TOWARD A THEORY OF

MANAGING
ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT
 INTRODUCTION
• The management of organizational conflict involves the diagnosis of and intervention in affective and
substantive conflicts at the interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup levels and the styles (strategies)
used to handle these conflicts. A diagnosis should indicate whether there is need for an intervention and
the type of intervention needed. In general, an intervention is designed
• (a) to maintain a moderate amount of substantive conflict in non routine tasks at various levels,
• (b) to reduce affective conflict at all levels, and
• (c) to enable the organizational members to select and use the appropriate styles of handling conflict so
that various situations can be effectively dealt with.
• Organizational learning and effectiveness can be enhanced through an appropriate diagnosis of and
process and structural interventions in conflict.
• Insofar as it could be determined, the literature on organizational conflict is deficient (with
minor exceptions) in three major areas:
1. There is no clear set of rules to suggest when conflict ought to be maintained at a certain
level, when reduced, when ignored, and when enhanced.
2. There is no clear set of guidelines to suggest how conflict can be reduced, ignored, or
enhanced to increase organizational learning and effectiveness.
3. There is no clear set of rules to indicate how conflict involving different situations can be
managed effectively.
• Several conflict management scholars (Amason, 1996; Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999;
Rahim, 2001) have suggested that conflict management strategies involve recognition of the
following:
1. Certain types of conflicts, which may have negative effects on individual and group
performance, may have to be reduced. These conflicts are generally caused by the negative
reactions of organizational members (e.g., personal attacks of group members.
2. There are other types of conflicts that may have positive effects on the individual and
group performance. These conflicts relate to disagreements relating to tasks, policies, and
other organizational issues. Conflict management strategies involve generation and
maintenance of a moderate amount of these conflicts.
3. Organizational members while interacting with each other will be required to deal with
their disagreements constructively. This calls for learning how to use different conflict-
handling styles to deal with various situations effectively.
 CRITERIA FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
1. Organizational Learning and Effectiveness. Conflict management strategies should be
designed to enhance organizational learning (Luthans et al., 1995; Tompkins, 1995). It is
expected that organizational learning will lead to long-term effectiveness. In order to attain
this objective, conflict management strategies should be designed to enhance critical and
innovative thinking to learn the process of diagnosis and intervention in the right
problems.
2. Needs of Stakeholders. Conflict management strategies should be designed to satisfy the
needs and expectations of the strategic constituencies (stakeholders) and to attain a balance
among them. Mitroff (1998) strongly suggests picking the right stakeholders to solve the
right problems. Sometimes multiple parties are involved in a conflict in an organization
and the challenge of conflict management would be to involve these parties in a problem
solving process that will lead to collective learning and organizational effectiveness
3. Ethics. Mitroff (1998) is a strong advocate of ethical management. He concluded that "if we
can define a problem so that it leads to ethical actions that benefit humankind, then either we
haven't defined or are currently unable to define the problem properly.
 CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
1. Minimize Affective Conflicts at Various Levels. Affective conflict refers to
inconsistency in interpersonal relationships, which occurs when organizational members
become aware that their feelings and emotions regarding some of the issues are
incompatible. "Summarily stated, relationship conflicts interfere with task-related effort
because members focus on reducing threats, increasing power, and attempting to build
cohesion rather than working on task.
2. Attain and Maintain a Moderate Amount of Substantive Conflict Substantive conflict
occurs when two or more organizational members disagree on their task or content issues.
Substantive conflict is very similar to issue conflict, which occurs when two or more
social entities disagree on the recognition and solution to a task problem. A study by Jehn
(1995) suggests that a moderate level of substantive conflict is beneficial as it stimulates
discussion and debate, which help groups to attain higher level of performance. "Groups
with an absence of task conflict may miss new ways to enhance their performance, while
very high levels of task conflict may interfere with task completion" (Jehn, 1997, p. 532).
Evidence indicates that substantive conflict is positively associated with beneficial
outcomes.
3. Select and Use Appropriate Conflict Management Strategies. As will be seen later, there
are various styles of behavior, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and
compromising, which can be used to deal with conflict. Organizational members would
require training and on-the-job experience to select and use the styles of handling interpersonal
conflict so that various conflict situations can be appropriately deal with. In general, managing
conflict to enhance learning and effectiveness require the use of integrating or problem solving
style
 STYLES OF HANDLING CONFLICT
1. Integrating (high concern for self and others) style is associated with problem solving, i.e.,
the diagnosis of and intervention in the right problems. The use of this style involves
openness, exchanging information, looking for alternatives, and examination of differences to
reach an effective solution acceptable to both parties.
