Interpersonal conflict at work: Age and emotional competence differences in conflict management

Abstract

Previous research has illustrated that older workers have high emotional competence (EC) that could enable them to effectively manage interpersonal conflict. However, it is still unclear whether age, potentially via EC, also influences a variety of conflict management behaviors. To address this question, we present a systematic review of the literature on the direct relationships between age, EC, and conflict management, and on EC as a potential mediator. We classify conflict management behaviors using the dual concern model (e.g., De Dreu, Evers, Beersma, Kluwer, & Nauta, 2001), and identified 15 studies on age-related conflict management, and 14 studies on EC and conflict management. Unfortunately, we found that none of the previous studies examined EC as a mediator between age and conflict behaviors. Overall, our review does reveal a positive age trend for EC, avoiding, compromising, and problem-solving, and a negative age trend for forcing. Additionally, EC seems to be positively related to problem-solving, compromising, and yielding. We discuss potential moderators and the role of EC as a potential mediator.

Roles of age and future time perspective of the work relationship in conflict management: A daily diary study.

“…Passive strategies refer to nonconfrontational responses, such as avoiding contact with the conflict partner, yielding to the other’s demand, or doing nothing. Older adults utilize more passive strategies and fewer destructive strategies to manage negative daily events than younger adults, whereas the use of constructive strategies, such as integrating and compromising, is comparable between younger and older adults (Birditt & Fingerman, 2005; Charles et al, 2009; Davis et al, 2009; Fingerman et al, 2008; Yeung, Fung, & Kam, 2012; see Beitler, Scherer, & Zapf, 2018 for a meta-analytic review).…”

Resilience during Crisis and the Role of Age: Involuntary Telework during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Examples of relevant contextual factors are job autonomy and sharing of responsibility among family members, social job resources, or the absence of social conflicts at both work and home. Examples of relevant personal factors are emotional labor, conflict management strategies, action regulation strategies, or more general disposition, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy [57][58][59]. Including additional potential demands, contextual resources, and personal resources-as implied by the JD-R model [12]-will help to further disentangle why younger employees may struggle more with the pandemic and forced teleworking than relatively older employees.…”

Leveraging age diversity for organizational performance: An intellectual capital perspective.

“…First, older employees’ disadvantage in terms of less-novel processing can be complemented by their accumulated knowledge, especially when dealing with familiar situations (Salthouse, 2019). 1 Second, the existence of factors beyond cognitive ability, such as task-specific skills (Salthouse, 1984) and emotional competence (Beitler, Scherer, & Zapf, 2018), can be acquired with experience and thus represent a form of experienced-based compensation. Third, the nature of individuals’ jobs changes over time, such that people alter what they do and how they do it to leverage individual strengths and thus remain functioning at a high level (Beier & Kanfer, 2013; Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004; Warr, 1994).…”