PUTTING OUT FIRES HOW COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE CONFLICT RESOLUTION

PUTTING OUT FIRES: HOW COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS

UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Chapter 1: Introduction

“Putting out fires.” One of my participants used this metaphor to describe

what she did every day as a communication professional. Her metaphor expressed

not only unrelenting problem solving, but—as I understood her narrative—intense

job demands that burned with conflict. This research study began by exploring one

activity that has been claimed for public relations professionals—the role of

negotiator. It expanded into a broader study of how public relations/communication

practitioners understand conflict and what roles in managing organizational conflict

these professionals can legitimately claim.

Statement of the Problem

The exact roles public relations practitioners should enact within organizations

continue to be hotly debated in the discipline (Botan & Hazelton, 2006; Holtzhausen,

2007; Neil & Drumwright, 2012). Goffman (1959) defined a role, including a job or

profession, as the rights and duties that are attached to a given social status. Scholars

of public relations widely agree that practitioners manage communication to achieve

mutually beneficial relationships with organizational stakeholders (Cutlip, Center, &

Broome, 1985; Heath (2001). Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, and Toth (2007) added

leadership to the management and relationshipbuilding roles. In sum, the public

relations discipline claims communication management, relationship management,

and leadership in communication as primary organizational roles.

I proposed to study negotiation because that role has not achieved primary

status in our profession. Researchers first systematically claimed the negotiation role

for public relations in 1985 (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995). Since then, very little

evidence has surfaced that public relations practitioners routinely negotiate for their

organizations or groups. Research studies claim negotiation as a public relations

activity, often without definition or empirical evidence (Curtin & Gaither, 2007;

Plowman, 1998, 2007). Vasquez (1996) called for further categorization of that role

in our discipline, starting with distinctions between formal and informal negotiation

—a distinction also proposed by Gelfand and McCusker (2002). Still, little work has

been done on exactly how the negotiation role actually functions in our profession.

Moreover, we do not have a snapshot of what levels of conflict practitioners face in

their everyday work.

Arguments for conflict management as a public relations role. Three areas

of research provide theoretical support for conflict management as a wide-spread role

for communication professionals: crisis communication, strategic communication,

and public relations activism. Public relations practitioners play a visible role when

organizations experience negative public scrutiny (Coombs, 2006; Johansen,

Aggerholm, & Frandsen, 2012; Palenchar, 2007; Veil , Buehner, & Palenchar, 2011).

These crises often require negotiation with publics and stakeholders—a

communication activity that Pruitt (2001) perceived to be growing out of a broader

conflict situation.

Second, strategic communication has been claimed as a public relations role

requiring managerial and decision-making power that generates conflict (Grunig &

Repper, 1992; Neale, Tenbrunsel, Galvin, & Bazerman, 2006). One conflict

management role identified by Hallahan et al. (2007) includes actively changing

organizational culture and values. Further, because digital communication and social

networking sites have taken a prominent place in both strategic and crisis

communication activities, Kazoleas and Teigen (2006) contended that conflict was

integral to electronic media use while other researchers have investigated how to

manage conflict in those media (Briones, Kuch, Liu, & Jin, 2011; Olaniran, 2010).

Finally, negotiation of meaning to achieve organizational consensus has been

claimed as a public relations role by activist scholars (Cammaerts, 2008; Smith &

Ferguson, 2001; Zoch, Collins, Sisco, & Supa, 2008). These communication efforts

often require transforming employee attitudes and emotions until a mutual

understanding of the goals of an organization and its motives has been reached

(Jameson, Bodtker, Porch, & Jordon, 2009). Taken together, research and theory on

crisis communication, strategic communication, and activist public relations give

credence to the claim that conflict management is a vital public relations role.

Goals of the Research Study

This study has two goals: one academic and one in practice. First, our

discipline needs evidence to fill in research gaps about how practitioners engage in

negotiation, what that negotiation entails, and what understandings of negotiation or

other conflict management roles apply in public relations practice. Second, I hope

the participants’ insights and recommendations can reach a wide audience of

communication professionals, add to their understanding of practice, and perhaps

improve their work lives.

To those ends, this exploratory study has the following goals:

•To investigate assumptions and claims that public relations

activities involve or should involve conflict resolution,

including overt negotiation.

•To increase our knowledge of how public relations/communication

practitioners understand conflict, its management, its

processes, and its causes within their profession.

•To document how public relations/communication practitioners

describe conflict resolution activities they experience in

their everyday work, including those involving digital

channels.

•To explore whether conflict management and negotiation are

major roles in public relations practice that could be usefully

added to the accepted roles of strategic communication and

relationship management.

Rationale: These goals were best achieved through a qualitative research

study involving 31 public relations/communication professionals with five or more

years of experience who could describe and illuminate their experiences with

circumstances of conflict. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) defined qualitative research as

a way to “study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or

interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (p. 1).

Qualitative data collection included triangulation of in-depth interview transcripts,

critical incident narratives, printed materials, and website information (Charmaz,

2006). Data analysis followed a qualitative research method designed to generate

constructs and “build theory from data” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 1). In order to

eliminate leading questions about negotiation as a role, interview questions did not

use the term negotiation, but allowed participants to find their own language in

describing conflict.

Research questions. The following research questions guided my inquiry.

They were designed to gather rich descriptive data from the participants and to insure

depth in my analysis of their understandings of conflicts within their professional

lives (Creswell, 2007; Miles et al, 2014). Although the language of these questions

was refined based on reiterative data analysis and reduction, the questions cover the

research areas approved by my dissertation committee in the proposal I submitted—

including digital communication.

RQ1: How do public relations/communication practitioners with at least 5

years of experience describe their job activities and roles in the context of conflict

management?

RQ2: How do public relations/communication professionals understand

conflict management and negotiation as roles in their practice?

RQ3: How do public relations/communication practitioners understand their

use of digital and social media in roles that involve conflict management or

negotiation?

RQ4: How do communication practitioners understand conflict processes and apply

conflict resolution techniques in critical incidents they have experienced in the

workplace?

Sub-questions and probes explored many factors in conflict, conflict

processes, and conflict management, as well as contributing variables, including

external and internal audiences, use of communication channels in conflict, personal

skills in conflict management, and training in conflict resolution.

Voices and standpoint. Voice is “the overall tone, mode, and orientation of

the report” (Miles et al., 2014). Wolcott (2001) argued that the voice and standpoint

are interchangeable terms. These concepts describe the researcher’s authorial choices

that, in turn, reveal what role she takes in reporting the data—omniscient narrator,

interviewer, or storyteller (Tierney, 1997).

Several goals of the study—comparing the roles of practitioners with

assumptions in communications research and developing a grounded theory model—

led me to structure the report using the traditional formal sections in research articles.

Throughout the data analysis and writing of the results, I viewed myself in the

struggling-to-be-objective interviewer role—a standpoint that required me to

reflexively deal with my bias in order to give authentic voices to my participants.

Because of my close involvement with practitioners in my role as practicum

supervisor in a professional graduate school of communication and my work as a

member of the Public Relations Society of America, I viewed my interviewees as

coresearchers and myself as a co-participant.

Extensive quotations in the Results section allowed the individual voices of

my participants to be heard above the formal tone of an academic writer that my own

voice often took in this document. To allow the voices of my participants to speak to

the reader directly without compromising their confidentiality, I created a fictional

first name for each participant and used that name consistently. By identifying

interviewees by (fictitious) first names and quoting liberally, I hoped to give each

participant the distinct personality and voice that I experienced.

Overview of the Dissertation

Chapters in the dissertation have three major goals: 1) to review past and

current research on negotiation and conflict management from a variety of social

science disciplines and applied fields; 2) to establish qualitative research and

grounded theory method as effective strategies for producing credible, reliable, and

valid answers to the research questions; and 3) to generate results that satisfy

standards for “rich, thick description” and faithful interpretation of the participants’

meanings during data reduction.

To meet these goals, the Literature Review (Chapter 2) covers factors in

conflict and negotiation across social science disciplines and summarizes public

relations theories and studies in negotiation. It also explores recent Internet and

software developments in negotiation, as well as current research in conflict

resolution and transformation. The Method section (Chapter 3) explains grounded

theory procedures of data collection, data analysis, and strategies to reduce bias and

insure reliability and validity. Objections to these procedures and to qualitative

methods in general are addressed. The Results section (Chapter 4) liberally quotes

from participant transcripts to substantiate themes, categories, and factors emerging

from the data.

The Discussion section (Chapter 5) reviews the 13 major themes and factors

that emerged from data analysis. It weaves those factors into a model for

transformation of conflict as a role for public relations practitioners. This model rests

on participants’ perceptions of audience conflict, conflict avoidance, conflict

processes, and training needs.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The literature review should “make the case that a study is important” (Jones

& Kottler, 2006, p. 26). Hofstee (2006) claimed it must establish originality, defined

as significance or value. More precisely, the literature review should establish a

research gap; that is, it should separate what researchers have done from what needs

to be accomplished (Randolph, 2009).

One choice facing qualitative researchers is whether to conduct a literature

review before or after the research design is planned and carried out (Charmaz,

2006). This study required a literature review in the proposal stage, so delaying the

review was not an option even though scholars using similar perspectives argue that

bias can arise from immersion in past research. Some phenomenologists (Georgi,

1985; Jones,

2005; Moustakas, 1994; Sanders, 1982) and grounded theorists (Gibson & Hartman,

2014; Goulding, 2005; Wolcott, 1994) dispute the value of literature reviews,

especially those conducted before the start of a qualitative study. Glaser and Strauss

(1967) argued that literature reviews predispose researchers “to see [their] data

through the lens of earlier ideas, often known as ‘received theory’ ” (Charmaz, 2006,

p. 165). If you delay writing the literature review until after data analysis, the

argument goes, your results may be less contaminated by bias from preconceived

ideas.

Other qualitative researchers (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003) counter that no

researcher can ignore her prior learning and experience, but she can take a highly

critical stance toward prior research and use bracketing activities to reduce bias. I

followed this advice. Memos and bracketing activities were applied to prevent past

research findings in this review from influencing the results (Miles et al., 2014). In

addition to using bias prevention strategies, I found that my literature review required

updating twice after its original version. After completing the data analysis, I needed

to include studies on themes developed by participants that had not been covered,

such as team cooperation (Gallicano, 2013; Van Lange, Joireman, Parks, & Van Dijk,

2013). During the Discussion analysis, I added current research on organization-wide

factors in conflict resolution that illuminated the macro implications of my findings

(Gelfand, Leslie, Keller, & deDrieu, 2012; Tekleab & Quigley, 2014; Verčič, Verčič,

& Sriramesh, 2012).

As recommended by Randolph (2009), this literature review examines a

research gap between theory about negotiation in communication practice (Grunig &

Grunig, 1992) and studies showing solid evidence that the negotiation role is actually

part of practitioners’ work life (Vasquez, 1996). To document this research gap, the

selected literature review articles aim to fairly represent the topic of

negotiation/conflict resolution in communication practice and examine both “research

outcomes” and “practices or applications” (Randolph, 2009, p. 2).

Specifically, this review of literature explores definitions of key terms,

provides historical background that places the study in context of conflict

management, and documents that the research questions have value in the

communication discipline (Hofstee, 2006). It summarizes public relations scholarship

on negotiation, intercultural factors within that research, and negotiation theories

from other disciplines that have informed our discipline. The literature review

identifies gaps in public relations research on negotiation, including lack of empirical

studies in the field, failure to distinguish formal from informal negotiation, and the

need for a true process model. Research and theory from other social science

disciplines provide additional perspectives on negotiation and conflict resolution.

Moreover, recent developments in discourse analysis and electronic or automatic

negotiation may push negotiation into a more central place in public relations.

Defining Negotiation

Negotiation is an activity that falls within the broader category of conflict

management in organizations where communication practitioners work and in public

relations roles that involve resolving conflict with stakeholders (Hargie & Tourish,

2009b; Montes et al., 2012; Posthuma, 2012; Rahim, 2011; Verčič et al., 2012).

Conflict has been defined as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive

opposition of goals, aims, and values, and who see the other party as potentially

interfering with the realization of these goals” (Putnam & Poole, 1987, p. 552).

Conflict has been widely viewed as an inevitable part of organizations (Gelfand et al.,

2012). Consequently, conflict has to be managed and styles of conflict management

have been studied both in personal life and in the workplace (Rahim, 2011).

Paraphrasing Thomas (1976), Montes, Rodriguez, & Serrano, (2012) defined conflict

management styles “as a general and consistent orientation toward the other party and

the conflict issues” (p. 7). Within this study, negotiation finds its place as an activity

within the communication/public relations workplace and its demands for conflict

management and resolution.

Definitions of negotiation can be so broad they apply to any situation where

two or more people are communicating. Gelfand & McCusker (2002) defined

negotiation as “a communication exchange . . . [or] a pervasive form of social

interaction that is conducted frequently in formal arenas, such as international

relations, and manager-subordinate relations, as well as informal arenas, such as

interpersonal relations and marital decision-making” (p. 292). This broad definition

involving social interaction raises questions about what public relations scholarship

means by negotiation. The Encyclopedia of Public Relations (Heath, 2012) has no

entry for negotiation. We find only brief comments on multi-party negotiations under

conflict resolution (Plowman, 2005), and negotiation is implied within collaborative

decision-making (McComas & Derville, 2005). Distinctions between conflicts

involving issues and conflicts involving meaning, or between problem solving and

negotiation, are often blurred. The following questions are frequently ignored: what

are the differences between formal and informal negotiations (Ury, 1993)? between

the goals of conflict resolution and meaning-making (Wilson & Putnam, 1990)? and

between negotiation and relationship building (Christen, 2004; Vasquez, 1996)?

