Coping with conflict and bullying at work 1 The Relationship between Interpersonal Conflict and Workplace Bullying

Purpose This paper examines the role that conflict management styles play in the relationship between interpersonal conflict and workplace bullying. Design A survey study was conducted among 761 employees from different organizations in Spain. Findings Results suggest that an escalation of the conflict process from task-related to relationship conflict may explain bullying situations to some extent. Regarding conflict management, attempts to actively manage conflict through problem solving may prevent it escalating to higher emotional levels (relationship conflict) and bullying situations; in contrast, other conflict management strategies seem to foster conflict escalation. Research limitations/implications – The correlational design makes the conclusions on causality questionable, and future research should examine the dynamic conflict process in more detail. On the other hand, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study empirically differentiating interpersonal conflict and workplace bullying. Value – This study explores how conflict management can prevent conflict escalating into workplace bullying, which has important implications for occupational health practitioners and managers.