Moderating Effects of Communication Media in the Conflict- Effectiveness Relationship

Abstract

The present paper examines the moderating effect of communication media (face-to-face communication versus computer-mediated communication, specifically with online written messages) on the relationships between conflicts and performance, which rarely earns the attention it deserves. The research hypotheses are built under the framework of conflict as a communication process consisting of cognitive negotiation and emotional negotiation, so that a communication medium that differs in its efficiency regarding emotion delivery is very likely to have a different impact on performance. An experiment was designed to test our research hypotheses. As a result, we found that an individual negotiates with a positive attitude (in what is known as a ‘functional conflict’ situation), and the choice of communication medium did not matter; however, computer-mediated communication did produce better performance in negative attitudinal negotiation (known as ‘dysfunctional conflict’) by reducing the amount of negative emotion transmitted.

The present paper examines the moderating effect of communication media (face-to-face communication versus computer-mediated communication, specifically with online written messages) on the relationships between conflicts and performance, which rarely earns the attention it deserves. The research hypotheses are built under the framework of conflict as a communication process consisting of cognitive negotiation and emotional negotiation, so that a communication medium that differs in its efficiency regarding emotion delivery is very likely to have a different impact on performance. An experiment was designed to test our research hypotheses. As a result, we found that an individual negotiates with a positive attitude (in what is known as a ‘functional conflict’ situation), and the choice of communication medium did not matter; however, computer-mediated communication did produce better performance in negative attitudinal negotiation (known as ‘dysfunctional conflict’) by reducing the amount of negative emotion transmitted.