high level of destructive conflict exists, partner firms depend more heavily on formal contracts than on relational mechanisms to achieve alliance success. Moreover, the complementary effect of the two governance mechanisms is much stronger when partner firms face high constructive conflict than when they face high destructive conflict.

This study discloses the comparative and interactive effects of relational mechanisms and formal contracts on alliance success in distinct contexts by identifying the moderating roles of constructive and destructive conflict.

This research paper aims to advance the understanding of the circumstances under which diversity may be beneficial or detrimental for quality group process. Especially, the paper seeks to argue that communication openness is antecedent to the differing group members’ reactions to conflict events, which, in turn, are proposed to impact group's task and social outcomes in culturally diverse workgroups (CDWs).

Using social identity theory as the springboard, we built on existing literature to hypothesize the proposed relationships among variables. These relationships were tested quantitatively using multiple regression.

There are a couple of significant findings from the current research. Direct effects include groups with low levels of communication openness were linked with increased destructive reactions to conflict, bullying behaviors and emotional reactions to bullying; and destructive reactions to conflict were associated with emotional reactions to bullying. Moderating effects include: high levels of communication openness moderated high levels of productive reactions to conflict for decreased bullying behaviors in groups; communication openness made a difference on bullying when destructive reactions to conflict higher; and lower levels of communication openness moderated destructive reactions for increased emotional reactions to bullying.

This study is limited by its reliance on data that focused on primarily on cultural diversity consequently, the impact of gender, age, and other forms of diversity has not been controlled. Future research should consider the impact of age and other forms of diversity in teasing out the effect of communication openness on bullying behaviors.

The results from this study have implications for leaders of CDWs. A leader who is able to manage the reactions to conflict, especially destructive reactions to conflict by increasing communication openness may be able to reduce the perception of bullying behaviors and emotional reactions to bullying. These actions should, in turn, lead to increased group task outcomes.

First, this current paper is one of the first few studies that quantitatively examined bullying in organizational workgroups and in particular, culturally heterogeneous workgroups. Secondly, the paper is also one of the first few papers to examine the role of communication openness and reactions to conflict in workplace bullying and emotional reactions to bullying. Consequently, the paper will be useful for group members and managers as well as leaders of workgroups that experience conflict and bullying. Specifically, such leaders will need not only to manage conflict skillfully but also manage the group member's reaction to conflict to reduce bullying and emotions of bullying in their workgroups.

This paper is concerned with the difficult question of what our field can contribute to preventing and resolving the sorts of destructive conflicts which are so prevalent in our world today at the interpersonal, inter‐group, interethnic, and international levels. In this paper, I outline an approach to this question. The paper is divided into three parts. The first is a brief discussion of some of the factors which determine whether a conflict will take a constructive or destructive course. The second deals with the prevention of destructive conflicts—here I consider the potential roles of government, education, the media, religion, and industry. The third is concerned with how to manage intractable, destructive conflicts.

This study presents an investigation of the communicative behaviors and strategies employed in the stimulation and management of productive and destructive conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups. Using communication accommodation theory (CAT), we argue that the type and course of conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups is impacted by the communicative behaviors and strategies employed by group members during interactions. Analysis of data from participant observations, non‐participant observations, semi‐structured interviews, and self‐report questionnaires support CAT‐based predictions and provide fresh insights into the triggers and management strategies associated with conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups. In particular, results indicated that the more groups used discourse management strategies, the more they experienced productive conflict. In addition, the use of explanation and checking of own and others' understanding was a major feature of productive conflict, while speech interruptions emerged as a strategy leading to potential destructive conflict. Groups where leaders emerged and assisted in reversing communication breakdowns were better able to manage their discourse, and achieved consensus on task processes. Contributions to the understanding of the triggers and the management of productive conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups are discussed.

The current study focused on intra‐group conflict by attempting to elucidate individual and situational factors underlying choices along two dimensions of conflict management patterns: engagement versus avoidance and constructive versus destructive. In the study, the role of two types of self‐efficacy (global and social) among group members was investigated, as was the sense of group identification in team dispute resolution preferences modes. Sixty‐seven members of volunteer community service communes in the Israeli Scouting youth movement, 48 females and 19 males, representing 13 intact teams, participated in the study. Self‐report structured questionnaires (previously used and adapted for this study) served as research instruments. Both global self‐efficacy and group identification independently predicted the conflict engagement‐destructive pattern of domination. Social self‐efficacy served as the sole predictor of the preference to manage intra‐team conflict by means of integrating—the engagement‐constructive mode. In contrast, the choice of compromising was also fostered by the joint contribution of social self‐efficacy and group‐identification, beyond the direct effect of social self‐efficacy. The study corroborates the assumption that conflict management patterns within an intact team are related to dispositional variables on the individual level, i.e., global and social self‐efficacy, and to the team‐related variable of group identification.

Meeting the demands for increased effectiveness of schools cannot occur without systemic change. But the natural reaction to change is typically tension, resistance, and conflict. This analysis distinguishes between constructive and destructive conflict. First, conflict is conceptualized in terms of cognitive and affective types. Then organizational formalization is considered in terms of enabling or coercive procedures. A typology of change is created by cross‐partitioning the two types of conflict and formalization. The framework is useful in predicting the impact of change: from situations that catalyze and facilitate change to those that frustrate and inhibit it. Finally, the analysis summarizes key factors that administrators should consider as they attempt to use conflict to facilitate rather than inhibit constructive change and as they try to avoid and limit destructive change.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative study with a twofold focus: on highly escalated family business (FB) conflicts and on the interactions between conflicts and the failure of the company as FB. The authors devoted this paper to the question of how family-related conflicts are connected with the demise of FB. Conflicts constitute an essential part of every FB and may definitely have the power to superimpose the performance of the FB as well as the family life in a destructive way. Especially, highly escalated so called relationship conflicts can be seen as one reason for the failure of FB.

The research aims at analysing the meaning of conflict in FB with respect to the failure of the FB. Therefore, the authors use an explorative case study approach. The study is based on a total of five case studies. As the authors use theory of social systems as a theoretical background, the authors focused in the analysis in all cases on patterns rather than on individual characteristics.

As an essential part of the study the authors formulated eight hypotheses describing specific patterns of the conflict process as a communicative system. These hypotheses convey a comprehensible impression of the effects conflicts may have within FB and present a number of new facets of conflict dynamics and patterns of escalation in FB.

In particular, the authors provide new insights into the dynamics of highly destructive forms of conflicts in FB and the relationship between family-related conflicts and the failure of FB. The authors also pave the way for future research that aim to develop a more holistic understanding about when and why the outcomes from family and business systems will conflict or be harmonious.

This paper considers the progress that has been made during the past sixty years or so in the social psychological study of conflict. It begins with a brief description of the influence of the writings of Darwin, Marx, and Freud, of game theory, and of studies of cooperation and competition as they affected the study of conflict. The main body of the paper summarizes the research bearing upon five major questions that have been the major foci of inquiry in this area during the past twenty‐five years: (1) What conditions give rise to a constructive or destructive process of conflict resolution? (2) What circumstances, strategies, and tactics lead one party to do better than another in a conflict situation? (3) What determines the nature of the agreement between conflicting parties, if they are able to reach agreement? (4) How can third parties be used to prevent conflicts from becoming destructive? (5) How can people be educated to manage their conflicts more constructively?