Let's begin with the distinction between formal and informal negotiations—a

difference that is often ignored in public relations research (Vasquez, 1996). One

useful perspective distinguishes between conflicts of interest and conflicts of

viewpoint. Kuula and Stam (2008) compared negotiation in the two types of conflict

by using the adjectives distributive and integrative:

. . . negotiation includes resolving both conflicts of interest between

conflicting parties (i.e., ‘hard,’ ‘distributive,’ or ‘win-lose’

negotiations) and conflicts of viewpoint between essentially friendly

parties (i.e., ‘soft,’ ‘integrative,’ or ‘win-win’ negotiations)” (p. 719).

The difference between distributive and integrative negotiations has been fully

developed in scholarship on formal negotiations. Lewicki, Saunders, Barry, and

Minton (2004) listed these characteristics of a formal or distributive negotiation:

1. Individuals, groups, or organizations can negotiate.

2. The parties perceive that their goals and interests are in conflict (p. 4). 3.

Parties voluntarily enter into the negotiation because they hope to

gain something that would be hard to get otherwise.

4. Negotiation allows parties to avoid a solution imposed by a powerful entity

such as a court or regulatory agency.

5. Parties have to give and take in a negotiation and be willing to

compromise.

6. Parties often want tangible results from a negotiation, but intangible

interests are also in play (e.g., saving face and maintaining

relationships).

The formal negotiation framework assumes that parties want a concrete

agreement at the end of the negotiation that will redistribute tangible and intangible

resources in order to reduce conflict (Lax & Sibenius, 2006). Social science

perspectives on negotiation widely accept the premise that resource allocation should

benefit all parties (i.e., a win-win agreement) and not only the most powerful party

(i.e., a win-lose agreement) (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011). Sycara (1991) explained

that each party wants to achieve its aspirations in a settlement, not just tangible

resources. At the same time, they accept constraints on their power. J. Grunig (1992)

placed public relations squarely in this tradition by defining the negotiation process as

collaboration (p. 316).

Informal negotiations operate outside a formal framework and without

potential interventions by outside parties. Gelfand and McCusker (2003), who

identify themselves as communication scholars, posited five elements at the core of

all negotiations: “(1) the parties have, or perceive they have, a conflict of interests;

(2) parties are engaged in communication; (3) compromises are possible; (4) parties

can make provisional offers and counter-offers to each other; (5) parties are

temporarily joined together voluntarily, and their outcomes are determined jointly”

(p. 293). This shifts the frame of negotiation to elements such as perceptions and

offers that may be temporary and that highlight communication.

Among public relations scholars, Vasquez (1996) most forcefully issued a call

to study negotiation as an element in everyday social interactions, rather than as a

feature of formal conflict resolution. This scholar rated negotiation theories in public

relations as underdeveloped; Vasquez (1996) turned to the social interaction

perspective to uncover conflict resolution dimensions that were missing from the

excellence paradigm. Putnam and Roloff (1992) defined social interaction as

communication that is directed toward understanding symbols and creating meaning

both verbally and nonverbally. In contrast, formal negotiation has one concrete goal:

bargaining to achieve agreement.

Public relations scholars widely accept the value of mutually beneficial

outcomes in conflict resolution, as well as the use of integrative bargaining to

achieve self-interested outcomes. Katz and Pattarini (2008) labeled integrative

bargaining as an essential tool for public relations counselors. They define this

process as "identifying and prioritizing interests, developing options that might meet

those interests, agreeing on fair standards for evaluating options, and exploring both

alternatives and proposals to a negotiated agreement" (p. 88). Their article serves as a

guidebook to the principles and techniques of integrated negotiation that practitioners

can use to build relationships and establish trust with stakeholders. The most

important concept in integrative bargaining is the shift from asserting one party's

position on issues to exploring shared interests with the other negotiators. Integrative

bargaining scholarship underscores an essential divide in social science thinking

about negotiation. The difference involves formal theory-testing versus model-

building without replication. Kraus (2001) isolated this distinction by creating two

categories: (1) the formal theory of bargaining based on gametheoretical approaches

that is tested through experiments and simulations and (2) the informal theory of

negotiation guides—an approach that develops beneficial strategies for a negotiator

to use in specific situations. The standards of validity and reliability are different in

each approach. The majority of social science studies on negotiation use game-

theoretical approaches investigated through statistical analysis (Buelens, Van de

Woestyne, Mestdagh, & Bouckenooghe, 2008). The most famous negotiation guides

have been produced by scholars in the Harvard Negotiation Project whose

conclusions emerged from business and law case studies (Fisher et al., 2011; Lax &

Sibenius, 2006; Malhotra & Bazerman, 2007; Ury, 2007). Game theory and

negotiation guides based on case study experience have cross-fertilized, so we can

find statistical analyses based on concepts from negotiation guides (Donohue &

Roberto, 1996; Taylor & Thomas, 2008).

In public relations, studies on negotiation often sort into the same dichotomy

of game-theory versus negotiation-guide perspectives. These categories become

useful when we judge how to apply the conclusions of research studies. Game

theoretical approaches often surface in public relations studies that assume

organizations are rational entities operating in an uncertain environment (Okura,

Dozier, Sha, & Hofstetter, 2009). Public relations research favors the negotiation

guides approach because it offers pragmatic and often successful strategies that

negotiators can use to resolve conflict (Plowman, 1995).

Public Relations Perspectives on Negotiation

Over the last thirty years, public relations scholars have followed the lead of

other social scientists by studying negotiation as an activity of individuals in overt

conflict settings. One crucial theory—Pruitt and Kim’s (2004) model of conflict

styles—posited "the strength of two independent individual difference variables:

selfconcern and other-concern" (p. 42). Self-concern reflects how much an individual

values his or her own interests in conflict situations; other-concern reflects how much

genuine importance someone places on what happens to others during conflict. This

difference is at the heart of Pruitt's (1981) dual concern model. In general, individuals

moderate their self-concern because they cannot get what they want unless they help

or show concern for others.

Pruitt (1981, 2001) labeled this strategy of moderating self-interest as

instrumental or strategic and formulated a typology of negotiation strategies that

included various combinations of self-concern and other-concern. Contending

describes strategies based on pure self concern; yielding occurs when the other party's

interests take precedence; problem solving strategies are applied when a party asserts

both self-concern and other-concern; avoiding strategies surface when a party has

little self-concern or other-concern; and compromising involves trying to find a

middle ground even if an equitable split does not satisfy either party (Pruitt & Kim,

2004, pp. 40-41).

Perspectives on conflict from the excellence model. Various elements of the

dual-concern model, particularly its strategic categories, have been folded into public

relations theory and practice (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995; Plowman, Briggs, &

Huang, 2001; Vasquez, 1996). In one of the few substantive models of negotiation in

public relations—the conflict resolution model of public relations—Plowman (2007)

has adapted the strategies and framework of public relations negotiation to new

developments in the excellence model. We have already cited Grunig and Grunig's

(1992) definition of "collaboration as the process of negotiation" in the context of

public relations. Subsequently, Plowman (1995) emphasized collaboration in

negotiation by linking individual conflict strategies to the four communication

models created by Grunig and Hunt (1984) as well as to the situational theory of

publics (Grunig & Repper, 1992). In other words, conflict strategies were linked to

achieving negotiation outcomes that both the organization and its stakeholders

viewed as winwin.

In a simulated study involving Walgreen's goal to establish a mail order drug

business, Plowman (1995) adapted five individual conflict strategies—contending,

cooperating, avoiding, accommodating, and compromising—to two-way symmetrical

communication between an organization and its publics (p. 95). For example, a

contending strategy relies on one-way communication that is essentially

asymmetrical and non-collaborative. In 1995, Plowman also added two negotiation

tactics called the unconditionally constructive tactic and the win/win or no deal

tactic. The unconditionally constructive tactic added the element of altruism to an

organizational strategy. When using this tactic, organizations must keep the interests

of the contending parties in mind even if some stakeholders violate trust or other

standards. Win/win or no deal requires that every party benefits; otherwise, no

agreement can be reached. These tactics allow negotiators to handle stalemates and

other problems that block collaboration in the negotiation process. Plowman (1995)

placed these seven strategies on a simple continuum from symmetrical, or

collaborative practices, to asymmetrical or contending practices.

When the excellence model developed the new paradigm of symmetry in

twoway practice (Grunig, 2001), Plowman (2007) expanded the seven negotiation

strategies to include the mixed motives of self-interest and other-interest. That model

illustrated how mixed motives in communication between organizations and publics

could lead to symmetrical communication and win-win outcomes for both parties

(Dozier et al., 1995; Grunig, 2001). The new elements in this model included the

tactic of principled standards that requires parties to act according to these standards

even when they do not benefit. A principled tactic introduces ethics and social

responsibility into negotiation, but the consequences may result in symmetrical or

asymmetrical outcomes for the parties (Huang, 1997). A final strategy in the conflict

resolution model of public relations is perseverance—the obligation to work toward

one's goals regardless of the other party's response. The nine strategies are arrayed on

a continuum that places one-way strategies at either end and two-way strategies in a

middle win-win zone. For example, cooperation, unconditionally constructive, and

win-win or no deal tactics fall in the win-win zone that will result in positive

agreement. If an organization acts unilaterally in self-interest, its tactics can include

contention, avoidance, and principled action. When publics act with self-interest, they

use accommodation, compromise, and perseverance tactics. Plowman (2007)

introduced the strategy of assertive pacifism that can be used when publics act

aggressively and with arrogance (pp. 96-97). The conflict resolution model of public

relations continues to evolve.

Within the excellence model and the conflict resolution model of public

relations (Plowman, 2007), mediator is the only specific role for public relations

practitioners. Grunig and Grunig (1992) defined a mediator as a "neutral third party"

who "enters the process of negotiation" and takes a neutral role and assists in

negotiation like lawyers and counselors (p. 316). Plowman (2007) developed a more

nuanced typology of mediator roles for practitioners including internal peer mediation

to solve organizational problems and affiliated third party mediation in which a

highly trained practitioner can resolve conflicts even when perceived as aligned with

one party. Certainly, practitioners take other conflict resolution roles. The activist

literature in public relations suggests the role of conflict creator (Holtzhausen, 2007),

but to date we do not have an extensive list of roles in negotiation.

Another substantial model related to conflict resolution and relationship

management is the value of public relations model developed by Huang (2001).

Using structural equation modeling and questionnaire data collected during a

legislative session in Taiwan, Huang's (2001) study established direct and indirect

relationships between communication strategies, relationship building variables, and

conflict resolution. The independent variable was public relations strategies.

Following Grunig's (2001) new formulations of public relations dimensions, Huang

(2001) chose five public relations strategies: symmetrical-ethical communication,

two-way communication, interpersonal communication, mediated communication,

and social activities. The practice of social activities is culturally based in Chinese

concepts of personal influence and connections within a social network (Huang,

2001, p. 268). The three dependent variables were the conflict strategies used by

counter parties: integrative, distributive, and non-confrontation-avoidance. Finally, as

mediating variables, Huang (2001) selected five relationship factors developed in part

by Grunig and Huang (2000): control mutuality, trust, relational commitment,

relational satisfaction, and face and favor. This study is notable for using three

Chinese cultural variables—social activity and the gifts of face and favor—that can

be offered within a social setting. Many indirect effects were found among the 14

variables, but none of the public relations communication strategies had any direct

effect on conflict resolution. The Chinese variables of social activity, face, and favor

did have direct influence on the use of cooperative tactics. Huang's (2001) model of

the value of public relations showed that relationships indirectly influence the use of

collaborative tactics, but the researcher called for much more testing of the model

outside of Taiwan.

In contrast to tha more formal negotiations emphasized by Huang (2001) and

Plowman (2007), some public relations and communication scholars have turned

their attention to informal negotiation. Vasquez (1996) called for "the application of

negotiation models to other, different communication contexts" that we do not usually

identify as negotiations (p. 58). He pointed the way by calling on public relations

practitioners to "construct frames of organizational information" that can "negotiate

the relationships between an organization and key publics" (p. 72). Putnam (2005)

proposed discourse analysis as the primary technique "to unpack the developmental

and contextual features of negotiation" (p. 17). Discourse analysis bypasses the

typologies of formal conflict resolution strategies and instead examines transcripts,

audiotapes, and other evidence in order to uncover differences between ordinary

interactions and negotiations. Some discourse analysts have tackled relationship

building, trust, power structures, and organizational cultures in e-mail negotiations

(Jensen, 2009) and in meetings among organizations with conflicting interests in

waste management (Bennington, Shetler, & Shaw, 2003). Putnam (2005) asserted that

these quantitative and qualitative discourse analyses will help us to understand the

process of negotiation, not simply the individual motivations, tactics, and outcomes

displayed in formal settings. Informal negotiations are captured in phrases such as

negotiating a relationship (Vasquez, 1996, p. 72) or engaging in dialogue when

conflicts arise (Kent & Taylor, 2002). Scholars will have to define what practitioners

mean when they talk about negotiating in informal settings.

