Sources of Conflict: Guidelines for a Healthy Organizational Environment

Abstract

Conflicts and controversies are part of our daily life. They are per definition social interactions so this makes them unavoidable as a person crosses someone else's life, or, in extreme cases, has to revisit its own values and believes. Conflicts occur in every possible scenario; on organizational level, for example, one of the many different roles of Project Managers is to mediate conflicts that occur in teams and try to extract the best possible outcome out of them. Conflict Management is a key aspect in ensuring a healthy environment for company members and its stakeholders.

The scope of this article is to provide an in-depth analysis of scientific contribution on organizational conflict. The main focus is put on the causes of their origin, through the analysis of the related literature. The article will describe the definition of conflict, its dimensions of evolution and severity, and the change of perspective in encouraging a resolution through history. The body of the article will discuss a detailed list of sources of conflict through the eye of both the employee and the manager. The aim is to provide the necessary knowledge to the reader to quickly recognize and locate in the theory a conflict event.

This topic is particularly relevant for Project, Program and Portfolio Management because it sets the basis for a clear understanding of Conflict Management tools and best practices; even in a well organized and structured company, conflicts between employees, or with relevant stakeholders, can decree the failure of all strategic actions and ambitions of the organization. Building through time a healthy organizational environment, able to peacefully go through conflict, can ensure optimal performances. This article provides most of the necessary informations to effectively approach conflict management.

Definitions & Dimensions

Before moving to the sources of conflict on organizational level, an overview of the literature and the key definitions is required. The objective is to briefly define what a conflict and its measurable characteristics are through the scientific contribution of the past. Moreover, the basis for conflict management theory will be set by narrowing down the general knowledge of conflict to match the more restricted organizational environment.

Definitions

Conflict and its management are very broad concepts, and it is very hard to define them in a unique way by including all their shades of meaning. One of the most interesting and useful, for the scope of this article, is provided by (Rahim M.A., 2002):

"An interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement or dissonance within or between social entities".

The key take-away, is that conflict, in its general meaning, arises when there is a discrepancy between expectations and reality. The three words used by the author, incompatibility, disagreement, and dissonance, perfectly describe when the interaction between two social entities comes to a dead end. Nevertheless, more definitions are required to gain a better understanding. With "Social Entity" it is meant to describe an individual, or a multitude, that is capable of social interaction with others, while "Interactive Process" means the act of communicating or exchanging every type of information.

Social Entities

Every social entity has its own set of values and needs that, at a given stimulus, generate emotions, fuel its decision-making processes, and drive its actions. The literature, from the ancient greek philosophers to the present days, is full of attempts to define a set of values and needs that uniquely describe a social entity. Two of the most famous examples are the Schwartz' Ten Basic Human Values, and the Maslow's Basic Needs Theory; these two theories are individual centric but can be easily translated into group needs and values. The model proposed by Schwarz defines ten distinct values that are:

Figure 1: Maslow's Pyramid Interpretation

Conformity, Tradition, Security, Power, Achievement, Hedonism, Stimulation, Self-Direction, Universalism, Benevolence

On the other hand, Maslow's General Theory indicates five categories of needs:

Physiological, Safety, Love and Belonging, Esteem, Self-Actualization

There are evident differences between the two models, but one differentiation factor is that while Schwartz is open to let the individual, in specific circumstances, decide how to prioritize its values, Maslow designed his model with a pyramidal shape, where basic needs are more looming than the subsequent ones. Both model are valuable and their updated adaptation are still used today.

To summarize, it is helpful to cluster all the categories in physiological needs, ambitions, morality, ideals, and decision-making. According to Rahim's perspective, social entities interact with each other, and when they perceive a high enough intensity level of dissonance between one or more of these values, a conflict occurs. On the basis of how the conflict is carried on, a set of rules to review, discuss and eventually change personal needs and values is created. The role of conflict managers is to ensure that the conflict does not escalate violently and the social entities involved are getting the chance to improve themselves while feeling free to express their opinions.

