Conflict Potentials and Constructive Conflict Management: An Example of Information System Development

The purpose of this paper is to identify the sources of conflict in terms of both mental and material levels, and discuss the effect of user participation on reduction of the conflict between users and developers during IS development. Respondents were 93 end users, who were divided into two groups according to their participation either in the whole IS development process, that is, participation in both design and implementation, or in implementation only.

Results showed that negative outcomes from the development process were not due to the manifest conflict between users and developers, but rather were linked to users\' emotional hostility toward IS and substantive dissension on related issues not satisfactorily solved during the design stage. That is, the construct for conflict potentials seems distinct from the construct for conflict itself. We conclude that I managers should work to resolve users\' substantive dissension during IS design stage, and to prevent past conflicts from becoming personalize.