Perspectives from the contingency theory of public relations. The

contingency theory of public relations (Shin, Heath, & Lee, 2011) aims to understand

decision-making processes used by practitioners during conflict situations. Various

scholars (Cameron, Crop, & Reber, 2001; Cancel, Cameron, Sallot, & Mitrook, 1997;

Caneron, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999) have described the complex of eighty or more

variables that can influence conflict management in our field, the leadership styles

that influence decision-making, and the ethical factors in conflict resolution. The

contingency theory of public relations raises the following questions that bear

strongly on the results of this study: are practitioners mostly involved in conflict at

the individual, unit, organizational, or social level (Shin, Cameron, & Crop, 2006)? is

conflict management a routine or non-routine role for practitioners (Shin et al.,

2011)? what strategies do practitioners generally view as effective in resolving

conflict (Cancel et al., 1999)? what ethical standards are applied in conflict

management during practice?

Some public relations scholars have studied conflict resolution and

negotiation in our profession using the contingency theory of accommodation

(Cameron et al., 2001), sometimes labeled the contingency theory of conflict

management (Cancel et al., 1997). This model uses concepts from other negotiation

perspectives described above, including accommodation, cooperation, and

compromise (Fisher et al., 2011; Pruitt, 1981; Pruitt & Kim, 2001). Options for

responses to conflict range on a continuum from pure advocacy to pure

accommodation; the advocacy stance is adversarial because it unequivocally supports

the organization’s position while the opposite stance of accommodation is fully

cooperative (Cameron et al., 2001). In between are varying degrees of cooperation

between an organization and its publics. This theory is interested in decision-making

processes during conflict, but generally ignores the outcomes of negotiation; the

conflict processes “may change rapidly according to the dynamics of the situation”

and involve issues that “don’t really have yes or no answers on either side” (Cancel et

al., 1999, p. 176).

The contingency theory of accommodation (Cancel et al., 1997) challenges

other models of public relations, particularly the excellence model, that view dialogue

and symmetrical communication as normative strategies in dealing with conflict (e.g.,

Cutlip, Center, & Broome, 2000; Grunig, 1989; Shin et al., 2011). The theory’s

proponents (Cancel et al., 1999) have argued that the excellence model could not

accurately represent best practices in public relations because of incomplete analysis

of what constitutes an ethical or moral strategy during conflict. This position opens

up a debate about what legitimate, ethical strategies can be applied by communication

practitioners especially in conflict situations that involve extreme positions.

Proponents of the theory generally support the use of accommodation (i.e.,

cooperation with other parties to resolve conflict), but view conflict situations as

highly complex disputes in which dialogue may be ineffective and even unethical

(Cancel et al., 1999).

Moreover, scholars within contingency theory question whether two-way

communication can be effective in many conflict situations (Cancel et al., 1997). In a

thought piece on dialogue in public relations, Stoker and Tusinski (2006) argued for

engagement through one-way dissemination (i.e., unilateral) and reconciliation with

publics where no negotiated agreement or mutual understanding is possible. In these

situations, symmetrical two-way communication could result in “moral cracks and

contradictions” (Stoker & Tusinski, 2006, p. 158) and result in quid pro quo

agreements that are unethical because, for example, important issues and stakeholders

are excluded. In these extraordinary relationships, nonreciprocal forms of

communication such as “suspended dialogue” or “dissemination” may have more

value for both parties, as well as more ethical force.

Examples from Stoker and Tusinski (2006) illustrate the ethical quandaries

that organizations and publics face in decisions relating to their conflict strategies.

The authors pointed out biases in selecting publics with which organizations will

engage in symmetrical two-way dialogue, often preferring engagement with

likeminded parties that can offer reciprocation. By favoring engagement with

“homogeneous publics,” that is, those with similar viewpoints, the organization can

more easily “achieve mutual understanding” and reach an agreement (Stoker &

Tusinski, 2006, p. 163). More recalcitrant parties are ignored, often those with fewer

resources to engage in campaigns and negotiation. In contrast, ethical conflict

management can put aside symmetrical dialogue with like-minded parties, accept

continuation of the conflict, engage in dissemination of information and arguments,

and accept that no valid agreement can currently be reached.

In addition to these theoretical explorations of ethics in conflict resolution, the

contingency theory of accommodation has developed a matrix of variables and

factors of special interest to studies like this one about conflict resolution in the

communication profession (Cancel et al., 1997). Researchers have explored these

variables in qualitative interview studies about conflict involving communication

professionals, including experienced public relations managers and journalists (Shin

& Cameron, 2004). Initially, the matrix developers identified 86 variables that could

influence conflict situations in communication practice. Cancel et al. (1999) defined

two broad categories that can be applied to these variables—predisposing variables

that “shape the organization’s predisposition toward relations with external publics”

and situational variables “at work during a particular situation involving an

organization and an external public” (p. 177). Results of an interview study with 18

experienced public relations professionals showed that situational variables far

outweighed predisposition variables in decisions to accommodate external publics.

But many factors influenced the conflict strategy, including how threatening the

external public seemed to the dominant coalition (e.g., the strategy could affect

profits and reputation) and how internal stakeholders such as employees viewed the

public.

Researchers who study the complex matrix of variables in the contingency

theory have struggled to make practical sense of how the 86 variables influence

everyday public relations practice (Reber & Cameron, 2003). Attempts have been

made to aggregate these 86 matrix variables. One study isolated 12 factors divided

along external or internal dimensions (Shin, Cameron, & Crop, 2006). External

dimensions include external threats, industry environment, political/social/cultural

environment, and external publics; internal factors include organizational

characteristics, management characteristics, and individual characteristics.

Unfortunately, interview studies with experienced public relations

practitioners can result in a flurry of claims about the contingency theory variables

that seem stereotyped and self-serving. For example, in a small interview study

involving eight public relations professionals in high-income global corporations,

Cameron, Crop, and Reber (2001) found support for criticisms of two-way

symmetrical dialogue by the contingency theory of accommodation. The study tested

six variables involving the disposition of organizations prior to conflict: moral

conviction; awareness of conflicting demands from external publics; regulatory, legal,

or judicial constraints; and management pressure on practitioners. The interviewers

asked practitioners to recall episodes involving these six variables—for example,

“Can experienced practitioners recount instances when the demands or needs of a

public were not accommodated at all because to do so would violate the practitioner’s

moral convictions?” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 248). Every participant recalled

episodes that supported this conclusion: “There are times when nothing good can

come from dialogue” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 250). Several examples showed the

drawbacks of engaging in dialogue that excluded more distant community

stakeholders who were negatively impacted by the agreement between a for-profit

and a non-profit organization.

More importantly, this research team (Cameron et al., 2001) found that

participant descriptions of conflict episodes contradicted how the individuals

explained those situations. The practitioners engaged in “platitudes about win-win or

other lofty sentiments” that distorted “how professionals actually conduct themselves

during conflict” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 256). For example, the participants would

describe their communication strategies as “ ‘two-way’, ‘win-win’, or ‘compromise’

when it is clearly an asymmetrical approach” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 253). Some

practitioners accused the opposing party of engaging in biased messages while their

organizations were “getting ‘the truth’ out there” or “just trying to set the record

straight” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 253). The interview findings supported probing for

details about what actually happened in conflict episodes, rather than accepting

explanations by the practitioners. Further, the participants, who each had two decades

of experience in public relations, did not show clear understanding of “terms like

winwin, two-way, symmetrical and accommodation” (Cameron et al., 2001, p. 256).

Because of conflicting answers and lack of knowledge about conflict resolution

concepts, the researchers recommended future survey research to clarify what

practitioners mean by the conflict resolution vocabulary they use on the job.

Moreover, leading questions and excluded target audiences undermined the validity

of this study’s results.

In a larger interview study with public relations practitioners, Cameron et al.,

(1999) found more specific results on contingency theory variables, including the

addition of new variables for situations. They asked 18 high-level communication

professionals from large corporations about their understanding of contingency

theory. The interview guide contained a checklist of the 80+ contingency theory

variables. When participant responses flagged toward the end of the conversation, the

three interviewers asked about variables on the list that had not yet been mentioned.

As a result, many variables in the findings had only weak support from the

participants. Major findings included (1) the use of philanthropic and community

relations activities to accommodate publics in conflict with the organization; (2) the

emergence of characteristics of an antagonistic public—especially its relative power

to injure the organization’s reputation and earnings—as variables in how the

organization handles the conflict; and (3) the impact of a large mix of variables, not

just a small number, in the decision-making process involving conflicts with external

publics. Also, line managers—not just the dominant coalition— often have

decisionmaking power in dealing with external publics, so they can undermine public

relations efforts to accommodate these publics. Finally, in these large corporations,

certain individual personality characteristics of people in the dominant coalition (e.g.,

open-mindedness, ability to put aside personal biases, and past training) could create

a positive outcome to conflict with external publics.

The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations accepts a

complicated variable stew as operating in a public relations conflict situation. The

model of contingency summarized above generates some predictions about what

participants in this study may report. First, these participants may profess a

preference for accommodation (i.e., a cooperative style) to advocacy (i.e., an

adversarial style) in dealing with conflict (Cameron et al., 2001). Second,

practitioners in this study may avoid symmetrical two-way communication in some

conflict situations because of the unethical outcomes that may result (Stoker &

Tusinski, 2006). Third, in making decisions, practitioners may rely more heavily on

situational variables in the conflict situation rather than on factors established in

advance by the organizational culture (i.e., predispositional variables). Fourth,

practitioners will focus more on individuallevel factors in conflict situations than on

organizational- or societal-level factors

(Shin et al., 2006). Finally, practitioners will perceive little if any difference between

how public relations leaders deal with conflict in routine work situations versus

nonroutine work situations, although practitioners may be more resourceful in crisis

situations (Shin et al., 2011, p. 185).

Robustness and Gaps in Public Relations Research on Negotiation

The two major theories I have reviewed above—the excellence paradigm and

contingency theory—both explored the roles that practitioners play in conflict

management. In their recent overview of leadership styles supported by contingency

theory, Shin et al. (2011) claimed that public relations scholars seek “to understand

roles that practitioners play on behalf of organizations” (p. 167). Within this

excellence model, this goal of establishing a specific number and type of public

relations roles was examined by Broom and Dozier (1986) and Dozier (1992).

However, Shin et al. (2011) contended that after decades of research, “the body of

scholarly literature provides little explication of what specific behavioral

characteristics and functions public relations professionals enact or are expected to

enact” (p. 183). This statement implies that significant gaps exist in the current

literature on public relations practice and conflict resolution roles.

The excellence model placed conflict resolution and negotiation at the center

of public relations research and practice (Dozier et al., 1995; Grunig & Grunig,

1992). Scholars like Plowman (1998) and Huang (1997) have robustly adapted

integrative bargaining and negotiation tactics developed by scholars in social

psychology (Pruitt, 1981), business (Fisher et al., 2011), and other disciplines

(Rahim, 2011). More specifically, the conflict resolution model of public relations

(Plowman, 2007) and the value of public relations model (Huang, 2001) have woven

integrative bargaining and tactics into core elements of the excellence paradigm:

dimensions of public relations (Grunig, 2006), strategic communication, and

relationship building (Brunig, Dials, & Shirka, 2008). Also, scholars have made

convincing connections between various incarnations of the symmetry model and

conflict resolution (Huang, 2007).

The literature covered in this essay has effectively conceptualized the role of

mediation in public relations. Grunig and Grunig (1992) and Plowman (2007)

recommend the mediation role as part of public relations practice. However, a study

by Kelleher (2003) sheds doubt on whether a public relations practitioner will be

accepted as a mediator in a formal negotiation. Kelleher's (2003) study documented

the overt rejection of public relations practitioners as mediators in a labor dispute.

We do not know how widely public relations practitioners are used as mediators

between organizations and publics.

The public relations literature on negotiation leaves many gaps. Very little

quantitative and qualitative research has been conducted on negotiation in the field as

opposed to simulations (Christen, 2004; Plowman, 2008). For example, little work

has been done on establishing the value of public relations in the environment

surrounding formal negotiations (Lax & Sibenius, 2006). Equally important, the

discipline lacks a process model of public relations negotiation that moves beyond the

tactical strategies that are widely disseminated in popular guides (Fisher et al., 2011;

Malhotra & Bazerman, 2007). Without a process model, we lack clarity on what

happens in formal and informal negotiations within a public relations context, as well

as what level of conflict—individual, unit, organization, societal—practitioners are

most effective in managing. The research gap between studies involving

individuallevel factors and group-level or multi-party factors in negotiation and

decisionmaking has been documented in a literature review conducted by Caputo

(2013). Her study concludes that while “most negotiations in business and political

contexts . . . are performed by more than two parties,” the role of cognitive and

emotional biases in conflict situations was clearly “under-researched in the literature”

(Caputo, 2013,

p. 392) and so much of the complexity of these multi-party negotiation had been

ignored in research.

Several gaps in research on negotiation mirror general problems in our

discipline. With the exception of Huang's (2001, 1997) research, few models or

studies tackle differences in culture, gender, and ethnicity in public relations

negotiation. Studies of gender differences in public relations indicate that women

may use different negotiation tactics and relationship building strategies to resolve

conflict (Aldoory, Reber, Berger, & Toth, 2009; Babcock & Laschever, 2003; Kolb,

1993). Finally, advances in automated negotiation and virtual conflict resolution have

been widely ignored in our field. The sections below explore two theories from

outside public relations that could help our discipline develop a negotiation process

model and bring virtual negotiation into its practice.

The Four-Phase Model of Negotiation Communication.

