Management of conflict using individual power sources: A retailers' perspective

This study examines the processes of managing conflict in channels of distribution by utilizing opportunistic, reward, coercive, referent, expert, and legitimate individual power sources. By judiciously utilizing these individual power sources to manage conflict, channel members can produce high quality solutions to their problems. For example, the use of opportunistic and coercive power sources will increase conflict and decrease satisfaction. The use of reward, referent, legitimate, and expert power sources, however, will decrease conflict and increase satisfaction. Data were obtained from a survey of 551 independent retailers about their relationships with their primary wholesalers. Among the findings, retailers believed that the only effective strategy for managing conflict was the use of the wholesalers' expert powers source. However, the use of power was found to intensify the level of conflict. The use of coercive and opportunistic power sources increased the underlying basis of conflict and produced destructive outcomes. Moreover, the wholesalers' use of power was weakened when they utilized their expert power source. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science, Inc.