These developments have, however, also resulted in a rather one-sided
understanding of the consequences organizational conflict can have.
Although by now we have a fairly well-developed and researched understanding
of conflict management and its effects on productivity, far less
attention has been devoted to ‘‘soft’’ outcomes including job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and individual health and
well-being. This state of affairs is unfortunate because it isolates conflict
theory and research from broader issues in organizational psychology and
organizational behaviour research. It is also unfortunate because it impedes
applied work in that it remains uncertain how interventions influence not
only conflict and effectiveness, but also satisfaction and well-being.
Practitioners may feel uncomfortable with proposed interventions because
raising performance through conflict stimulation (for examples, see Van de
Vliert, 1997) could simultaneously lower job satisfaction and organizational
commitment, and thus inadvertently stimulate absenteeism and involuntary
turnover, and stimulate deviant workplace behaviours including sabotage
and bullying (Robinson & Bennett, 1995).