The Effect of Customer Orientation and Intra- Organizational Competition on Innovativeness: Generating Creative Conflict

This paper explores how creative conflict is generated in an organization. Using data collected from sales departments of 206 firms in Japan, the antecedents and consequences of three types of conflict were examined. The findings suggest that (1) an innovative department tends to have more task conflict and less process conflict, (2) customer orientation has a positive effect on task conflict, and (3) process competition has a negative effect on process conflict. The results indicate that enhancing customer orientation and process-based competition play key roles in generating creative conflict.