Scholars from several social sciences have tried to verify empirically the

phases that occur in real life negotiations. Negotiation phases have often been based

on broad beginning-middle-end or before-during-after models that seasoned

negotiators have experienced (Donohue & Roberto, 1996, 1993). For example, a

typical phase article written for health facilities managers (Guernsey & Klare, 1995)

listed three stages of formal negotiation—assessment of all parties' goals, exchange

of information, and persuasion. These stages are commonsensical but may not

accurately describe negotiations between organizations and publics. Simple

negotiation phase models are intended to help individuals develop skills, such as

active listening (Stone, Patton, & Heen, 1999).

Hostage negotiation scholars have led research into more sophisticated

process models of negotiation. These scholars have developed numerous models that

deal with coercive and cooperative relationships in hostage negotiation (Donohue,

Ramesh, & Borchgrevink, 1991), with concepts of cylindrical communication

(Taylor, 2002), and with the negotiation of order among participants (Donohue &

Roberto, 1993). The purpose of these models is to help negotiators free hostages

without violence. Although few of these models deal directly with relationship

building or strategic management of crisis situations, most have been empirically

tested through case studies.

One recently developed model—the four-phase model of communication

(Madrigal, Bowman, & McClain, 2009)—has several characteristics that can apply to

public relations. To date, the model has had minimal empirical verification

(Borowsky, 2011; Madrigal, 2010), but its elements can be adapted to a variety of

communication situations. The developers of the four-phase model intended to rectify

several of the major problems in negotiation models. In their recent review, Madrigal

et al. (2009) pointed out that these models are overly "complex and lack empirical

validation" (p. 120); moreover, these scholars claimed that the negotiation "field has

not yet established a communication model that describes the communication process

of negotiation while providing utility to the negotiation team . . . ." (p. 120).

Consequently, Madrigal et al., (2009) proposed a four-phase model of communication

behavior that is "flexible enough to apply to the vast majority of [negotiation]

situations but with enough specificity to provide utility" (p. 120). Although this

model was developed specifically for hostage negotiation, its four phases link closely

with public relations perspectives and give excellent clues as to how public relations

practitioners can actively participate in formal and informal negotiations. These

phases are not linear, but can be recycled many times in different orders. Moreover,

the scholars claimed that this model can supplement other negotiation models.

The four phases are described below and adapted for stages in public relations

practice through my commentary.

Phase 1: Establishing Initial Dialogue. The model assumes that initiating

dialogue will be a difficult phase in hostage situations because the

hostage taker often avoids communication with the negotiator. In the

conflict resolution literature of public relations, we sometimes read of

parties and stakeholders in a crisis situation who avoid dialogue

(Cancel et al., 1997). As boundary spanners (Dozier et al., 1995),

public relations practitioners and managers can be assigned the role

of establishing the initial dialogue.

Phase 2. Building Rapport. Negotiation scholars have spent considerable

effort in understanding this phase of negotiation (Donohue & Roberto,

1993); the general goal for the negotiator is to establish trust and a

shared mutual "positive regard" (p. 129). Public relations scholars

have identified this goal as part of interpersonal communication

(Grunig & Huang, 2000; Toth, 2000).

Phase 3. Influencing. This concept describes "a key phase that has been

overlooked by previous [hostage communication] models" (Madrigal,

et al., 2009, p. 129). Public relations scholars have covered influencing

largely through the typology of negotiation tactics, such as avoidance

and accommodation (Plowman, 2007). Madrigal et al. (2009)

operationalize these tactics by highlighting persuasive techniques

such as active listening, making suggestions, making promises, and

reframing the way parties view the problem. Some conceptions of

framing the problem insist upon including culture as a factor (Van

Gorp, 2007).

Phase 4: Surrender. This phase, of course, means that the hostage-taker

surrenders and the hostage is freed. How can this be translated into a

public relations context? We might call this resolution.

Two studies offer some support for the four-phase model. Both studies used

hostage negotiation transcripts and content analysis to test whether the four phases

surfaced. Madrigal (2010) coded successful negotiations using the Crisis

Communication Rating Scale (CCRS; McClain, Callaghan, Madrigal, Unwin, &

Casterano, 2006) that allowed him to systematically examine the communication

variables. His findings gave support to the first three phases in hostage negotiations,

as well as some indication that the surrender phase could be established with

additional analysis. In a case study involving a single male hostage taker who was

trapped during a bank robbery, Borowsky (2011) found support for phase 2 when the

negotiators used conversational flexibility (i.e., the ability to act out several roles

within a conflict event) in order to establish rapport with the hostage taker. While

these content analyses of law enforcement negotiations seem extreme, the findings

support the concept of phases within negotiations and the importance of having an

arsenal of communication tactics when managing conflicts.

The logic of the four-phase model asks us to take the negotiating team's

perspective because the team has little control over hostage-takers' behavior.

However, public relations scholars urge us to understand multiple perspectives in

conflict resolution, including contending parties such as activists (L. Grunig, 1992;

Holtzhausen, 2007). Unfortunately, many negotiations involving organizations and

publics are predicated on understanding only one position—the goals sought by a

single party (Pruitt & Kim, 2004). The four-phase model does privilege one party's

views, but it can apply to a multi-party perspective. This model perhaps offers a

starting point for a process model of negotiations in public relations—especially in

situations involving crisis communication (Coombs, 2006) and aggressive, zero-sum

tactics (Fisher et al., 2011). It illustrates how another practical discipline—law

enforcement—develops process models.

Awareness of process is a cornerstone of training and practice in negotiation

(Fisher et al., 2011; Gupta, Boyd & Kuzmits, 2011; Gross, Hogler, & Henle, 2013;

Raffia, 1982; Ury, 2007). The study raises the question of how its participants

understand the process of conflict resolution or conflict management and whether

they view it as consisting of phases such as those proposed by Madrigal et al. (2009).

Individual and Group-Level Factors in Conflict Management This section

covers an array of factors that in theory affect conflict management within groups.

Many participants in this study described conflicts occurring within teams in their

workplaces. Before assessing these narratives, several caveats should be noted. First,

the literature on teams, their composition, and performance is so vast (Caputo, 2013;

Stewart, 2006) that major concepts will have to be summarized briefly. These

theoretical concepts will be compared with what my participants understood was

important in their jobs.

Second, much of the research reviewed in this section has been conducted in

laboratory settings, not in field circumstances. A majority of the 89 studies on team

performance between 1980 and 2006 covered in Bell’s (2007) meta-analysis took

place under laboratory conditions (e.g., for many variables 66% or more were studied

in lab settings). Moreover, Bell (2007) found some differences between results in the

two settings; in particular, personality variables moderated team performance in field

settings, but had negligible effect in lab settings. Consequently, researchers such as

Bazerman and Moore (2009) have argued that studies of multi-party negotiation and

group decision-making should move beyond experimental methods based on rational

assumptions and instead establish useful conflict resolution strategies based on

realworld experiences (Caputo, 2013). My study asked participants to reflect on field

settings.

A third caveat is that the research literature on conflict management within

groups crosses many disciplines—communication (Olaniran, 2009), social

psychology (McGrath, Arrow, Gruenfeld, Hollingshead, & Connor, 1993), economics

(Caputo, 2013), and business (Griffith, Connelly, & Thiel, 2014; Martinez-Moreno,

González-Navarro, Zornoza, & Ripo, 2009) among others. These studies examined

many factors and variables in team conflict management that are rooted in theories

not fully linked to communication processes. Still, some variables at both the

individual and group or team-levels have shown significance in my participants’

understanding of conflict on their jobs. Here is a partial list.

Relationship building in negotiation (Kurtzberg, et al., 2005)

Team psychological safety within relationship conflict (Martins, Schilpzand,

Kirkman, Ivanaj, & Ivanaj, 2013)

Type of tasks in which people experience conflict (Hollingshead et al., 1993;

McGrath et al., 1993)

Team composition factors that individual members bring to the group, such

as agreeableness (Bell, 2007; Stewart, 2006)

Cognitive ability, biases, or cognitive diversity within team composition

(Caputo, 2013; Martins et al., 2013)

Group/team interaction patterns, including confrontation and cooperation

(Olaniran, 2010)

Personality factors (Antonioni, 1998; Cogliser, Gardner, Gavin, & Broberg,

2012; Swaab, Galinsky, Medvec, & Diermeier, 2012)

Emotional influences and regulation (Bazerman & Moore, 2009; Griffith,

Connelly, & Thiel, 2014)

Conflict management culture (Choi, 2013)

Team performance as an independent and outcome variable (Hollingshead et

al., 1993; Martinez-Moreno et al., 2009)

Conflict management processes in teams (Martinez-Moreno et al., 2009;

Olaniran, 2010).

Many more factors and variables could be added as categories to the list

above, including trustworthiness (Cogliser et al., 2012), team heterogeneity (Stewart,

2006), and experience levels of the team members (McGrath, 1993). A review of

some recent meta-analyses and literature reviews provides a concise snapshot of

which factors might be most relevant in communication within team conflict

management in public relations.

Three types of conflict in teams. Public relations practice involves extensive

teamwork (Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002). A recent meta-analysis by De Wit,

Greer, and Jehn (2012) can illuminate my participants’ understandings of conflict in

team interactions. Drilling down into types of conflict and their impact on team

performance, these scholars (De Wit et al., 2012) conducted meta-analyses in three

categories: relationship conflicts, task conflicts, and process conflicts. My

participants covered some of these areas of team conflict in their narratives and, to

some extent, reflected the definitions found within research studies analyzed by De

Wit et al. (2012).

Relationship conflicts have particular resonance in public relations theory and

practice because of our profession’s emphasis on relationship building (Condit, 2006;

Grunig & Huang, 2000; Lewis, Isbell, & Koschmann, 2010; Toth, 2000). In a broad

base of studies, relationship conflict was generally defined as “disagreements among

group members about interpersonal issues, such as personality differences or

differences in norms and values” (De Wit et al., 2012, p. 360). Stated from a

somewhat different perspective, Martins et al. (2013) and others limited relationship

conflict to factors involving the affective climate among team members where affect

refers to “emotions, moods, traits, and emotion-based preferences such as likes and

dislikes” (Authayarat & Umemuro, 2011, p. 433). Put more bluntly, Behar, Mannix,

Peterson, and Trochim (2011) state, “ . . . relationship conflict is interpersonal

animosity, tension, or annoyance among members” (p. 128). The key concepts in

these definitions include interpersonal interchanges, personality differences, the

affective climate, values, and norms. In their literature review of relationship conflict

research, De Wit et al. (2012) found no positive outcomes because, they concluded,

“these conflicts are strongly intertwined with the self-concept” (p. 362). In short,

these conflicts can create anxiety, hostility, reduced commitment, and restricted team

problem solving—all factors that negatively affect team outcomes.

In contrast, task conflicts occur when group members disagree about what’s

involved in the task at hand and how to think about its outcomes (De Wit et al., 2012,

p. 360). In a meta-analysis of task conflict research findings in 116 intragroup conflict

studies published between 1990 and 2010, De Wit et al. (2012) reported that factors

in task conflicts could actually benefit team performance. For example, task conflict

can help group members put aside their pre-existing biases about the project, increase

their understanding of its requirements, and evaluate others’ ideas more fairly. As a

result, task conflict can lead to innovation, individual expression of perspectives,

increased commitment to the project, and enhanced satisfaction with working on it.

On the negative side, task conflicts can distract team members and use up resources

and reduce satisfaction if people feel their contributions or skills are challenged (De

Wit, Jen, & Scheepers, 2013).

Finally, process conflicts involve disagreements over how tasks,

responsibilities, and resources are assigned to group members (Behfar et al., 2011). In

other words, process encompasses the task strategy or procedures that the team

develops to distribute work, to schedule and handle workflow, and how the team

coordinates personnel to undertake the project. According to Behfar et al. (2011),

process disputes arise when people perceive that other team members aren’t meeting

deadlines or fulfilling their assignments. Questions remain about whether process

conflicts lead to predominantly positive or negative outcomes for a team. Research on

group process by De Wit et al. (2012) found largely negative effects on outcomes

because task delegation communicated messages about how personal competence and

respect were perceived within the team. Other scholars reported negative

consequences such as reduced innovation, “increased anger, animosity, negative

attitudes toward the group” (Behfar et al., 2011, p. 129). On the other hand, Behfar et

al. (2011) reported a mixed impact of process conflicts on group performance within

the small number of studies found on this factor. For example, when process conflicts

developed early on in a task and were resolved early, the team could deal more

effectively with questions and concerns about roles and strategies.

These three types of conflict—relationship, task, and process—have to be

understood in the context of their effect on team outcomes. A significant body of

research indicates that conflict impacts team performance in expected and

unpredictable ways. De Wit et al.’s (2012) meta-analysis of 116 empirical studies on

intragroup conflict examined how different conflict types influenced team outcomes.

Within the research stream of intragroup conflict, group performance or outcomes are

often divided into two types: distal and proximal. According to De Wit et al. (2012)

distal outcomes focus on group performance (p. 361), including traditional measures

such as productivity and effectiveness. Proximal outcomes, on the other hand, are

linked to emergent states and group viability. This distinction is very important to this

study because my interlocutors explored proximal outcomes more fully than distal

outcomes. In the language of practitioners, emergent states include trust, motivation,

satisfaction, commitment, cognitions relating to individual abilities, and emotions (De

Wit et al., 2012, p. 362). Group viability involves affect and behaviors that indicate

whether members want to continue working in the group.

