During the past 15 years, most studies dealing with communication and conflict in organizational settings have used a bargaining context while integrating assumptions from game theory, information processing, developmental approaches, and systems theory into their research designs. These studies also reflect four communication topic areas, including network and channel communication, control of information, perception of messages, and communication strategies. The studies all integrate conflict communication with cooperation and conflict, such that some communication patterns emerge. Communication that promotes cooperation is face to face and free of distortion, shows increased availablity and information disclosure, provides more concessions and proposals, and contains promises, recommendations, positive language, and open-ended questions. Communication that leads to competition contains inadequate conflict management practices, insufficient exchange of information, threats from low- to high-power participants, incompatible personal styles and power levels, irrelevant arguments, forcing, withholding, compromising, facial gaze, and close proximity. Since methodological and theoretical deficiencies have hindered meaningful growth in this subject area, a multidimensional approach may be warranted in future research. Such an approach would test for interaction effects among such variables as position power, message strategies, and type of conflict situation. (RL)