Sources of Conflict: Guidelines for a Healthy Organizational Environment

Abstract

Conflicts and controversies are part of our daily life. It might happen that we end up being passive actors in a discussion, or we might be the active root cause of someone's bad day. 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 conflicts in organizations. 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, and the perspectives to encourage a resolution. The body of the article will discuss a detailed list of sources of conflict through the eye of both the employee and the manager. It will then continue by presenting different available tools and activities that allow the management to control and extract a competitive advantage from conflicts. The key role played by Emotional Intelligence and, in particular, Self-Awareness will be highlighted and discussed, with specific regard to its ability to prevent disagreement between individuals to quickly escalate into dangerous conflicts for the company. The final objective is to create a set of actionable best practices to guide future leaders and practitioners into 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 Entity

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, since ancient greek philosophers to nowadays, is full of attempt 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:

• 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.

Interactions

type of interactions (man-v-man; man-v-group; man-v-environment)

Conflict Dimensions

1st dimension: latent/explicit (from living it passively inside to externalizing violently)

2nd dimension: severity ladder (from disagreement to hostility)

Perspectives

Literature analysis for approaches to conflict three approaches:

1st --> Conflict as something to avoid because disruptive. (How to avoid?)

2nd --> Conflict as something that need to be managed. (How to control?)

3rd --> Conflict as something to be studied and understood (How to acknowledge and learn from mistakes?)

Sources of conflict

State of the art Theories on the sources of conflict from literature. List and description of each source of conflict. [how the source is the described by definitions and dimensions; which values, needs, emotions involves; what's the best perspective to keep for resolution]

Annotated bibliography

Toward a theory of managing organizational conflict, Rahim M.A., 2002.

Conceptions of Conflict in Organizational Conflict Research: Toward Critical Reflexivity, Mikkelsen E., et al., 2017.