Results from De Wit et al.’s (2012) meta-analysis suggested that all three

types of conflict studied have much more negative impact on proximal outcomes such

as trust than on distal outcomes—although moderating variables had statistically

significant effects. Teams can still be productive and effective at high degrees of

conflict, but members’ trust, motivation, and satisfaction levels can often plummet. In

other words, trust and commitment can potentially suffer more than team

performance measured by objective productive and effectiveness standards (De Wit et

al., 2012, p. 367). Many moderators, of course, were shown to affect distal and

proximate outcomes within this meta-analysis and literature review of 116 intra-

group conflict studies over twenty years (De Wit et al., 2012, p. 364).

Three specific moderators were tested across the conflict types: task type, the

organizational level of the group studied, and cultural context. These moderators

showed what a complex pattern can emerge in trying to understand how conflicts

affect outcomes, particularly when types of conflict are strongly correlated. For

example, when task conflict and relationship conflict were highly associated, more

negative effects surfaced on several outcomes. Notably, a strong correlation between

process conflict and relationship conflict negatively impacted group performance.

Individual moderators also seemed to influence outcomes, including level in the

organization. Task conflict among top managers revealed stronger performance

results than task conflicts among teams further down the organizational hierarchy.

Finally, process conflicts seem particularly resistant to the influence of the three

moderators studied, although, according to Behfar et al. (2011), process conflicts

negatively influence group performance, coordination, and satisfaction. This

section covered three types of team conflict and the moderators that might affect

group outcomes of various kinds. The results from the meta-analysis by De Wit et

al. (2012) and extensive literature review by Behfar et al. (2011) demonstrated that

practitioners in this study would benefit from understanding the types of intragroup

conflict and the many factors that can influence how a conflict type affects their

team’s performance.

Personality factors in team performance. Participants in this study offered

personality as part of their understanding of conflict in communication organizations.

Concepts of Personality have been employed among a substantial number of

organizational conflict scholars to explore conflict management styles (Antonioni,

1998), team performance (Bell, 2007), management decisions (LePine, Buckman,

Crawford, & Methot, 2011), and trustworthiness (Cogliser et al., 2012). Personality

has proved challenging to define (Antonioni, 1998), but LePine et al. (2011) stated

that it “refers to structures and propensities that reflect or explain characteristic

patterns of an individual’s thoughts, emotions and behaviors” (p. 312). Bell (2007)

classified personality as a deep-level team composition variable similar to values and

abilities. These personality patterns and variables become important for this study

because they can create conflict when individuals are managing tasks, as well as

inhibit relationship building and disrupt relationship maintenance (Judge & LePine,

2007).

Researchers have asked a question that bears on some perceptions of my

participants: how does diversity or uniformity of personality characteristics influence

team functioning? According to Judge and Lepine (2007), many laypeople and even

scholars believe that diversity “enhances team creativity and problem solving ability”

(p. 344). Findings from other research beginning in the 1950s has shown negative

effects of diverse employee personalities depending on the context or the task

demands—for example, when effectiveness and other outcomes depend on

“interpersonal processes and social integration” (Judge & Lepine, 2007, p. 344).

Moreover, differences in personality may accrue negative effects over time, although

Haythorn (1968)—a pioneer in personality and group composition research—warned

that “the effect of homogeneity per se, however, cannot be divorced from the

individual personality characteristics or value under consideration” (p. 124). In other

words, because personality has many facets, personnel homogeneity within a team

does not guarantee harmony or successful outcomes.

One commonly applied model of the factors involved in personality is called

the Big-Five or Five-Factor model of personality or FFM (Cogliser et al., 2012).

Judge and LePine (2007) gave an overview of the history of FFM that revealed how

the model added depth of analysis to studies of homogeneity or diversity of

personality in teams. The Big-Five model revealed, for example, the negative side of

traits that undermine agreeableness and high conscientiousness during group work

(Judge & LePine, 2007, p. 345). For example, team members may react intensely to

poor performers, especially when they perceive low conscientiousness as a trait in

these employees. These negative perceptions of personality traits can create conflict

when other team members perceive unfairness in work-load or low agreeableness

(Bell, 2007).

The Big-Five Factor model of personality posits the following factors as

features of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and

neuroticism (Antonioni, 1998). These factors have been summarized, operationally

defined, and tested “significantly in the last 20 years” until the five FFM traits have

“become the generally accepted taxonomy of personality characteristics” (Judge &

LePine, 2007, p. 313). While my participants named several of these personality

factors in their answers, these factors have special definitions within the FFM.

Antonioni (1998) pointed out that each factor could be viewed dialectically in two

dimensions: extraversion and introversion, agreeableness and antagonism,

conscientiousness and undisciplined behavior, openness to experience and closed to

experience, emotional stability and neuroticism; hence, the following snapshots of

each factor:

1. Extraversion: “. . . the extent to which people are gregarious,

assertive, and sociable”

2. Agreeableness: “. . . the extent to which individuals are cooperative,

warm, understanding, and sympathetic”

3. Conscientiousness: “ . . . the extent to which individuals are

hardworking, organized, dependable, and firm”

4. Openness: “ . . . defines individuals who are reflective, creative,

and comfortable with theory”

5. Emotional stability: “defines individuals who are calm, self-

confident, and patient” (Antonioni, 1998, p. 358).

While different facets of these factors emerge in the literature on FFM (Cogliser et

al., 2012), these snapshots seem to describe characteristics of employees who would

be highly valued on most teams. Bell (2007) provided some concise descriptions of

how the dichotomies involved in these personality factors can reduce or foment

conflict in teams. Conscientious behaviors among team members, for example, can

result in more effective problem-solving and goal achievement, in part because this

personality factor can enhance the task process. Agreeableness and extraversion,

according to Bell’s (2007) meta-analysis, lead to more effective interactions among

team members. A team with a high number of agreeable members will more likely

“engage in positive interpersonal processes” (Bell, 2007, p. 597). Extroverts tend to

be attracted to teamwork and promoting help-seeking in the group. Bell (2007)

further cites studies that indicate how emotionally stable people “create a relaxed

atmosphere” that promotes cooperation (p. 597). Finally, the openness factor among

team members can result in greater creativity and adaptability when change is

required.

This study raised the question of how practitioners understand personality as a

factor in conflict within communication practice. The research reported above

provides insights into how personality factors can impact team performance and

outcomes (Stewart, 2006), but many caveats remain. Findings on personality factors

differ somewhat between experimental and field settings (Bell, 2007). Consequently,

successful real-world applications of findings from FFM research become difficult

because of the many “uncontrolled” interactions among setting, task features, team

configuration, organizational climate, communication channels, and individual-level

factors, including personality (Cogliser et al., 2012).

Emotions and beliefs in teams. In the critical incidents reported in this study

and in answers to the final question summarizing advice on conflict resolution,

participants used phrases depicting emotions such as anger and hostility, as well trust

and other beliefs. A substantial body of primary research explores the influence of

emotions and beliefs on conflict, team performance and outcomes (Balliet & Van

Lange, 2013; Chen & Ayoko, 2012; Jameson, Bodtker, Porch, & Jordan, 2009;

Posthuma, 2012; Montes et al., 2012; Tekleab & Quigley, 2014; Yamagishi, 2011).

Obviously, this review cannot summarize the rich and varied analyses of the effects of

emotions and beliefs on organizational conflict. However, the following brief

overview will give context to the discussion of this study’s results concerning

emotion and trust in communication practice.

Posthuma (2012) has argued that emotions “are a needed and important

addition to conflict management research—above and beyond cognitions and

behaviors” (p. 4). He listed some emotions recently studied in investigations of how

positive and negative emotions can be regulated effectively during conflict: “anger,

enthusiasm, excitement, guilt, and remorse” (p. 4). These studies on conflict

management and emotions assume that affective variables (i.e., feelings) will impact

the way individuals respond during conflict.

Emotional communication and conflict transformation. Some studies of

emotion in team or group conflicts are rooted in concepts of transforming conflict

situations, rather than achieving instrumental agreements on behaviors in the context

of a win-win solution (Jameson et al., 2009; Jones, 2000; Fisher & Shapiro, 2005;

Martins et al., 2013). The studies or reviews covered in this section offer a different

perspective on what role communication practitioners might play in conflict

situations within their organizations—the role of conflict transformation defined as

modifying the characteristics of the conflict situation by “inducing change in the

parties’ relationship through improving mutual understanding” (Botes, 2003, p. 3). In

contrast, resolving conflict—a goal common in negotiation—requires solving “the

problems that lead to the conflictual behavior in the first place” (Burton, 1990, p. 203

as cited in Botes, 2003, p. 2). Rather than being directly involved in formal

negotiations or even conflict resolution, practitioners might be instrumental in

transforming the relationships among their teams or other organizational employees.

In 2000, Jones published a review of literature on emotional communication

in conflict. This scholar re-issued a challenge to conflict and communication scholars

to dig deeper into the connection between how we communicate emotions during

conflict situations and the outcomes. Jones (2000) substantiated that the field of

conflict studies had only recently delved into emotional components because of a bias

toward “the rational over the emotional” (p. 82). Emotion, Jones (2000) admitted, is

difficult to define, but many scholars including Lazarus (1994) theorize that it has

three components: cognitive, physiological, and behavioral. Building on these

elements, Jones (2000) viewed communication as an essential part of emotion as

socially constructed and contended that at its core, conflict is an emotional process (p.

81).

In the principles that Jones (2000) set forth, we get a glimpse into how

communication and emotion interact in conflict processes and what techniques can be

applied to transform the conflict within teams.

1. Emotions are socially constructed.

2. Emotions are responses to how we evaluate events and circumstances—

either positively or negatively (p. 87).

3. Emotions are rule-governed—that is, within organizations, we have cultural

rules about how we should feel and other rules about how to communicate

emotion (p. 88).

4. Emotional experience is communicated through discourse—defined widely as

all kinds of communication both verbal and non-verbal.

5. Emotional experience expresses values that are informed by a moral frame we

bring to the conflict (p. 93). Examples of emotions that involve values can

include disgust, anger, and contempt.

6. We can develop emotional competence, learning how emotions are negotiated

in settings, including the workplace (p. 89).

Through these principles Jones (2000) arrives at the thesis that emotion and identity

are inextricably connected in the conflict process. Lazarus (1994) made that point in

his contention that emotion requires the self and/or ego, but Jones (2000) adds the

concept that emotional communication can strongly affect group identity and even

create conflict with out groups (p. 95). Jones (2000) proposes an important research

question about how communication of emotion such as shame and pride impacts the

development of identity in groups. More importantly, she asks how the process of

communicating emotions can act as a constructive intervention in conflict

transformation. Her review ends with a substantial list of exploratory questions on the

connection between identity, conflict processes, cultural differences, and

communication of emotion that scholars have been investigating since the late 1990s.

One group of researchers has explored specific strategies to address negative

conflict situations through emotional processes. Jameson et al., (2009) proposed

transforming conflict situations by priming parties to talk about emotions, often with

the help of mediators or conflict coaches. Through these conversations, the authors

hypothesized that group members could move beyond an impasse and establish a

more positive relationship in the long-term. The goal within the Jameson et al. (2009)

model was not a negotiated agreement or an instrumental document that specifies

behaviors each party will fulfill within the realization of a win-win outcome (Fisher

et al., 2011). In conflict communication models of transformation (Jones, 2000), the

goal of mediation or other kind of intervention can be an improvement in affect

within the relationship and a willingness to affiliate with team members who had

previously been viewed with antagonism.

In contrast to the definitions summarized earlier in this review, Jameson et al.

(2009) defined emotion “as how a disputant describes subjectively experienced

feelings toward the other party of the conflict issues” (p. 169). The researchers used

anger as an example to explore a number of essential factors in the process of conflict

transformation, including acknowledging and owning emotions, empowerment,

recognition, and pinpointing underlying identity problems (Jameson et al., 2009, pp.

169-170). The five core concepts that can trigger conflict—appreciation, affiliation,

autonomy, status, and role—mirror factors within the transformation conflict models

of Galtrung (1996) and Bush and Folger (2004) (reviewed in Jameson et al., 2009).

Transformation models focus on modifying subjective experience so that people

achieve better working relationships.

In Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, Fisher and Shapiro

(2005) present strategies particularly for dealing with problems of affiliation and

autonomy. In positive affiliation, both parties see one another as colleagues rather

than adversaries, or at least connected positively in the negotiation process. In

positive autonomy, each party respects the right of the other to make independent

decisions based on what he or she deems to be important. One warning offered by

Fisher and Shapiro (2005): do not base agreements primarily on emotion because

these are prone to manipulation. On core concept within Fisher and Shapiro’s (2005)

emotion transformation guidebook is role choice. Role choice requires an individual

to identify his or her traditional role in the situation and then to create or adopt a role

that will be more effective in bringing about resolution of the conflict. Since this

study explores roles that public relations practitioners can fulfill in resolving conflict

with internal and external stakeholders, Fisher and Shapiro (2005) offer insight into

adopting temporary roles in conflict situations—a creative action based on flexibility

and the intent to transform an impasse in the negotiation.

One research stream has explored how emotions are related to the conflict

management styles that individuals apply. A variety of emotions have been linked to

conflict styles such as the five delineated by Rahim (2011): integrating (high concern

for self and others); obliging (low concern for self and high concern for other);

dominating (high concern for self and low concern for others); avoiding (low concern

for self and others); and compromising (middle concern for self and others with the

goal of trading off wins and losses) (as summarized in Montes et al., 2012, p. 8).

These conflict styles can be understood as behaviors that indicate a “consistent

orientation toward the other party and the conflict issues” (Montes et al., 2012, p. 7).

