83. Conflict in Organizations

War, the state of (usually open and declared) armed, hostile conflict between communities, has been conducted by most societies since at least the Bronze Age—that is, from about 4,000–3,000 BC.¹ Its perdurance suggests adaptive attributes; might it serve some deeper level of rationality?

Ethnographic literature on war is sparse but demonstrates that contention is a cultural phenomenon, that is to say, institutionalized behavior framed by consensus. The justification is that actual or potential warfare promotes solidarity among social groups, consolidating relationship by polarizing differences. By means of contest, the subjugated are made to assimilate; for this reason, ceteris paribus, social groups have enlarged steadily over the course of history.² Another—probably complementary—perspective argues that war is a product of natural human belligerence as individuals and groups struggle to maximize benefits.³ (The fact that warfare has also stimulated technological progress⁴ cannot be considered a driver of war even if men—and women, albeit to a lesser degree—seem enamored with new tools, methods, and approaches.) In modern times, ancient hatreds, identity politics, manipulative elites, political and economic systems, and contention for power have, singly or in combination, fuelled violence and fed from it.⁵

A reading of Donkin’s (2010) History of Work intimates it may be a short step from the field of battle to that of organizations. Situations of feud and acts of negative reciprocity in the corporate world, if thankfully bloodless, are an obdurate truth: everywhere, there is much talk of “winning,” as if the term had ageless definition. Surely, however, what it means to win should be seen as culturally and socially situated. In general, instead of prevailing over another party, one might more beneficially recognize and promote consciousness of a shared concern and common interests in facing it.

Paraphrasing John Rambo, if war is normal and peace an accident, one could at least expect collaboration within organizations.⁶ Yet, even there, particularly in public and illegitimate organizations, the quasi-resolution of conflicts is the norm (Cyert and March 1963).

Cohen et al. (1972) have developed an influential, agent-based representation of organizational decision-making processes. They submit that organizations are—at least in part and part of the time—distinguished by three general properties: (i) problematic preferences, (ii) unclear technology, and (iii) fluid participation. Citing, “Although organizations can often be viewed conveniently as vehicles for solving well-defined problems or structures within which conflict is resolved through bargaining, they also provide sets of procedures through which participants arrive at an interpretation of what they are doing and what they have done while in the process of doing it. From this point of view, an organization is a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work.” Decision opportunities characterized by problematic preferences, unclear technology, and fluid participation, viz., ambiguous stimuli, generate three possible outcomes, each driven by the energy it requires within the confines of organizational structure.⁷ These outcomes, whose meaning changes over time, are resolution, oversight, and flight.⁸ Significantly, resolution of problems as a style for making decisions is not the most common; in its place, decision-making by flight or oversight is the feature. Is it any wonder then that the relatively complicated intermeshing of elements does not enable organizations to resolve problems as often as their mandates demand?

A major feature of the Garbage Can Model is the partial uncoupling of problems and choices. Decision-making is usually thought of as a process for solving the former but that is often not what happens. Quoting further from Michael Cohen, James March, and Johan Olsen, “Problems are worked upon in the context of some choice, but choices are made only when the shifting combinations of problems, solutions, and decision makers happen to make action possible. Quite commonly this is after problems have left a given choice arena or before they have discovered it (decisions by flight or oversight).” One device for quasi-resolution of conflicts is local rationality; since each division or department within an organization only deals with a narrow range of problems, each can at least pretend to be rational in addressing local concerns. (Of course, as a general rule, local rationalities are mutually inconsistent and so will not build synergy. The metaphor of organizational silos begs no explanation.) A second device is acceptable-level decision rules; where they are met, the level of consistency between one decision and another is low enough for the divergence to be tolerable. A third is sequential attention to goals; this allows consideration to be given first to one goal and then to another. Obviously, surface, latent, or open conflicts run through all organizational choices even if satisficing exists to maintain them at levels that are not unacceptably detrimental. Concluding, contemporary views of conflict think it endemic, inevitable, and often legitimate.