Interactions

Previously, conflict has been defined as a particular type of interacting process between social entities. On organizational level, the social entities are the people themselves individually taken and all the different ways they strategically and socially aggregate, such as teams or groups of friends. One other social entity that needs to be considered is the multitude of groups, or environment, for example an entire department of an organization or the whole company itself. Each of these (individual, group, environment) can mutually interact with others, so that three different types of interaction are defined.

Figure 1: The Four Types of Organizational Conflict. Interpretation

The perfect overview to define the different basic types of conflict is again provided by Rahim. In his work he made a first distinction between interorganizational (between two or more companies) and intraorganizational (within a company) conflicts and ho focused on the latter. Then he identified four main types by following the same rationale: intrapersonal and interpersonal, intragroup and intergroup.

For the purpose of this article, the interaction of the individual with self, or intrapersonal conflict, is excluded because more specific knowledge on psychology is required to talk about the argument in a proper manner. The interaction of the environment with others, i.e. interorganizational conflicts and individuals or groups facing issues with the policies of entire organizations, is only marginal as it generally affects the whole organization strategy for communication or politic agenda.

Conflict Dimensions

In the literature it is possible to find numerous attempt to categorize each conflict into a single universal interpretation. For example the last paragraph described every combination of the actors involved in a conflict. Here, two dimensions that describe the latency and the severity of a conflict are presented. The reason why they were chosen among others lies on their robustness, universality and the frequent use in the literature.

The first dimension has been introduced by (L.R.Pondy, 1967) and describes the level of latency of a conflict, that is how much internalized/externalized the conflict is by the actors involved; it is important to highlight that this tool doesn't measure the severity of the conflict, in fact, each step can be considered equally bad in given circumstances. This description given by the author has the peculiarity of being time related as it describes the evolution of every conflict. It is divided in five stages that are: latent, perceived, felt, manifested and aftermath. Every conflict goes through these five stages in the same order with no backsteps.

Latent: in this stage the conflict is completely internalized. The risk is to stall in this stage without ever reaching a conflict resolution. The four basic types of latent conflict are competition for scarce resources, drive for autonomy, divergence of goals and role conflict.

Perceived: here the actors feel discomfort due to dissonance of intentions. This stage can arise even without latent stage conditions. If this is the case probably an issue with modes of communication is occurring.

Felt: both parties acknowledge the conflict. Actors recognize that there is a misalignment of ideas, intentions, ambitions, but no action is still taken. Personalization of the conflict may generate dysfunctions in the future.

Manifested: people involved engage the conflict to generate responses. There are multiple possible actions depending on the severity of the conflict. The aim is to change the status quo in a more preferable situation seen as a good compromise from everyone. The risk is to reach a dead end with no possible positive outcomes.

Aftermath: it is the outcome situation of a conflict and strictly depends on the manifested conflict stage. If the conflict led to a more preferable solution, now the actors are able to go through conflicts easily, their common trust is increased, and the organization will benefit from this. If the conflict remains unresolved it might lead to more rough times for cooperation in the future and easily start harsh conflicts.

The second dimension is represented by a much more common tool that measures the severity of a conflict. Its name is the "Severity Ladder" and there are many different versions and interpretations of it in the literature. Differently from the previous one it is not necessarily time related: in fact conflicts might be solved way before reaching the worst scenario or they might skip some steps and escalate quicker. The one presented is a five steps ladder and each step describes one party general behavior and its consequences.

Disagreement: it relates to opinions. Actors recognize they have different perspectives but they can easily accept that. In this situation is possible to calmly define a common compromise that suits everyone.

Blame: the conflict gets personificated. Personal opinions on the other party become matter of discussion as valuable as other facts. From here on every conflict cannot be solved without secondary consequences.

Problem Expansion: problems that go beyond the one under discussion become part of it. This step is crucial for individuals or groups that have many unresolved conflicts and discussions because they might prevent any new one to be carried out peacefully and proficiently.

Hostility: "the end justifies the means". Parties are open to discredit the opponents to reach their goals.

Polarization: every interaction is intentionally avoided. This happens because everyone lost the hope in defining a common compromise. Everyone feels that even reconciliation is impossible.