2. Obliging (low concern for self and high concern for others) style is associated with
attempting to play down the differences and emphasizing commonalities to satisfy the concern
of the other party. An obliging person neglects his or her own concern to satisfy the concern of
the other party. This style is useful when a party is not familiar with the issues involved in a
conflict or the other party is right and the issue is much more important to the other party. This
style may be used as a strategy when a party is willing to give up something with the hope of
getting some benefit from the other party when needed.
• Dominating (high concern for self and low concern for others) style has been identified with
win–lose orientation or with forcing behavior to win one's position. A dominating or
competing person goes all out to win his or her objective and, as a result, often ignores the
needs and expectations of the other party.
4. Avoiding (low concern for self and others) style has been associated with withdrawal,
buckpassing, or sidestepping situations. An avoiding person fails to satisfy his or her own
concern as well as the concern of the other party. This style is inappropriate when the issues
are important to a party. This style is also inappropriate when it is the responsibility of the
party to make decisions, when the parties are unwilling to wait, or when prompt action is
required.
 Compromising (intermediate in concern for self and others) style involves give-and-take
whereby both parties give up something to make a mutually acceptable decision. This style is
useful when the goals of the conflicting parties are mutually exclusive or when both parties,
e.g., labor and management, are equally powerful and have reached an impasse in their
negotiation process.
MANAGING CONFLICT PROCESS
 DIAGNOSIS
• As discussed before, the first step in the problem solving process is problem recognition,
which involves problem sensing, and problem formulation. The field of management has
developed solutions to numerous problems, but it has neglected to investigate and develop
the process of problem recognition. Problem finding or recognition requires appropriate
diagnosis of the problems, a step which is neglected in many contemporary organizations.
As a result, very often interventions are recommended without proper understanding of the
nature of the problem(s). This can lead to ineffective outcomes.
• Measurement
• A comprehensive diagnosis involves these measurements:
• 1. The amount of substantive and affective conflict at the interpersonal, intragroup, and
intergroup levels;
• 2. The styles of handling interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflicts of the
organizational members;
• 4. Individual, group, and organizational learning and effectiveness.
• Analysis
• The analysis of data collected above should include:
1. The amount of substantive and affective conflict and the styles of handling conflict
classified by departments, units, divisions, etc. and whether they are different from their
corresponding national norms.
2. The relationships of the amount of conflict and conflict styles to their sources.
3. The relationships of the amount of conflict and conflict styles to learning and effectiveness.
 INTERVENTION
• A proper diagnosis should indicate whether there is any need for intervention and the type of
intervention required. An intervention may be needed if there is too much affective conflict,
or too little or too much substantive conflict, and/or the organizational members are not
handling their conflict effectively.
• There are two basic approaches to intervention in conflict: process and structural (Rahim
& Bonoma, 1979). Beer and Walton (1987) described these as human-process and
technostructural approaches of intervention for organization development. A process refers
to the sequence of events or activities that are undertaken to bring about some desired
outcome. There are certain processes in an organization, such as communication, decision
making, leadership, etc. which are necessary for making the social system work. Structure
refers to the stable arrangement of task, technological, and other factors so that
organizational members can work together effectively. In order to accomplish the goals of an
organization, both process and structure require proper integration.
• Leadership. Senge (1990) maintains that a different set of leadership roles will be needed
with more emphasis on leaders as teachers, stewards, and designers. These leaders,
"articulate a clear and challenging vision for their firm based on their insights into key
industry trends that can be the catalyst for redefining the foundation of competition. . . . they
focus on developing the people around them, motivating them to want to learn and take
greater responsibility.
• Organizational Culture. Conflict management to support organizational learning and long-
term effectiveness would require cultures which support experimentation, risk taking,
openness, diverse viewpoints, continuous questioning and inquiry, and sharing of
information and knowledge. This implies that employees would be encouraged to take
responsibility for their errors and not blame others for their mistakes or incompetence.
• Structural. This intervention attempts to improve the organizational effectiveness by
changing the organization's structural design characteristics, which include differentiation
and integration mechanisms, hierarchy, procedures, reward system, etc. This approach
mainly attempts to manage conflict by altering the perceptions of the intensity of conflict of
the organizational members at various levels.