Heterogeneity in values and ideas is a profound reality that organizations (and societies at large, as we saw) have to deal with; it can—and usually does—breed conflict, that is, an interactive process or state in which the interests of individuals or groups in an organization appear divergent or incompatible,⁹ often resulting in overt or covert attempts to block or thwart the other party’s attempts to satisfy these for preferred outcomes.¹⁰ In addition to miscommunication, large bones of contention are freedom, goals, positions, rewards and recognition, resources, and task interdependences.¹¹ (Low formalization of rules and regulations may also exacerbate jurisdictional misunderstanding.) Conflict is also an inevitable part of dynamic growth (or decline) (Fig. 83.1).

“A strange justice that is bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side,” Blaise Pascal reflected. One school of thought holds that effective management should conduce such a healthy environment that conflicts do not arise; a larger body of opinion believes that conflict must be, reluctantly, accepted as a fact of life but that it should be avoided and suppressed rather than understood and cured¹²; a third group of advocates, often encamped in the private sector, argues that not letting the lions in can actually be ruinous because conflict engages—it leads to deeper understanding, more comprehensive choice, and better contingency planning. For sure, if faced well, conflict can lead to positive change; unresolved, it can take on a life of its own and become the center of all thought and action—it might then hurt people, ruin reputations, inhibit relationships, and fragment organizations causing a downward spiral in organizational health.¹³

In short, organizational conflict can be (i) intrapersonal,¹⁴ (ii) interpersonal, (iii) intragroup, and (iv) intergroup.¹⁵ The strategies for managing the last three structural types, each revealing different levels of concern for self and others are (i) integrating—resolving problems to reach an effective solution acceptable to all disputants; (ii) obliging—satisfying the concerns of the other party to preserve a relationship and perhaps obtain something in exchange; (iii) dominating—achieving a win–lose resolution that is in the best interest of one group and at the expense of the other; (iv) avoiding—sidestepping situations; and (v) compromising—seeking a resolution that satisfies at least part of each party’s demands.¹⁶ Interest-based relational approaches to integrating urge protagonists to make mutual respect and good relationships the first priority, keep people and problems separate, listen very carefully (before talking) to the grievances presented, set out what verifiable specifics give reasons for the conflict, and explore options together. To note, most diagnoses and treatments of organizational conflict ignore the issue of authority to settle, meaning, the obligation of parties to report to or obtain consent from supervisors who were not involved in discussions or may not be familiar with the dilemmas.¹⁷ (This is a widespread difficulty in hierarchical organizations where attempts at resolution, oversight, or even flight can necessitate approval by several echelons.) What is more, most aim to resolve or manage organizational conflict through technocratic approaches that pay little heed to learning—always necessary to enhance individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

Approaches that reduce complexity make sense in low-context situations¹⁸ but do not in the sphere of multiple, interacting phenomena. The social context of conflicts is evolutionary, meaning that causes and effects are not always directly linked, proportionate, or predictable: complex adaptive systems such as conflicts are better understood through requisite variety—this means having at least as much complexity as the issue being discussed.

Basic concepts of complexity science—the study of dynamic relationships in complex adaptive systems rather than the isolated properties of their agents—have entered everyday language. (Foremost among them is the notion of emergence, which connotes unpredictability. Others include connectivity, interdependency, nonlinearity, sensitivity to initial conditions, feedback processes, bifurcation, phase space, chaos and edge of chaos, adaptive agents, self-organization, and co-evolution.)

Applied to organizations, now perhaps best described as collectives of human activity, complexity thinking puts a damper on naive hopes of an ordered and controllable existence. Instead, it helps explain change through learning, adaptation, and evolution, often by means of competition and cooperation and usually in the interest of survival. It does so by acknowledging that people are intelligent, dynamic, self-organizing, and emergent beings who are capable of discerning thoughtfulness and innovative reactions to conflict. Indeed, when cause-and-effect relationships between people, experiences, and contexts can only be perceived in retrospect, not in advance through deliberate strategy, the wiser approach is to probe, sense, and respond rather than be deceived by the empty promise of command and control. Reinterpreted as pattern fluctuation—not breakdown, noise, or error—conflict should more usefully be seen as the product of perpetual surprise, itself generated by ongoing nonlinear interactions. Andrade et al. (2008)¹⁹ propose that mindfulness,²⁰ improvisation, and reconfiguration—no small order, if trust is added—will then help fructify that for organizational growth and renewal.