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Managing Conflict in Dutch Organizations: A Test of the Relevance of Deutsch's Cooperation Theory 1
Author(s) -
Tjosvold Dean,
Dreu Carsten De
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb01649.x
Subject(s) - operationalization , lisrel , relevance (law) , constructive , test (biology) , psychology , task (project management) , social psychology , political science , epistemology , structural equation modeling , management , computer science , economics , paleontology , philosophy , process (computing) , machine learning , law , biology , operating system
Deutsch's theory of cooperative and competitive conflict may be usefully extended to Dutch people. Results of LISREL analyses on data collected from interviews of Dutch employees in 2 companies indicate that competitive goals interfered with the open, constructive discussion of opposing views. However, cooperative goals were not found to contribute to constructive controversy. Dutch who discussed their opposing views openly made progress on the task, worked efficiently, and strengthened their work relationship and their confidence in future collaboration. These results do not argue that Dutch and North Americans handle conflict similarly, for how these groups operationalize the theory may differ significantly. Goal interdependence may have the potential to be a framework for promoting conflict management between Dutch and North Americans.