Perspectives

This paragraph tries to answer the question "Is conflict always bad? Should it be avoided or encouraged?".

Through the analysis of the literature regarding conflicts in organizations, it is possible to define three major periods where the approach regarding how to behave in conflict conditions changed drastically. (Mikkelsen E.N., et al., 2017), the authors, denoted a first change in perspective during the 1970's where conflict started to be seen as functional to the organizational environment to fuel employees ambitions, and a second one during the 1990's and early 2000's where people started to think of conflict as part of the social interaction.

50's - 70's. Conflict is Dysfunctional: in this period conflict was seen similarly to the classical social theory from Plato and Aristotle, to Hegel and Marx, through Hobbes and Locke, where it was "...a threat to order and success". Early modern practitioners saw it as a breakdown in relationships so it was an interference in the equilibrium of organizations, opposing co-operation, and altering companies ability to predict and control. Managers needed to sedate and stop conflict every time it occurred.

70's - 90's. Conflict is Functional: here researchers and organizations created a framework for kinds of conflicts to analyze their characteristics: once were defined four general categories that are task, process, relationship and status conflicts, and were studied the impacts of each kind on companies performance indicators and productivity, practitioners were able to map whether a specific type was functional or not for their particular organizational scenario.

00's - present. Conflict as a Social Construction: today's researchers see conflict as impregnated in human relationships and interactions. It is by its nature unavoidable so a descriptive mindset has to be used to analyze it and comprehend its dynamics. This should be done to guide people through conflict, facilitate the confront and gain healthier relationships. Here many theories on approaches to conflict and tools for resolution have been created. Before was more a choice of sedate or navigate.

Despite the fact that the research evolution brings to think that the present approach is the best for both actors and facilitators, conflict situations in organizations are so complex that multiple variable have to be considered and it is impossible to define one optimal solution. One common field of agreeance seems to be the fact that the violent escalation of conflict does not bring any positive outcome, and should therefore be avoided.

Sources of conflict

In the literature it is possible to find numerous attempt to classify all the possible sources of conflict in organizations. Many of these start the classification on common events recurring in organizational environments, others drew the line where different emotions, behaviors or outcomes may occur. Generally speaking, almost every classification revolves around these few topics:

Unclear Tasks, Incompatible Goals and Time Frames, Unclear Communication, Overlapping Authorities, Incompatible Evaluations and Award Systems, Lack of Resources

After a careful analysis, I decided to present Rahim's Classification of conflict because of three main reasons. Firstly, it seems accurate to border a conflict on the basis of the antecedent conditions that suit as sources for clustered behaviors and outcomes. Secondly, this particular classification seems to be able to include every aspect of the others and, in the meantime, it does not lose the required specificity. In the end, it is built by starting from other authors' material (referenced), from modern time to present, and, by doing so, it is not influenced by the before mentioned perspectives on how to deal with conflict.

Rahim's Classification of Sources of Conflict

Affective Conflict

This category has been generally referred to as Psychological, Emotional or Relationship Conflict. It is about all that situations that require cooperation for problem resolution, where actors feel contrasting emotions. All previous clashes between parties can speed up the escalation of the conflict. A clear communication of roles and available resources might prevent this type of conflict to occur.

Substantive Conflict

Previously referred to as Task Conflict. It occurs in similar conditions as the previous category, with the distinction that is not about felt emotions but is about tasks and business-related issues. It relates to incompatible strategies and timeframes to reach a common goal within the same program.

Conflict of Interests

This category of conflict arises when parties involved have different approach to "allocate scarce resources". Clear organizational examples are two employees trying to get promoted for one more prestigious position, or two teams trying to achieve a productivity price. It is important to highlight that both parties have the same understanding of the situation and the incompatibility lies in the outcome.

Conflict of Values

Conflict of Values is typical of political debates on social issues. Parties involved have incompatible values and cannot agree on a common solution without going against their own ones. On organizational level might occur when a new strategy is under discussion or when employees require the company to be more socially committed.

Goal Conflict

This category refers to incompatibility of end-states of two social entities. Differently from Substantive Conflict, that refers to divergence of strategies to reach a common goal, in this scenario parties involved understand that they disagree on "where to go" when pursuing a common program.