Without getting too far down into the definitional weeds of emotional states and

various affective responses, researchers have tended to focus on how positive or

negative moods—defined as longer-lasting affective states—influence styles and

strategies for resolution of conflict situations (Montes et al., 2012).

Emotional communication and conflict transformation models explored in this

section (Jameson et al., 2009; Jones, 2000; Fisher & Shapiro, 2005; Martins et al.,

2013) offer insight into how practitioners in this study understand their roles in

conflict management. Rather than fulfilling highly prescribed conflict management

assignments specified in job descriptions, practitioners could enact flexible roles

involving conflict communication and transformation of the conflict situation that

enable employees to work together over the long term.

Communication Channels and Conflict Management

This study’s interview guide asked participants directly and indirectly to

explore their understandings of how communication channels influence conflict

management and resolution in their workplaces (Purdy, Nye, & Balakrishnan, 2000).

Some articles (Dennis, Fuller, & Valacich, 2008; Geiger & Parlamis, 2014; Olaniran,

2010; Martinez-Moreno et al., 2009; Swaab et al., 2012) have examined how

communication media influence the outcomes of individual or team performance

when conflicts are present. These studies attempt to clarify the variables that enhance

or impede the process leading to successful management of a conflict. Channels and

communication media in these studies include email (e.g., Olaniran, 2010), face-

toface (Galin, Gross, & Gosalker, 2007), video conferencing (Martinez-Moreno et al.,

2009), and computer-mediated communication or CMC (Kurtzberg, Dunn-Jensen, &

Matsibekker, 2005). Several other studies examine the effect of verbal and nonverbal

channels in the communication media (Bronstein, Nelson, Livnat, & Ben-Ari,

2012; Walther, Loh, & Granka, 2005).

To understand the factors that influence conflict negotiation in

computermediated communication (Purdy et al., 2000), researchers have drawn on

the model of media synchronicity (Dennis et al., 2008). This model moves beyond the

assumption that only channels such as face-to-face situations create rich exchanges of

information that allow for greater understanding. Because communicators receive

many aural, visual, and nonverbal cues, videoconferencing and telephone

conversations are also considered to be rich media channels (Purdy et al., 2000).

Media richness includes media synchronicity defined as communication that enables

parties in a conflict situation to convey relevant information effectively as the

negotiation evolves and then to engage in discussion until the participants “agree on

the meaning of the information” (Geiger & Parlamis, 2014, p. 71). According to

Geiger and Parlamis (2014), media synchronicity relies on two factors: conveyance of

relevant information among parties and convergence of meaning so that parties agree

on what the information means.

Dennis et al. (2008) have explored how media synchronicity theory can

extend beyond the acceptance of face-to-face communication as the gold standard

during conflict resolution to an appreciation of the advantages of computer-mediated

communication in conflict resolution. These researchers assume that all

communication media are valuable; one is not better than another. They do

acknowledge that high synchronicity channels such as face-to-face and telephone are

potentially well suited to helping practitioners converge information during conflict

management and reach mutual understanding. Specifically, the parties can give and

take information more easily and compare their understandings of the situation.

Email, on the other hand, is viewed as low in synchronicity or as asynchronous

because of the time differences in giving and receiving. However, Dennis et al.

(2008) contend that email can be more effective than synchronous media in

conveying information and then allowing the receiver to analyze it and consider its

potential meaning before reentering into communication with a negotiating partner.

While the media synchronicity model effectively explains how conveyance

and convergence influence outcomes in conflict, critics contend that the model leaves

out individual-level factors. Geiger and Parlamis (2014) examined a cluster of three

individual-level factors in the use of computer-mediated conflict resolution that

extend beyond variables in the media. These three factors—labeled as the email

affinity scale—influence conflict resolution outcomes because individuals enter the

negotiation holding these attitudes and beliefs: 1) preference for a channel like email;

2) comfort with using the channel like email; and 3) belief that the channel can

convey a clear message. After developing and testing a valid and reliable scale to

measure the impact of these three factors in negotiation situations, Geiger and

Parlamis (2014) tested their impact in a quasi-experimental study involving pairs of

graduate student negotiators from U.S. and German universities (n=92; pairs=41).

Participants were tested using the email affinity scale and then paired based on their

total score on the scale with high scorers designated as buyers matched with high

scorers designated as sellers, and so on down the range of scores. The pairs were

asked to negotiate a price for the sale of an energy-efficient pump using email over a

10-day period. Results were analyzed using a combination of correlation and

regression analysis to determine the impact of email affinity variables on joint

outcomes. Geiger and Parlamis (2014) found that only comfort with email use

showed statistical significance in increasing joint gain in the negotiation outcome.

Liking email as a communication channel and believing email can clearly transmit

information were NOT significant. Also, statistically significant in positive gains for

both negotiators was a larger number of emails exchanged. The duration of the email

messages, however, actually negatively influenced joint gains.

Geiger and Parlamis (2014) and other studies have challenged perceptions that

only face-to-face or other synchronous channels will yield strong joint gains during

negotiation or conflict resolution. Individual-level variables can determine how

effectively practitioners use any given communication channel. Bronstein et al.

(2012) support this conclusion in their findings that individuals adapted verbal

communication strategies in negotiation depending upon characteristics of the

negotiation partner. The verbal strategies were not dependent on the channel itself.

The studies in this section indicate that communication professionals have much to

learn about the interaction between communication channels and individual-level

variables during conflict resolution.

Digital Conflict Resolution

My study includes an examination of digital media in the work life and

conflict management activities of a selected group of public relationship

professionals. Digital technology increasingly dominates public relations practice

(Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, & Toth, 2007). Okura, Dozier, Sha, and Hofstetter

(2009) pointed out that "digital technology has radically transformed the tactical

challenges facing public relations practitioners" (p. 51). Because public relations

scholars have identified conflict resolution and problem solving as major public

relations functions (Grunig & Grunig, 1992), we need to pay attention to software

innovations and artificial intelligence research that will allow organizations to resolve

disputes and negotiate without face-to-face contact. Further, research from many

disciplines examines how digital communication channels have affected conflict

resolution and negotiation in the workplace (Geiger & Parlamis, 2014).

Conclusion

The opening of this literature review set a major goal of demonstrating that

negotiation and conflict management in public relations is a topic worthy of a

dissertation because it reveals significant research gaps that a qualitative study could

address (Hofstee, 2006; Jones & Kottler, 2006; Randolf, 2009). This literature review

revealed the crowded field of factors and moderating variables covered by the

models, theories, and practical strategies or tactics summarized above (e.g., Grunig &

Grunig, 1992; Kraus 2001; Fisher et al., 2011). Several research gaps were identified

in our understanding of (1) how practitioners describe their workplace roles and

activities that involve conflict, (2) how conflict management can be defined and

understood in every day communication practice, (3) how digital and social media

influence conflict situations in practice, and (4) how practitioners understand the

strategies for resolving conflicts in their workplaces.

The examination of the literature began with problems in defining negotiation

in public relations (Katz & Pattarini, 2008; Vasquez, 1996) and models of negotiation

in our field (Dozier et al., 1995; Huang, 1997; Plowman, 2007). Grunig and Grunig

(1992) specified mediator as a role for public relations practitioners within

negotiation contexts where they would take on a neutral position to facilitate an

agreement. The exploration of definitions of negotiation revealed difficulties in

establishing practical understandings of what negotiation might mean in the every

day work lives of communication professionals. Gelfand and McCusker (2002) and

Vasquez (1996), proposed a continuum of formal to informal negotiations that could

cover highly formalized situations leading to formal agreements as well as

interpersonal situations that may result in temporary solutions in areas of agreement.

Later sections of the literature review on emotion and transformational

conflict management (Jones, 2000) added layers of complexity to definitions of

negotiation because these studies did not focus on agreements and performance

outcomes, but on negotiation of identity (Jameson et al., 2009) and relationships

(Martins et al., 2013). The literature on definitions of negotiation reviewed here

indicate a gap in understanding of how communication practitioners—as opposed to

academics in the communication field—describe negotiation or conflict

resolution/management activities in their work lives. The overview of definitions and

terminology in communication workplace conflict generated the following research

question that will address the understanding of practitioners.

RQ1: How do public relations/communication practitioners with at least 5

years of experience describe their job activities and roles in the context of conflict

management?

A second literature trail led beyond definitions involving negotiation to studies

that positioned my research within the larger category of conflict resolution and

management inside organizations (Rahim, 2011) and within the subcategory of

conflict management styles (Montes et al., 2012). This arena of conflict resolution

and management tackled models exploring situational, rational, cognitive and

emotional factors in workplace settings. These factors were examined in the sections

on public relations perspectives in negotiation, identity, alternatives to the strategic

perspective, and individual and group-level factors. Because public relations practice

is widely argued to deal with conflict (Cameron, Pang, & Yin, 2008; Dozier et al.,

1995; Huang, 2001; Kent & Taylor, 2002; Plowman, 1998), formal and informal

negotiation have been claimed as part of its practice.

To date, public relations research has developed models that illuminate formal

negotiation (Plowman, 2007; Huang, 2001), but scholars (Putnam, 2005; Vasquez,

1996) have challenged the field to develop concepts and methodologies that will help

us understand informal negotiation and problem solving. Overall, public relations

scholars have been adept at incorporating theoretical perspectives on negotiation from

social psychology, business management, and other fields into the dominant paradigm

of our field—excellence. Two models developed by Putnam (2006) and Huang

(2001) include negotiation tactics and frameworks developed in other disciplines.

However, we lack the practical process models of negotiation and conflict resolution

that guide hostage negotiators and practitioners in other fields. This review raised the

question of whether process models such as the four-stage model of communication

(Madrigal, Bowman, & McClain, 2009) can be adapted to public relations practice.

Further, individual-level and group-level factors that have been studied in

other academic and practical disciplines have often not been integrated into our

understanding of conflict in communication practice. The sub-section on such factors

in this literature review documented a range of elements in conflict studies that are

relevant to communication practice: relationship conflict (Kurtzberg et al., 2005),

team composition, tasks, and psychology (Bell, 2007; Hollingshead et al., 1993;

Martins et al., 2013); personality factors (Cogliser et al., 2012; Swaab et al., 2012);

emotional influences and regulation (Bazerman & Moore, 2009; Griffith et al., 2014):

organizational conflict culture (Choi, 2013) and conflict transformation processes

(Jameson et al., 2009). The contingency theory of public relations (Cameron et al.,

2008) acknowledges the complexity of conflict situations by positing eighty or more

variables that influence conflict management in our field (Cancel et al., 1999).

However, scholars (Stoker & Tusinski, 2006) have questioned the assumption in

contingency theory that dialogue will be an effective resolution strategy. Moreover, a

variety of studies involving interviews with practitioners revealed many

contradictions in how to make practical sense of contingency theory (Reber &

Cameron, 2003; Shin et al., 2006).

Given the difficulties in applying conflict theories to communication practice,

this study proposed the following question that allowed participants to express their

understanding of conflict management and resolution outside the confines of

established theory.

RQ2: How do public relations/communication professionals understand

conflict management and negotiation as roles in their practice? Third,

scholars studying technology factors in conflict resolution were included because of

rapid development in digital and computer-assisted negotiation and conflict resolution

(Dennis et al., 2008; Geiger & Parlamis, 2014; Olaniran, 2010; Martinez-Moreno, et

al., 2009, Swaab et al., 2012; Sweetser & Kelleher, 2011). Berger and Iyengar (2013)

claimed that long distance channels shaped messages to consumers in substantially

different ways than face-to-face strategies. Paulson and Naquin (2004) identified the

problems in establishing trust using long distance channels when attempting to

resolve conflicts. Geiger and Parlamis (2014) added to analysis of the digital channels

by exploring individual-level factors in computermediated conflict resolution,

including preferences for asynchronous channels and the belief that a channel can

convey a clear message. Moreover, innovations in automated and simulated

negotiation help organizations solve everyday problems with stakeholders (Kraus,

2001). Because of the rapid changes in technology in communication practice, this

study will explore the following research questions on digital and social media use in

practice.

RQ3: How do public relations practitioners understand their use of digital

and social media in roles that involve conflict management or negotiation?

Finally, the literature covered in this review explores the processes of conflict

resolution as studied in experiments and also in guidebooks based on case studies and

the experience of experts. Awareness of process, as I stated above, is the foundation

of training and practice in negotiation (Fisher et al., 2011; Gross et al., 2013; Gupta et

al., 2011; Raffia, 1982; Rahim, 2011; Ury, 2007). A research gap exists between the

processes modeled in empirical research and the strategies for practical conflict

resolution offered in guidebooks. Many of the guidebook style publications have little

foundation in empirical research (Gross et al., 2013; Madrigal et al., 2010), while the

preponderance of empirical studies have been conducted in laboratory settings rather

than in the field (Bell, 2007; Stewart, 2006). Evidence from meta-analyses of conflict

research demonstrates that results in the two settings can be significantly different

(De Wit et al., 2012). Caputo (2012) claimed that most negotiation models have been

built prescriptively, instead of through descriptive qualitative or case study methods

than can capture the complexity of negotiation processes. This study contributes to

the building of conflict resolution models by providing some of the descriptive

qualitative evidence on conflict processes in the field that Caputo (2012) called for.

The following research question allowed participants to explore how they understand

conflict resolution processes.

RQ4: How do communication practitioners understand conflict processes

and apply conflict resolution techniques in critical incidents they have

experienced in the workplace?

