Multidimensional Conflict and Organizational
Performance
Flink, Carla M . American Review of Public Administration ; Parkville Vol. 45, Iss. 2, (Mar 2015): 182.
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ABSTRACT
Conflict is part of every organization. Scholars have studied the effects of conflict on organization dynamics and
their outputs. Literature suggests that not all conflict is detrimental for organizations -- some conflict actually
helps bolster and refresh organizations. One concern for organizations is the vertical strategic alignment of
management strategies. Vertical cohesion or conflict impacts an organization's ability to reach optimal
performance. In the setting of English local governments, this study uses vertical strategic differences among two
levels of management as the measure of conflict in organizations to examine, one, how it impacts organization
performance, and two, if conflict has a nonlinear relationship with performance. Results indicate that conflict on
single strategies has no bearing on organization performance. Total strategy or multidimensional conflict,
however, negatively impacts performance. There is little support for a nonlinear relationship between conflict and
performance. Further analyses indicate that the negative impact of conflict is amplified for smaller organizations.
DETAILS
Subject: Organizational behavior; Performance evaluation; Strategic planning; Conflict
management; Vertical integration; Impact analysis; Studies
Classification: 2320: Organizational structure; 9130: Experiment/theoretical treatment
Publication title: American Review of Public Administration; Parkville
Volume: 45
Issue: 2
First page: 182
Publication year: 2015
Publication date: Mar 2015
Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Place of publication: Parkville
Country of publication: United States
Publication subject: Public Administration
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ISSN: 02750740
Source type: Scholarly Journals
Language of publication: English
Document type: Feature
ProQuest document ID: 1658871967
Document URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1658871967?accountid=8083
Copyright: Copyright SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. Mar 2015
Last updated: 2015-02-28
Database: ProQuest Central
Database copyright 2017 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.
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