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The present study examines the relation of individual differences in personality to one's preferences for approaching and managing conflict in work settings. This investigation offers a conceptual foundation for relating the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) of personality to strategy preference, tests strategy‐FFM dimension hypotheses, and explores strategy relations with narrower FFM midlevel traits. Managers and supervisors (N = 249) from public, governmental, and private sector organizations completed the Organizational Communication and Conflict Instrument and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Preferences for conflict strategies were found to relate to distinct patterns of FFM dimensions, while narrower midlevel traits provided meaningful insights into the nature of the observed relations.

This research aims to explore the notion of fit between subordinates’ need for cognitive closure and supervisors’ power tactics on organizational conflict management.

Two-hundred and ninety employees drawn from six different Italian organizations were recruited for the purpose of this study.

Results indicated that high-need-for-closure subordinates utilized more constructive (solution-oriented) conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on harsh power tactics, whereas low-need-for-closure subordinates were more inclined to use solution-oriented conflict management strategies when their supervisors relied on soft power tactics. Additionally, results indicated that, overall, supervisors’ use of harsh power tactics increased subordinates reliance on maladapted (control-oriented) conflict management strategies, but even more so for subordinates with low need for cognitive closure.

This study highlights the importance of supervisor–subordinate fit to understand conflict management in organizational setting.

This paper aims to focus on resistance strategies in distribution channels. The concept of resistance has received much attention in organization theory, but it has been rather neglected in corporate strategy. Only a few works dedicated to distribution channels explicitly use the notion of resistance strategy. These works provide a view of resistance as an inter-organizational phenomenon between companies (i.e. buyers and suppliers) but limit resistance strategies to merely confrontation strategies between channel members. This paper studies resistance strategies in a more open perspective considering that resistance can coexist with collaborative relationships, as part of a specific societal reality.

To capture the deep variety of resistance strategies, from the most active to the most passive, a qualitative research was carried out in France in the context of the book trade, based on 15 semi-structured interviews. The discourse analysis provides insights into the social reality of an organization and also the reality of changes in inter-organizational relationships. The interviews were conducted with 15 different companies representing a significant share of the French market.

The paper shows that channel members successfully develop resistance strategies of logistical nature, based on the efficient monitoring of flows, both inside the company (logistics rationalization) and within the supply chain (control of interfaces). Channel members who implement a logistics rationalization and a control of interfaces succeed not only in containing the power of their powerful partners but also in benefitting from new sources of profitability and improvement of customer service.

The French book trade is an illustration of the role played by logistical aspects in the power exercised by a supplier and resistance strategies that buyers develop in response as part of buyer-supplier relationships. Indeed, it is because they have a strong logistical expertise that dominant actors are capable, step by step, to place dominated actors in a situation of strong dependency, by using for that purpose their logistical means. In turn, dominated actors seek to develop logistical responses to rebalance the buyer-supplier relationships in their favor.

The purpose of this paper is to show how accelerated technology innovations lead to shorter product lifecycles, and consumers often face the dilemma of choosing between keeping the existing product and upgrading to a new version. They may enact certain coping strategies to deal with the stress and uncertainty. Based on the work of Mick and Fournier, this study aims to propose a set of coping strategies, which include refusal, delay, extended decision‐making, and pretest.

Based on a survey of consumers regarding the 3G mobile phones, the authors test the effects of coping strategies within the framework of the technology acceptance model.

The results of canonical analyses suggest that coping strategies have significant influence on consumers' product beliefs, which in turn mediate the effects of coping strategies on consumers' attitude toward adoption and their purchase intention.

Coping strategies help better understand consumers' adoption of new technology products and furnish meaningful implications for marketing technology products to today's tech‐savvy consumers.

This study develops measures of coping strategies and provides an empirical test of their effect on product beliefs and behavioral intentions with respect to consumers' decision whether to upgrade to a new technology product.

Research examining the relation of personality to conflict resolution strategy has yet to incorporate the dominant, contemporary view of personality, the five‐factor model (FFM). The use of broad traits (domains), to represent personality, although parsimonious, ignores information contained in narrow personality facets, masks important conceptual relations with various strategies, and has produced inconsistent results. The present study demonstrates that narrow, rather than broad, FFM traits consistently explain greater variance in strategy, and account for significant variance when FFM domain scores appear unrelated to the criterion. These effects are shown to result from the unbinding of criterion‐related from criterion‐unrelated facet scores that are otherwise aggregated into broad domains.

The purpose of this paper is to present and test a conceptual framework, where relationship quality is: directly affected by both the conflict management approach used and the type of conflict found within the relationship, and enhanced or diminished by conflict management approach's moderating affect on the impact of type of conflict on relationship quality.

The unit of analysis for this study was purchasing retailers who interact with industrial salespeople. Data used for this research were collected through interview questionnaire surveys aimed at the French retailers association during February 2009. A total of 320 French retailers were sampled to fill out the questionnaire. A total of 131 retailers completed and returned the survey for a response rate of 41 percent. The measures were developed and analyzed using the two‐step approach recommended by Gerbing and Anderson with LISREL 8.3.

This study finds that functional conflict positively affects the quality of the retailer‐supplier relationship and this effect is amplified when retailers use a collaboration conflict management approach. However, the positive effects of functional conflict are mitigated by retailers engaging in accommodating and compromising approaches. Dysfunctional conflict did not positively or negatively affect the overall relationship quality in this study. Its management determines whether it will have a positive or negative effect on relationship quality.

While the results presented here in general support the basic premises of the research, several limitations must be noted and there are several areas of future research that could be conducted using the current data set. First, an identical instrument could be administered to a sample of suppliers. This change might give some indication of the differences in suppliers' and retailers' perceptions of conflict management strategies and their effects on relationship quality. Another relevant addition to the understanding in the retailer/supplier arena might include the effect of teams instead of individual retailers on manifest conflict and relationship quality.

The survey results provide new insights on how retailers can use conflict management behaviors to cope better with functional and dysfunctional conflict and improve relationship quality with suppliers.

We analyze how Brazilian Black Movement organizations and banks deployed different mechanisms like cooperation, cooptation, and confrontation that generated affirmative action initiatives in the banking sector at the beginning of this century. Black movement organizations triggered an institutional change by connecting fields and exploring a constellation of strategies. However, Brazilian banks adopted defensive strategies aiming to accommodate their interests. We find that only piecemeal change occurred, as the field’s structures – resource distribution and power – remained unscratched. We conclude by noting how the success of social movement strategies can depend upon the framing and sense-giving work that social movements conduct in their continuous jockeying activity toward incumbents.

The Thirty‐six Chinese Classical Strategies of War is a renowned ancient book of warfare circulated among Chinese army commanders for a long period of time. Apart from its focus on warfare, this ancient treatise also holds valuable lessons for the world of competitive business. This paper presents the general principles espoused in the Thirty‐six Chinese Classical Strategies of War and how these principles can be applied for strategic planning and marketing in the retail sector. It provides a refreshing view of strategic planning and intelligence gathering for retail marketing.

The present paper aims to identify an important moderator of the effect of leader's fairness on the conflict handling style adopted by followers. Based on the uncertainty management model the authors hypothesize that the motivation to reduce uncertainty, reflected by individual differences in need for cognitive closure, moderates the use of constructive conflict handling style as a response to variation in leader's perceived procedural fairness.

A correlational study was conducted on a sample of 175 Italian public employees. Each participant filled out a questionnaire. Data analysis was carried out performing a series of multiple regression analyses.

Consistent with previous research, regression analysis showed that perceived leader's fairness promoted a more constructive approach to manage conflict with leaders. More importantly this relationship was stronger under high rather than low need for cognitive closure.

Present results suggest that in order to favor a solution‐oriented conflict handling style, leaders should promote perceptions of procedural fairness, especially among those with high need for closure.

This is one of the first studies that looks at a moderator of the relationship between leader's fairness and constructive conflict management. It integrates literature on procedural fairness and cooperation. Furthermore, as the current research focuses on need for closure, it has important implications with regard to the uncertainty management model.

Extracts the fundamental principles of the Thirty‐six Chinese Classical Strategies of War to formulate an appropriate framework for drawing lessons in Western generic business and corporate strategies for the first time. Does not, however, suggest that Western literature on generic business and corporate strategies is any less effective than the Thirty‐six Chinese Classical Strategies of War which tend to be more definitive in nature. Much synergy can in fact be achieved by extending lessons in strategies from both the East and the West. Lessons from the Thirty‐six Chinese Classical Strategies of War would be particularly pertinent for the West in view of the growing economic influence of the East Asian region on the global political platform. Suggests marketing planners based in the West would certainly be better placed in this region if they, when operating in East Asia, were able to appreciate a deeply revered and firmly entrenched Chinese classical strategic treatize.