Chapter 3: Method

To meet the goals of this study, I applied qualitative research as a way to “study

things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret,

phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005,

p. 1). The major perspective I used as researcher derived primarily from

(1) grounded theory data analysis (Charmaz, 2014; Clark, 2005; Corbin & Strauss,

2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967), (2) its related theoretical and practical

frameworks (Denzen & Lincoln, 2005; Starks & Trinidad, 2007), and (3) inductive

processes recommended by other qualitative researchers (Creswell,

2003; Creswell & Plano, 2007; Koerber & McMichael, 2008; Merriam, 2009;

Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014; Potter, 1996; Wolcott, 1994). For an overview

of my authorial voice or standpoint, please see the introduction. Data were

collected through 31 in-depth interviews and follow-up questions, as well as

printed materials provided by the participants, and information from websites

linked to the participants’ organizations or professional activities. To create

more substantial results and enhanced verification, these three types of data

enabled triangulation or multiple lines of sight bearing on conflict in public

relations practice (Berg, 2007). Moreover, I used multiple techniques for

qualitative research data collection and analysis to enrich the material and

deepen my findings. Data were analyzed in several stages: (1) through notes

recorded during the in-depth interviews; (2) through reflective notes written

immediately after the interviews

(Faÿ & Riot, 2007; Finlay, 2002); (3) through qualitative content analysis, involving

constant comparison of interview transcripts to generate studyspecific categories

and themes; and (4) through qualitative content analysis of interview transcripts,

applying concepts and themes derived from previous research studies (Gelo et al.,

2008).

Importantly, while my study varied from grounded theory because I

conducted a literature review in the proposal stage, I followed the nine strategies

that Charmaz (2014, p. 15) listed as standards for conducting grounded theory.

These strategies are described in detail below or documented in the Results and

Discussion sections of this dissertation: (1) iterative data collection and analysis

(see Data Collection and Analysis); (2) analysis of actions and processes (see

Instrumentation); (3) comparative methods of analysis (e.g., constant

comparison; see Analysis Stage One); (4) development of new conceptual

categories using narratives and descriptions (see Critical Incident

Data Collection); (5) inductive analytic categories (see Concepts and Factors in

Results); (6) theory construction (see Transforming Conflict Model in

Discussion); (7) theoretical sampling (see Sampling Procedures); (8) variation in

the studied categories or process (e.g., minority viewpoints, see Results); and (9)

category development rather than coverage of an empirical topic (see categorical

findings under each RQ in Results).

This section reviews the steps followed in the process to collect and analyze

data, as well as strategies for reducing bias and increasing internal and external

validity.

Method Overview

Unit of Analysis

Individuals who work as public relations practitioners are the unit of

analysis. Babbie (2010) defined units of analysis as "the what or whom being

studied" (p. 95), noting that most social science research used individual people as

their units–as opposed to groups, organizations, or social artifacts. Creswell

(2007) identified individuals who share experience of the same phenomenon as

the units of analysis for grounded theory data analysis. Individuals in this study

share work experience of at least five years in public relations and

communication.

Participants

In a qualitative study, a full description of participants allows readers to

judge the credibility of results (Holsti, 1969). For this study, I recruited thirtyone

(31) public relations practitioners with five or more years of experience to

participate in in-depth interviews and to provide critical incident narratives.

Information about the thirty-one participants was gathered in two ways in this

study: during questions and probes within the interview and with an information

sheet that participants completed at the end of the interview.

Gender was an important variable during the interviews. Twenty of the 31

participants were women (64.5%); eleven (35.5%) were male. National

estimates of the proportions of women and men in the profession vary, but the

clear majority is female–72 percent of the 21,000-member Public Relations

Society of America (PRSA) (Working, 2013), a close match for my ratio. A 2010 PRSA

report indicated that “14% of the membership self-identified as Hispanic,

black/African American, Asian/Asian American” (Tindall, 2012). In this study,

16% of my participants identified with one of these categories.

Gender and race or ethnic identities are summarized below in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1

Identities of the Participants

Identity Percentage of

Participants

National Statistics

Female 64.5% 72%

Male 35.5% 28%

Hispanic, Black/African

American, or Asian/ Asian

American

16% 14%

Age and number of years in the communication profession were

determined by questions on the participant’s personal information sheet. Those

who had changed jobs over several decades had some difficulty calculating their

precise longevity in the profession. Several of these participants had begun working

at for-profit public relations agencies during or immediately after finishing

secondary school. In one case, the individual’s father owned a communication

agency; in another case, the participant grew up in a European country where many

young people entered the work world in their late teens.

Table 3.2

Participant Ages and Professional Experience

Category Number Average Range Median

Age 31 48.77 years 27-70 years 51.5 years

Years in 31 18.32 years 5-44 years 20 years

Profession

Most participants in the interviews referred to multiple jobs held during

their careers in communication and public relations. The following chart

enumerates only the frequency of organizational settings for their principal conflict

incident narrative. Of the 31 interviewees, 18 (58%) narrated incidents that

occurred in for-profit organizations; 13 (42%) reported on incidents in nonprofit

organizations.

Table 3.3

Type and Purpose of Principal Organizations Reported by Participants

Organization Type Organization/Professional Frequency

Purpose

Organization Type Organization/Professional Purpose Frequency

For-Profit Communication/PR General Services 3

Corporation Consulting for Federal Agencies 2

Global Business (health products, minerals) 2

Insurance 1

Negotiation for County/State Consortium 1

Social Change and Activism 1

Health Promotion & Research 1

Small Business Social Change & Activism 1

Media Relations 2

Research Analysis & Campaign Development 1

Non-Profit Diplomacy (Public Affairs) 2

Government Security (Defense and Intelligence) 2

County Conference & Travel Bureau 1

State Health & Aging Bureau 1

Non-Profit Labor Union, Labor Association 2

Private University/College (PR/Marketing) 2

Environmental 1

Community Service 1

Performing Arts 1

Participants were free to report on any job held in communication or

public relations, not merely their current employment. Some chose to discuss

work they had done, or incidents that had transpired, in previous work settings.

The following list enumerates the categories of organizations cited by participants

in their communication and public relations careers.

Categories of Organizations Cited by Participants

Government agency: Federal

Diplomacy (Public Affairs)

Security (Global)

Government agency: State or County

Education Departments

Health and Aging

Public School Boards

County Conference and Travel Bureau

For-profit organization: Corporation or Small Business.

Insurance

Global Business, including health products and strategic minerals

For-profit organization: Communication or Public Relations Firm as

Employee

Communication Consulting for Federal Agencies

Negotiation for County/State Agencies

Health Promotion and Research

Media Relations

Research Analysis and Campaign Development for Small

Businesses

Strategic Communication and Relations

For-profit organization: Communication or Public Relations Firm as

Owner-CEO

Small Business Communication Consulting and Services

Social Change and Activism

Non-profit organization

Performing Arts or Museum

Community Service

Environmental

Labor Union

University/College (Directors of PR/Marketing)

The majority of participants described their experiences with conflict

resolution in one organization, although the more experienced professionals

mentioned conflict within several organizations where they had worked. The

study was especially enriched when the same individual could recount conflict

instances in two organizations. For example, one participant worked in

communication for state employees and then was hired to communicate for

government management that negotiated with these employees. Another

participant worked as a journalist on the school board beat and then as a media

communication specialist for a county’s school boards. These practitioners offered

insights from both sides of the conflicts that arose between their organizations.

Participants reported the exact title of the jobs they held. The list below

shows the diversity of titles. Job Titles of Participants

Executive Director

Executive Director of Public Relations and Marketing

Consultant for Military Organizations

Communication Consultant

Communication Coordinator

Communication Field Coordinator

Director of Communication

Director of Marketing and Public Relations

Director of Public Relations and Reputation Management

Information Officer

Media Relations Specialist

President

Senior Analyst for Small Businesses

Senior Director of Marketing and Communication

Senior Vice President for External Affairs

Strategic and Media Consultant

This diverse list of job titles is typical in communication/public relations.

Doyle (2013) listed 47 separate job titles that covered employment in the field,

and college career centers have listed a dizzying number of job titles that

communication graduates could qualify for. Because the responsibilities covered

under these titles vary widely, interviewees often spent significant time describing

what they did on a typical day (Appendix A: Interview Protocol, Question 2). Their

daily job descriptions are captured in the Results section (Research Question 1).

Moreover, these job titles did not always indicate where the participant fit

into the organizational or career hierarchy. In 1993, PRSA outlined five basic

levels of growth in public relations or communication careers: technician (two

levels), supervisor (two levels), manager, director, and executive. Where did my

participants fit in this scheme? Some participants had job titles implying that

they were managers or directors when, in fact, they had few if any supervisory

duties. Perhaps because of the minimum requirement of five years experience, no

one fit exclusively in the category of entry-level technician. Every participant had

broader responsibilities than writing text for various communication channels,

although all of them continued to write and edit text regardless of their career

levels. Surprisingly, one participant with eight years of experience and a title of

vice president continued to function largely as an entry-level technician in a

small organization. She routinely took photographs, shot video for media outlets,

and copy- edited text for the other employees. At age 57, this professional

worried that her lack of supervisory experience and up-to-date technical skills

would prevent her from getting a better job. Personally, this was the most painful

interview I conducted because the interviewee laid out the problems facing older

professionals who perceive that their skills do not meet the demands of new

technologies and advanced management. Her senior title did not mask the

participant’s daily entry-level duties.

A number of participants performed the responsibilities of second-level

technician that include analyzing issues, conducting research, and overseeing staff

in completing the various messages required in publications, campaigns,

presentations, video productions, and the like. According to the Professional

Career Guide (PRSA, 1993), these advanced technicians continue to use their

technical and craft skills, but expand into coordinating and planning project tasks,

budgets, and schedules. For example, several participants functioned as liaisons

with government agency personnel on contracts implemented by their for-profit

employers. Another participant worked as a media specialist communicating his

environmental organization’s goals to journalists in three states, but he also acted

as an event planner.

The levels of supervisor and manager were sometimes difficult for me to

capture from descriptions of the participants’ responsibilities. These roles can be

identified by job title in large public relations agencies with multiple divisions

such as Edelman—the largest public relations firm in the United States (Edelman,

2013, Main Website Page, www.edelman.com). But the duties assigned to these

jobs are not consistent across smaller public relations firms or government

agencies.

Sampling

Sampling procedures. This study used purposive sampling – “a type of

non-probability sampling in which you select the units to be observed on the basis

of your own judgment about which ones will be the most useful or representative”

(Babbie, 2010, p. 183). Grounded theory data analysis rests on purposeful or

purposive sampling because a basic requirement is that the participants have

experience of the phenomenon (Creswell, 2003, p. 125). In this study, participants

were purposefully chosen because they had at least five years of experience as

communication professionals and, consequently, could provide authentic

perspectives on conflict in practice. Put another way, a selection and recruitment

of experienced professionals insures that the findings will not be "entirely

idiosyncratic" (Koerber & McMichael, 2008, p. 454).

While non-probability sampling restricts the generalization of results to a

larger population (Stacks, 2011), it has several advantages in qualitative research.

I could select participants who would generate data with the highest potential for

discovery, deeper understanding, contradictions, and implications for practice

(Merriam, 2009). Also, purposeful sampling technique has the power to enhance

contributions to grounded theory analysis. Corbin and Strauss (2008)

recommended a theoretical sampling procedure that gives researchers the

flexibility to “maximize opportunities to develop concepts in terms of their

properties and dimensions, uncover variations, and identify relationships

between concepts” (p. 143). In other words, researchers have to identify people

and situations within a general target population that will help them accumulate

their data and reach saturation or the stage when no new discoveries are being

made (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Purposeful sampling allowed me to achieve

saturation as defined in grounded theory data analysis.

Several kinds of purposeful sampling were used in this study: convenience

and snowball sampling. I generated a typical sample of communication

professionals with five years of experience by starting with people who were

convenient based on their availability, location, and professional connections to

my colleagues or myself. I moved beyond convenience sampling because it can

produce information-poor data from highly similar participants (Merriam, 2009).

By asking my interviewees to recommend other professionals for the study,

snowball sampling expanded the pool of participants (Stacks, 2011). I added

theoretical sampling strategies to insure that my data reflected some diversity in

gender, ethnicity/race, type of communication practice, and geographical location

(Charmaz, 2014). Consequently, all potential participants were asked what

public relations employment they had experienced (see Appendix A, Interview

Protocol). Those who had never held a paid position as a public research

practitioner were excluded. Participants completed a brief information sheet at

the end of the interview that documented their employment in public relations

(see Appendix

B).

Standards for sample size. I employed three standards to determine

when my sample was large enough to represent the population: quantities

suggested by other researchers, saturation, and ability to credibly analyze the data

collected. Recruiting continued until all these standards were met, for it was clear

that one standard alone would have been difficult to rely on with any certainty.

Numerical standards are not widely recommended by writers on

qualitative research methodology. Merriam (2009) advised “those with low

tolerance for ambiguity” to accept that “there is no answer” to how large the

sample size should be (p. 80). Nevertheless, Creswell (2007) examined a number

of studies to determine how many units had been included by researchers from

different methodological positions. Numbers might range from one to 325, but

most studies used from 3 to 10 (Creswell, 2007). For my second perspective–

grounded theory data collection–Creswell (2007) recommended “20 to 30

individuals in order to develop a well-saturated theory” (p. 128). Charmaz (2006)

pointed out that many grounded theory studies had incorporated much larger

numbers of participants.