Realistic & Non-Realistic Conflict

Also referred to as Real and Induced Conflicts. The first refer to every disagreement related to rational content as tasks goals, values and means. The latter to irrational behavior of at least one of the parties, such as tension relief and expression of hostility. It is important to understand that with "irrational" it is not meant to say "without a reason". In fact, for example, one party might feel the only underpaid employee for the same job and actively seek for contrast.

Institutionalized vs Non-Institutionalized Conflict

This category refers to conflicts that might start due to unusual behavior of one of the party involved. "[...] actors follow explicit rules, and display predictable behavior, and their relationship has continuity". This set of three rules is defined to understand whether the conflict falls in one category or the other. One example might be the difference between a regulated employees strike and the occupation of one productivity plant during a workforce-management negotiation.

Retributive Conflict

It defines a conflict where one or both the parties involved only goal is to punish the other. The gain is measured on the basis of the cost for the other. On world scale, is the same situation of wars that continue over several years. On organizational level, mobbing is one example.

Misattributed Conflict

It refers to conflicts started because of the wrong attribution of causes (e.g errors or irresponsible behaviors) to one of the actors. One team addressing its leader responsible for cuts in the budget while it was a decision taken by the board is an example.

Displaced Conflict

Situation in which parties direct their frustrations to a third party not involved in the conflict. In the same way they can also express hostility by not addressing the real cause of the issue.

Conclusions

In this article, an analysis of the literature regarding the sources of conflict in organizational environments has been carried out. The aim of this study was to provide the reader with relevant insights to allow them to easily recognize a conflict situation and address it quickly and effectively. This type of information does not provide a solution itself, like a managing tool would have done, but surely helps a conflict manager practitioner to move nimbly through theoretical concepts. Moreover, the reader can recognize himself not only as an external practitioner who has the goal to guide people through conflicts, but also as a party in a conflict himself. All the insights that can be learned here, can help improve the reasoning behind the igniting causes of a conflict.

Limitations

Despite the purpose of studying in-depth all the relevant literature on the topic, is obviously impossible, within the time constraint, to gather all the necessary knowledge and report a real state-of-the-art compendium of conflict management. This is an invitation for the reader to explore further the most relevant and exciting references provided by the cited authors.

It is also important to state that the knowledge in the source of conflicts itself is not enough to be able to manage effectively conflicts in real life scenario. This article should be accompanied with conflict management tools, such as TKI - Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, and psychology insights. In fact, we as individuals, in our social interaction, are responsible for ourselves and the damage we may cause to others with words and opinions; having a high degree of Self-Awareness can improve our comprehension of ourself and how to behave with others by avoiding useless hostility. Moreover, other techniques and best practices, such as active listening, can help the conflict management practitioner to better guide through conflict and avoid violent escalation.

Annotated bibliography

Managing Conflict in Organizations, Rahim M.A., 2011. It is one of the most complete contribution on theories and concepts of conflict management. It helped me to gain most of the knowledge that is contained in this article. It also provided me a multitude of other contributions to explore, since most of the content is basically a compendium of all the knowledge present in the literature.

Toward a theory of managing organizational conflict, Rahim M.A., 2002. It is a publication extracted from the International Journal of Conflict Management. It has been a useful guide as it provides a general knowledge of Conflict Management. It also helped me through the ideation of the article Structure.

Conceptions of Conflict in Organizational Conflict Research: Toward Critical Reflexivity, Mikkelsen E., et al., 2017. It is a recent publication that summarizes the vast majority of the relevant scientific literature regarding organizational approach to conflict. It provides three useful perspective in temporal order that, despite the evolution of critical thinking, are still valuable and adoptable in given circumstances.

Organizational Conflicts Perceived by Marketing Executives, Ikeda A.A., et al., 2005 This paper is a short excerpt from the "Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies". Even if it represents a study for marketing purpose, it very briefly offers an overview of the literature related to the main sources of conflict. It has been useful to generate a list of sources related to the period when they became relevant.

References

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