Organizational Conflict at Your Workplace

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Defining Conflict

What is Conflict?

How do you know when you are in conflict? Typically, people perceive they are in conflict when they experience anger or frustration or when they want one thing and their interactional partners want another. However, scholars describe conflict in another way:

Conflict occurs when interdependent parties perceive they have incompatible interests related to the distribution of limited resources and goal attainment (Cox, 2014; Mortenson, 1974).

What exactly does this description mean? Let’s look at each of the components of this description closely.

Interdependence

Parties are interdependent when they must rely upon each other in some way to achieve their goals or fulfill their interests (Hill, Chênevert, & Poitras, 2015). For example, if you share an office with someone at work, the two of you must rely on each other to create an environment that you both find comfortable. Interdependent parties are affected by each other, though they may often wish they were not. This interdependence can set the stage for conflict (Cox, 2014; Hill et al., 2015).

Interests

Interests refer to your goals, needs, desires, values, and beliefs (Simons, 1974; Ting-Toomey, 1985). For example, if the teacher wants a student to turn in a paper on time while the student wants an extension, the two would experience a conflict in goals. A beliefs conflict is when you argue with a political adversary over the value of tax cuts for the wealthy. An example of conflicts over desires is when you disagree with an airline attendant regarding your need to board a plane after the doors have closed. Conflicts arise when you perceive that your interests and the interests of other parties with whom you are interdependent are not compatible.

Incompatibilities

Incompatibilities refer to communicators’ beliefs that their interests (goals, values, needs, desires, and beliefs) are mutually exclusive or in opposition to one another (Guinot, Chiva, & Mallén, 2015). The word “beliefs” is stressed because conflict arises when people perceive that their goals are incompatible with someone else’s, even if they are not. For example, coworkers often believe that their bosses have favorites or “pets,” and may clash with their colleagues while attempting to achieve this preferred status. They may believe this even if their bosses do not prefer one employee over another.

Alternatively, you may believe that you and your colleague both want the same promotion and later discover that your coworker wasn’t interested at all. On the other hand, you and your conflict partner may have legitimate incompatibilities regarding your goals. Whether you have actual or simply perceived incompatibilities, conflict is likely to result.

Limited Resources/Goal Achievement

Limited resources describe the reality, or perception, that sufficient resources do not exist for all parties to achieve their goals or fulfill their interests (Cox, 2014; Mortensen, 1974). For instance, if you are on the personnel benefits selection committee for your organization, you and the other members will have to choose from the array of benefits available to offer employees. If committee members disagree on those choices, conflict is inevitable. Of course, sometimes people have conflict over a resource that is not truly limited but is perceived to be so.

Interdependent people experience conflict when they believe another party prevents them from gaining access to desired, but limited, resources. Remember that these resources can be concrete things, such as money, jobs, and relationships, but they also can be more abstract concepts such as respect, affection, and power.

References:

Cox, K. B. (2014). The new intragroup conflict scale: Testing and psychometric properties. Journal of Nursing Measurement, 22(1), 59–76.

Guinot, J., Chiva, R., & Mallén, F. (2015). The effects of altruism and relationship conflict on organizational learning. International Journal of Conflict Management, 26(1), 112–185.

Hill, K., Chênevert, D., & Poitras, J. (2015). Changes in relationship conflict as a mediator of the longitudinal relationship between changes in role ambiguity and turnover intentions. International Journal of Conflict Management, 26(1), 67–44.

Mortenson, C. D. (1974). A transactional paradigm of social conflict. In G. R.Miller & H. W. Simons (Eds.), Perspectives on communication in social conflict (pp. 90–124). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Simons, H. (1974). Prologue. In G. R. Miller & H. W. Simons(Eds.), Perspectives on communication in social conflict (pp.1–13). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ting-Toomey, S. (1985). Toward a theory of conflict and culture. In W. B.Gudykunst, L. P. Stewart & S. Ting-Toomey (Eds.), Communication,culture and organizational processes (pp. 71–86). Beverly Hills,CA: Sage.