Exploring the Relationship between Task Conflict,Relationship Conflict, Organizational Commitment

In the Australia, Canada, parts of Europe, and the United Kingdom, the provision of sport has had a long tradition of reliance on volunteers. However, there has been increasing pressure for voluntary sport organizations (VSOs) to adopt more “professional” practices and operational procedures. Consequently, there is a tendency for volunteer organizations to adopt approaches to management developed in other industry contexts without giving proper thought to the differences in character of the public, private, and volunteer sector. It is in situations such as this that inappropriate practices are adopted and conflict emerges. Despite this,there has been limited research into conflict in volunteer sport organizations in the UK. The results of the study demonstrated that relationship conflict was related to both organizational commitment and satisfaction; however, task conflict was only related to job satisfaction. Perhaps the more important finding is the absence of a relationship between task conflict and organizational commitment. It is possible that individuals in VSOs saw their commitment to something greater than the club or association (i.e. the sport or some idealist notion of sport) and were therefore likely to ‘put up’ with high levels of dissatisfaction associated with poor management