Chapter 10
Conflict in Organizations
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The Nature of Conflict in
Organizations

In classical bureaucratic organizations, conflict
is something to be suppressed and avoided.
 Organizations
should be smooth running,
harmonious and ordered.
 Use of control and structure to manage conflict.

Human relations views see conflict as a failure
to develop appropriate norms for groups.
 Seeks
to achieve harmony through happy,
congenial work groups.
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Definition of Conflict

Two essential concepts in any conflict
 Divergent
views and
 Incompatibility of those views
Hostility occurs when an individual or group
actively strives for a particular outcome
precluding others’ preferred outcome.
 Leaders need to manage conflict to reduce or
prevent hostility.

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Conflict Different from Attacks

Two Types of Hostility




Non-malevolent behavior may worsen the position of others, but is
done to support one’s views.
Malevolent hostility may give rise to nefarious attacks, that may:





Non-Malevolent
Malevolent
Focus on people (not issues).
Use hateful and emotional language and terms.
Use dogmatic statements.
Be intransigent even in light of new information.
The key to determining the type of hostility is the motivation of the
hostile party.
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Contemporary Views of Conflict
Conflict is inevitable, endemic and often
legitimate.
 Chester Barnard described negotiating, stress,
and conflict as normal social patterns in
organizations.
 Finite resources lead to competition.
 Leaders need to manage conflict.

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Effects of Organizational Conflict

Hostile conflict can result in:
 Psychological
withdrawal--alienation, apathy, and
indifference.
 Physical withdrawal—absence, tardiness, and
turnover.


Conflict can create a downward spiral in
organizational health (See Figure 10.1).
Effective conflict management can lead to
improved organizational health (See Figure 10.2).
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
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The Criterion: Organizational
Performance

The central issue to leaders is to insure the
impact of conflict does not negatively affect
performance of the organization as a system.

Leaders should assess organizational culture
and the interaction-influence system.
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The Criterion: Organizational
Performance (continued)




Participative management assumes that many
people have good ideas and quality information.
Divergent views can assist individuals in
confronting previously unknown or ignored
information.
Dealing with problems can result in improved
cohesiveness, clarified relationships and better
problem-solving procedures.
Whereas, pent-up conflict may explode, followed
by long periods of frustration.
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The Dynamics of Organizational
Conflict

Louis Pondy identified three primary causes of
latent conflict:
 Competition
for scarce resources.
 Autonomy or “Protecting One’s Turf”.
 Goal divergence (and how to accomplish the goal).

These are naturally-occurring events in
schools, and therefore conflict should be
expected, planned for and managed.
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A Process View of Conflict

Kenneth Thomas identified four parts of conflict that
occur in a sequence of episodes:
 Frustration—caused by someone’s action.
 Conceptualization—defining issues and seeking
alternative responses.
 Behavior—dictated by one’s desire to satisfy the
other’s concerns resulting in cooperation (or not), and
by one’s desire to satisfy his/her own concerns
resulting in assertiveness (or not).

Interaction of the parties follows.
 Outcome—if
negative, can have long-term effects on
relationships and the organization.
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A Structural View of Conflict

This approach sees conflict in terms of
conditions that influence behavior.
 Rules and procedures.
 Personality predispositions.
 Social norms of the organization.

Rensis Likert and Jane Gibson Likert
suggested that bureaucratic organizations lack
capacity to deal with conflict, and that a
System 4 approach works to manage conflict.
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An Open-Systems View of Conflict




As open systems, schools interact with their
environments.
Outside mandates and pressures can cause sudden
change and subsequent conflict, e.g., NCLB.
Griffin and Rostetter hypothesized that depending on
availability of resources, opportunities to avoid
coercion, and rewards for compliance, people will
behave with one of the following: resistance, escape,
compliance, passive resistance.
Coercion can lead to conflict-hostility-resistance
syndrome within organizations.
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Approaches to Organizational Conflict


Win-Lose Orientation—parties do not see
compromise as possible.
Two consequences
 Between
parties: hostility rises, hope for solution
fades, as does search for solution.
 Within parties involved: members close ranks, and
members are expected to keep the party line.
Creative solutions are effectively snuffed out.

The losing individual or group may reject the
leaders and have powerful long-lasting negative
emotional reactions.
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A Contingency Approach to Conflict

This approach requires a solution based on
diagnosis of the situation:
 Is
there conflict: do the parties have goals that are
incompatible?
 If it is a miscommunication instead of conflict, parties
may benefit from communication skills training.


If a conflict does exist, then select a method of
dealing with it productively from options
available.
In general, a win-win in which both parties win
something tends to be the most productive.
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A Contingency Approach to Conflict
(continued)

Collaboration—mutual problem solving.
 Parties
must have:
Skills for communicating and working in groups
effectively.
 Attitudes that support a climate of trust to work
through problems.

 Using effective problem-solving strategies.
 Sometimes use of a third-party consultant is
helpful.
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A Contingency Approach to Conflict
(continued)

Bargaining
 Search
for compromises that has some elements of
collaborative problem solving.
 This is not collaborative, and does not necessarily
lead to win-win.
 Neither party wins and neither party loses.

Example may be when parties take a conflict
to supervisor for resolution.
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A Contingency Approach to Conflict
(continued)
 Avoidance—it
useful when:
It
is not likely that latent conflict can be
resolved.
Issues are not so important as to require time
and resources to work them out.
Effectively a “cease-fire”.
 Power
Struggle—classic win-lose
situation.
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A Contingency Approach to Diagnosis
of Conflict

Kenneth Thomas’ model of conceptualizing conflict
through behaviors commonly associated with conflict
uses two behavioral dimensions that shape conflict:
 Cooperativeness
 Assertiveness

Five perspectives result from this analysis:
 Competition, Avoidance, Accommodation,
Sharing, and
Collaboration.

See Figures 10.4--10.6.
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