Corporate groups are often portrayed as reducing conflict, both among their own members and in society more widely. Early modern European guilds and companies themselves claimed this: the Calw merchant company was founded in 1650 to combat ‘all sorts of disorders, abuses, unseemly self-seeking and other grievances’ which had led to stagnation in the worsted industry, while the Moderation worsted-weavers' guilds received new privileges in 1686 ‘to clear away the encroachment, disorder and confusion which has crept in … since in all trades, especially crafts, there is great need for good, useful ordinances and provisions, while in their absence all sorts of disruptions and ruination result’. Influential later theorists followed these views. Thus corporate groups were praised by Hegel for socializing their members to forsake self-seeking for the general good, and by Otto von Gierke for creating social harmony by resolving conflicts among their members and mediating peacefully between them and the wider society. Present-day historians, too, often argue that guilds played an important role in conflict resolution, with beneficent social effects.

However, there are also theoretical arguments suggesting that guilds might have created conflict, and that the sort of conflict they created may have been more harmful than competition among individuals. If a guild was successful, it acted in such a way as to obtain monopoly and monopsony rents for its members.