Conflict in organizational decision making: An exploratory study of its effects in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations

Though past research has shown that conflict may improve organizational decision making, business executives may have very different perceptions of the effects of conflict than executives of not-for-profit organizations. This exploratory study deals with executives’ descriptions of the effects of conflict on their own organizations’ decisions. Results show that high conflict is associated with high quality for the executives of not-for-profit organizations but with low quality for executives of for-profit organizations. Analysis of executives’ written descriptions of these decisions suggests some reasons for this difference.