Negotiation and Conflict Management Research Conflict and Decision-Making: Attributional and Emotional Influences Kevin J. Hurt 1 and Jennifer Welbourne2 1 Department of Management and Marketing, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA, U.S.A. 2 Department of Management, The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, U.S.A. Keywords Abstract conflict, attributions, emotions, decision-making. There is general consensus among conflict scholars that cognitive con- flict’s impact within the organization is functional, whereas affective Correspondence conflict’s impact is dysfunctional. Inconsistent findings in the literature Kevin J. Hurt, PhD, Department suggest that additional factors impact these relationships. In this study, of Management and Marketing, we integrate theories of conflict, affect, and attribution within the Columbus State University, domain of decision-making to gain a greater understanding of how and 4225 University Ave., Columbus, GA 31907, U.S.A.; why organizational conflicts are at times positive, negative, or neutral. e-mail: Specifically, we posit that the conclusions individuals reach as a result
[email protected]. of their attributions, and their subsequent emotions and behavioral responses, play a significant role in determining conflict’s effects. We doi: 10.1111/ncmr.12133 apply theories of team-level emotional convergence to propose how the individual emotional responses of team members may converge into a collective emotional response at the team level. Finally, we propose that the team-level emotional responses initiated by the attribution process are significant moderators of the relationship between conflict type and decision outcomes. Over the past century, conflict and its subsequent effects within an organization has been a topic of inter- est for researchers across a vast array of disciplines.