Challenging the common belief that conflict in groups and organizations should be prevented or resolved to maintain or enhance performance, Using Conflict in Organizations offers an alternative perspective by presenting the increasing knowledge on how conflict can enhance individual achievement, the quality of group decision-making and productivity in organizations. Part One provides a general framework which links conflict management to performance and shows how this relationship can be understood. The second and third parts develop and illustrate this framework in a series of thematic chapters. Part Two focuses on performance following intragroup conflict, covering topical areas such as dissent, groupthink and strategic decision-making. Part Three deals with the performance-enhancing effect of intergroup conflict and competition, and addresses contemporary issues such as intergroup competition, collective negotiation and diversity management. The final section focuses on applications and intervention strategies that can stimulate conflict in ways that improve performance in groups and organizations.

Intergroup competition and conflict create pervasive problems in human society, giving rise to such phenomena as prejudice, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and interstate war. Citizens, policy makers, social workers, schoolteachers, and politicians wrestle with these problems, and with difficult questions these issues pose: What causes conflict to escalate? How should we manage conflict within communities, and also in society at large? Is conflict always bad, or does it have other more beneficial consequences? Social Conflict within and between Groups provides an overview of contemporary research from the social sciences on these questions. It brings together the research output of a number of leading researchers in psychology, management and economics, sociology and political science, and draws on the outcomes of ten prominent research programs conducted over the past five years. The chapters cover a range of fascinating topics, including prejudice and discrimination in multi-ethnic societies, and conflict and negotiation in the field of industrial relations. The authors also consider the possibilities for intervention at the interpersonal, intergroup and societal level. This is the first volume to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the various scientific approaches to studying the origins and consequences of social conflict. It will be of great interest to researchers, graduates and upper-level undergraduate students from across the social and behavioural sciences.

Intergroup competition and conflict create pervasive problems in human society, giving rise to such phenomena as prejudice, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and interstate war. Citizens, policy makers, social workers, schoolteachers, and politicians wrestle with these problems, and with difficult questions these issues pose: What causes conflict to escalate? How should we manage conflict within communities, and also in society at large? Is conflict always bad, or does it have other more beneficial consequences? Social Conflict within and between Groups provides an overview of contemporary research from the social sciences on these questions. It brings together the research output of a number of leading researchers in psychology, management and economics, sociology and political science, and draws on the outcomes of ten prominent research programs conducted over the past five years. The chapters cover a range of fascinating topics, including prejudice and discrimination in multi-ethnic societies, and conflict and negotiation in the field of industrial relations. The authors also consider the possibilities for intervention at the interpersonal, intergroup and societal level. This is the first volume to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the various scientific approaches to studying the origins and consequences of social conflict. It will be of great interest to researchers, graduates and upper-level undergraduate students from across the social and behavioural sciences.

This volume in SIOP's Organizational Frontiers Series is a state-of-the-art overview of contemporary conflict research which aims to place conflict research and theory squarely within the realm of industrial and organizational psychology. This volume brings together and integrates classic and contemporary insight in conflict origins, conflict processes, and conflict consequences. In addition, it stimulates modeling conflict at work at relevant levels of analyses: the interpersonal and group, and the organizational. It is appropriate for scholars and practitioners in the areas of industrial-organizational psychology, human resource management, organizational behavior, applied psychology, and social psychology.

This volume in SIOP's Organizational Frontiers Series is a state-of-the-art overview of contemporary conflict research which aims to place conflict research and theory squarely within the realm of industrial and organizational psychology. This volume brings together and integrates classic and contemporary insight in conflict origins, conflict processes, and conflict consequences. In addition, it stimulates modeling conflict at work at relevant levels of analyses: the interpersonal and group, and the organizational. It is appropriate for scholars and practitioners in the areas of industrial-organizational psychology, human resource management, organizational behavior, applied psychology, and social psychology.

Challenging the common belief that conflict in groups and organizations should be prevented or resolved to maintain or enhance performance, Using Conflict in Organizations offers an alternative perspective by presenting the increasing knowledge on how conflict can enhance individual achievement, the quality of group decision-making and productivity in organizations. Part One provides a general framework which links conflict management to performance and shows how this relationship can be understood. The second and third parts develop and illustrate this framework in a series of thematic chapters. Part Two focuses on performance following intragroup conflict, covering topical areas such as dissent, groupthink and strategic decision-making. Part Three deals with the performance-enhancing effect of intergroup conflict and competition, and addresses contemporary issues such as intergroup competition, collective negotiation and diversity management. The final section focuses on applications and intervention strategies that can stimulate conflict in ways that improve performance in groups and organizations.