Conflict type co-occurrence : exploring the nature of conflict through the study of conflict incidents

Abstract

The Intragroup Conflict Scale (ICS; Jehn & Mannix, 2001) comprising task, relationship, and process conflict types is heavily utilized to understand consequences of workgroup-level conflict. However, it has been unclear how well this typology translates to the virtually unexplored incident level, particularly with regard to the causes and meaning of ICS type “co-occurrence”. Thus, this research first sought to identify the extent of ICS type co-occurrence within conflict incidents. Secondly, it investigated incident-level ICS type associations with individual wellbeing outcomes. Finally, it introduced the measure of Conflict Impact to augment and explain types’ effects as a function of individual conflict processes (e.g., thoughts, emotions). Results indicated that the ICS types frequently co-occur within conflict incidents, their incident-level associations with wellbeing largely mirror those within workgroups, and conflict processes (as measured by Conflict Impact) appear a viable way to improve individual outcome prediction. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed.