Corporate Communication and Worker Perceptions of Conflict Management and Justice

Abstract

Organizations are well advised to develop a conflict culture promoting constructive conflict management and cooperation. But what does such a culture look like? Research from international and political relations has demonstrated that the level of integrative complexity (IC) as disseminated in political messages is an important factor in the context of conflict management. In our research, we hypothesize that, similar to political messages, corporate communication, which emphasizes a complex (i.e., differentiated and integrated) way of understanding multidimensional issues, is connected to cooperative conflict management and related variables like perceptions of organizational justice. Results of a multilevel field study support this proposition. Whereas the level of organizational IC was assessed by rating organizations’ communication (specifically their vision or mission statements published on the Internet), perceptions of conflict management and justice were assessed by asking employees. The study emphasizes the utility of addressing organizational level variables in relation to organizational members’ perceptions.