Marketing as a means to transformative social conflict resolution: lessons from transitioning war economies and the Colombian coffee marketing system

Social conflicts are ubiquitous to the human condition and occur throughout markets, marketing processes, and marketing systems.When unchecked or unmitigated, social conflict can have devastating consequences for consumers, marketers, and societies, especially when conflict escalates to war. In this article, the authors offer a systemic analysis of the Colombian war economy, with its conflicted shadow and coping markets, to show how a growing network of fair-trade coffee actors has played a key role in transitioning the country’s war economy into a peace economy. They particularly draw attention to the sources of conflict in this market and highlight four transition mechanisms — i.e., empowerment, communication, community building and regulation — through which marketers can contribute to peacemaking and thus produce mutually beneficial outcomes for consumers and society. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for marketing theory, practice, and public policy

Conflict at work and individual well-being

Conflict theory and research largely ignored the possible relationships between conflict at work, and individual health, well-being, and job satisfaction. We present a model that argues that poor health and well-being can trigger conflict in the workplace, and reduce the extent to which conflict is managed in a constructive, problem solving way. The model further proposes that conflict, especially when managed poorly, can have negative long-term consequences for individual health and well-being, producing psychosomatic complaints and feelings of burnout. We review research evidence and conclude, among other things, that the model is more likely to hold up when conflict involves relationships and socio-emotional, rather than task-related issues. Avenues for future research and implications for policy and organizational design are discussed