Do millennials differ in conflict manifestation? Differences within the cohort

The present study aims to examine the moderation of the employee's age on the manifestation of “experience of hurt” to “commitment to future conflict” among the three intra-cohort segments of millennials. The study also examines the mediation of “perception of duplicitous organization” between hurt and “commitment to future conflict.”

Cross-sectional data was collected using survey method and analyzed by structural equation modelling on SPSS AMOS 25 software.

The results are based on single-source cross-sectional data. The result indicates that “perception of duplicitous organization” is positively impacted by the experience of hurt at the workplace. It also acts as a mediator between hurt and “commitment to future conflict”. There is significant moderation of age for all the relationships in the model. For instance, age moderates both the paths of hurt resulting in “perception of duplicitous organization” and aggressiveness, where the group of young employees have significantly higher path coefficients.

The managers need to be more considerate and interact frequently with the younger employees as they are more prone to develop aggression and are impressionable to form a “perception of duplicitous organization” after an experience of hurt. The manager needs to establish a high-quality relationship and a positive image of the organization with subordinates to prevent the manifestation of hurt to a “commitment to future conflict”.

To the best of the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first of its kind to study the moderation of age within the larger cohort of millennials.