Participant recruitment continued until a minimum saturation was

reached at 31 interviews based on richness of the data for analysis. Saturation is a

qualitative research term often employed as a standard for when the researcher

can stop adding participants. Corbin and Strauss (2008) defined it as a stage

“when no new data are emerging . . . but it also denotes the development of

categories in terms of their properties and dimensions” (p. 143).

My third criterion was the manageability of the sample. On the one hand,

significant numbers of participants can bolster the study’s credibility. On the

other hand, Kvale (1996) warned that qualitative researchers often collected so

many interview data that they could not possibly analyze their findings. He gave

the hypothetical example of qualitative researchers-in-training who conducted 30

to 40 hours of interviews and produced 1,000 pages of transcripts. Kvale (1996)

commented, “One thousand pages of transcripts are generally too much to

handle. The material is too extensive to overview and to work out the depth of

meaning of what was said” (p. 277). Fewer interviews or critical incident

narratives may be sufficient to achieve what is called saturation of data–a

condition in which additional interviews seem to produce no new understanding

(Creswell, 2007).

Recruitment. Participants were recruited using criterion convenience

method, a snowball technique, and opportunistic recruitment (Creswell, 2003;

Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). Although scholars describe these techniques as

mutually exclusive (Koerber & McMichael, 2008), I believe they work together to

yield a strong purposeful sample. Criterion convenience sampling involved

recruiting people known to me or to friends or colleagues because they fit the

standard of experienced public relations practitioner within one of the

applicable organizational categories. Convenience participants are often selected

based on ready availability that saves time and money (Babbie, 2010). Participants

who completed an interview were asked for names of other practitioners who

could be recruited–a technique called snowball, chain, or network sampling

(Merriam, 2009). Finally, I used opportunistic recruitment at professional

meetings and conferences that public relations practitioners attended.

Materials and Procedures

This section explains how the choice of instruments was made, what data

collection instruments are used, where and how the data are collected, and what

privacy protections the participants can expect (Creswell, 2003).

Instrumentation. According to Miles & Huberman (1994),

"Instrumentation comprises specific methods for collecting data . . . and may be

loosely to tightly structured" (p. 36). Grounded theory data collection relies heavily

on in-depth interviews because individuals can express their understanding of a

phenomenon most fully through language (Creswell, 2007). Interviews are loosely

structured or unstructured because the data collection process should be informal

and interactive; questions posed by researchers are always open-ended (Corbin &

Strauss, 2008).

Initial contact. Initial contacts with potential participants proceeded via

mail, email, or telephone. Examples of initial contact messages can be found in

Rubin and Rubin (2005). Individuals who agreed to participate received a follow-up

letter that documented the date, time, and place of the interview.

Interview protocol. A written interview protocol guided the interview

(Appendix A). It included open-ended questions to establish rapport and to

encourage participants to explore their experiences of negotiation and how they

understood them. I organized the protocol using main questions to ensure that

conflict in practice was thoroughly explored, as well as follow-up questions to

expand detail and clarify meanings about ideas, and probing questions to

“complete an idea, fill in a missing piece, or request clarification of what was said”

(Rubin & Rubin, 2005, p. 137). I found that probes led me to new themes (e.g.,

mentoring and personal skills in conflict management) that turned into major

follow-up questions.

Charmaz (2006) identified two main questions that have to be posed in

any grounded theory interview: What did you experience and how do you

understand that experience? To explore these questions, the protocol was

divided into five sections that covered descriptions, definitions, and

understanding of the roles practitioners play in conflict situations in their work

lives. RQ1 on a participant’s current job/role included four sub-questions that

covered the organization’s purpose and mission, her daily work activities, the

audiences she wanted to reach, and a challenging project she recently had

worked on. These questions allowed me to compile portraits of the workplaces of

my participants, the audiences that could be sources of conflict, and whether

conflict surfaced in challenging projects.

RQ2 explored conflict with internal and external audiences and the amount

of time practitioners devoted to dealing with conflicts. Literature covering the

functions of public relations practice have focused on publics and building

relationships with audiences in both routine practice and conflict situations

(Aldoory & Sha, 2007; Bruning, Dials, & Shirka, 2008; Grunig & Repper, 1992;

Leitch & Morton, 2010; Ni & Kim, 2009). RQ3 collected data on participants’ use of

digital and social media–in some cases, perceived use of digital media in dealing

with conflict. RQ 4 centered on gathering critical incidents and deepening our

understanding of how conflicts affect work life. The critical incident technique is

described in detail in the data analysis section below. The conclusion section of

the protocol allowed participants to add further comments they would like to

make on how public relations practitioners work to deal with conflict on the job.

This question turned into a major source of data because many participants

wanted to express their general understanding of conflict and offer personally

successful strategies for resolving it. Participants also could add questions they

wanted me to ask and then often answered those questions.

At the end of the interview, I collected background information (see Appendix

B) that allowed me to collect systematic information about the age and work

experience of all participants.

Pilot of interview protocol. A pilot refines the protocol so that the study results

reflect the “lived experiences” of the participants (Creswell, 2007). Using the

protocol (Appendix A), I conducted interviews with five public relations practitioners

whose characteristics matched the sample (Kvale, 2007). I added the following

questions (Appendix C) (Sampson, 2004): How did you experience the interview?

How well did the questions help you describe your experiences? What issues did I

miss? What would you omit? After analyzing data from the pilot, I made

modifications to the protocol. For example, based on a recommendation from the

pilot, I added a probe about what percentage of time each participant spent in

management as compared to practice activities. I added a follow-up about whether

conflicts arose inside the organization over money because several practitioners in

public agencies mentioned reduced budgets after the 2008 economic recession.

Several participants recommended that I add a probe about conflicts involving

cultural and gender differences. Some of these probes only produced marginal

information in the data analysis stages, but they added depth to the participants’

answers.

Data Collection

In-depth interviews. Interviews in this study were in-depth and

personto-person. DeMarrais (2004) defined an interview as "a process in which

a researcher and participant engage in conversation focused on questions related

to a research study" (p. 55). Depth is created in interviews when participants are

allowed to explore significant topics without limitations on their answers (Rubin

& Rubin, 2005). The in-depth interviews in this study were semi-structured: they

featured main questions about negotiation and its meaning, but allowed these

questions to be posed in a flexible order with the addition of any probing

questions that could clarify meaning and fill in gaps in the experience (Merriam,

2009). Rubin and Rubin (2005) listed several types of probing questions to aid in

elaborating and clarifying responses (pp. 164-171). Probes were also used to

clarify the sequence of events and add examples to the answers. Rapport

between researcher and interviewee was established and maintained so that the

conversation could flow freely and rich data could emerge (Rubin & Rubin,

2005).

Overview of data. The 31 interviews ranged in duration from 45 to 170

minutes; total interview time (including introductory and concluding dialogue)

was 2,899 minutes (48 hours, 19 minutes). All interviews were audio-recorded. I

made post-interview observation notes to clarify data and my personal experience

of the interview, then reviewed transcripts and undertook coding of the findings.

Full transcripts consumed 668 typed, single-spaced pages (46 lines per page).

IRB permission. Before any interview took place, the interviewees read and

signed the University of Maryland Institutional Review Board permission document

for this study. It explained the study's purpose, the rights of the participant, the

confidentiality protections that apply to participant identity, and the audio-taping

requirement. Before conducting interviews by telephone, I sent the IRB permission

forms to participants via email along with the interview questions. See Appendix D

for IRB approval form.

Setting. The interview setting can influence a participant’s comments

and the researcher’s impressions. Stacks (2011) recommended that researchers

conduct in-depth interviews in the participant’s office or home; the participant

may feel more relaxed in a familiar setting and the surrounding objects can “tell

you much about the person you are interviewing” (p. 176). Researchers

increasingly prefer on-location data collection for qualitative studies (Krueger &

Casey, 2009). However, Debus (1988) warned against noisy places and those

where the participant feels exposed to observation by passers-by. Fifteen of my

31 interviews were conducted face-to-face in various locations. The other

participants lived too far away to be interviewed without expensive travel; they

were reached by telephone. When the interview was face-to-face, I asked

participants if I could come to their workplaces where the real-life setting could

bolster their reflections on work experience.

Critical incident data collection. The interview protocol contained a

critical incident (CI) question intended to deepen my understanding of conflict

events that participants had experienced during communication work

(Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson, & Maglio, 2005).

Question 9: Can you tell me about a time when you played a role in trying

to resolve a disagreement in your public relations or communication work? Or

could you tell me about an incident that you witnessed and

know a lot about?

However, participants provided critical incidents in their answers to a number of

questions, not just to question 9.

Critical incident technique (CIT; Flanagan, 1954) is a qualitative research

method that uses interviews (individual or group) to understand “significant

occurrences (events, incidents, processes, or issues” (Chell, 2004, p. 48)

identified by participants to help researchers understand the topic (Butterfield et

al., 2005; Hughes, 2012). To qualify as a critical incident, the episode must be

“sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions,” “the purpose

or intent of the act seems fairly clear to the observer,” and “its consequences are

sufficiently definite to leave little doubt concerning its effects” (Flanagan, 1954, p.

327). These qualities separated the critical incident from many examples or

illustrations that participants gave in their answers to other questions.

During probes of the critical incident narratives, the interviewees were

asked to reflect on who was involved, the course of events, the result or outcome,

and the causes of what happened (Edvardsson & Roos, 2001). In answer to my

critical incident question, the participants told stories about “organizational

dramas” (Chell, 2004, p. 58) that spurred self-reflection and yielded insights into

the processes of conflict resolution. More importantly, the participants revealed

the emotions they experienced and the effects of these workplace conflicts on

their lives and careers.

In addition to collecting details about and responses to the incidents, I

asked participants how “the outcomes could have been better or worse”

(Appendix A: Interview Protocol). In critical incident method, this question

produces a Wish List (WL), defined as items that a participant thought would have

improved the outcome if they had been added to or eliminated from the situation

(Butterfield et al., 2009, p. 267). Wish List items could include people,

information, tactics, supports, policies, interventions, and the like; these same

items could also be taken out of the situation, rather than added (e.g., I wish that

coworker had butted out).

Data Analysis and Interpretation

In qualitative research, analysis generally means the "process of

examining something in order to find out what it is and how it works" (Corbin &

Strauss, 2008, p. 46). Analysis is viewed as a dynamic inductive process which

yields concepts or themes that develop over time through systematic

examination of the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Researchers who want to

describe a phenomenon usually begin with an examination of the whole and then

examine the components that indicate how the whole works (Corbin & Strauss,

2008). The strategy of whole to part applies to this research project's analysis of

conflict resolution in public relations practice.

In this study, qualitative content analysis reduced data collected from

interview transcripts and other written texts so that participant information and

insights about conflict resolution could be conveyed reliably, credibly, and as

objectively as possible. Data analysis followed the two-stage process recommended

by Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña (2014): analyzing the data using categories and

themes developed from the participant data (i.e., the emic stage) and analyzing the

data using codes, categories, and themes derived from prior

research (i.e., the etic stage).

Qualitative content analysis procedures rely on specific definitions and

goals. Content analysis has been defined as “a method of analyzing written, verbal,

or visual communication messages” (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008). Coding, or “deriving

and developing concepts from data” (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 65) required

generating codes from segments of the data. Codes are “tags or labels for

assigning units of meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled

during the study” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 65). According to Krippendorf

(2004), content analysis of data should result in a “condensed and broad

description of the phenomenon, and the outcome of the analysis is concepts or

categories describing the phenomenon” (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 108). More

simply stated, the goal of qualitative content analysis is to turn raw data into

concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).

Guides or handbooks often describe qualitative content analysis of large

verbal data sets as overwhelming at first (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Creswell,

2003; Kvale, 1995; Merriam, 2009). I found this to be true. By dividing the

analysis process into stages, I was able to capture the descriptions and meanings

of the participants first. Then, in the second stage, I established credibility by

comparing the study-unique categories/themes with results from past studies on

conflict resolution.

Analysis stage one. My first analytic stage–the emic procedure–involved a

repeated process of reading and analyzing the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The

goal was to generate a reduced group of in vivo codes: that is, concepts captured

by the actual words of the participants and not created by the researcher. Because

my participants were experienced and articulate professionals, they provided

vivid, precise phrases to describe their experiences and understanding. I felt that

to deviate from their exact words in generating codes could compromise the

objectivity of my analysis. In this first stage, I generated words/phrases/concepts

that captured the meaning of data segments, compared and contrasted those

meanings, collapsed the meanings into codes that could guide analysis of other

segments of the data, and finally–through iteration–arrived at a smaller, workable

set of key words, phrases, and examples that could answer the research questions

with fidelity to the participants’ descriptions and understandings.

To be more precise, I applied several strategies from the thirteen tactics

recommended by Miles and Huberman (1994) for generating meaning from

qualitative data; these included (1) noting patterns and themes, (2) clustering,

(3) making contrasts and comparisons, (4) recording metaphors, (5) “subsuming

particulars into the general” (p. 255), (6) “building a logical chain of evidence” (p.

260), and (7) making conceptual coherence of the reduced data. I excluded a

number of analytic strategies as incompatible with my theoretical stance that

grounds theory in inductive data collection. I did not count or treat word data as

variables that could be manipulated during analysis or whose relationships could

be expressed in word equations (Miles & Huberman, 1994, pp. 256-257).

Moreover, I used the strategy of constant comparison from grounded theory data

analysis. Simply defined, constant comparison is “the analytic process of

comparing different pieces of data for similarities or differences” (Corbin &

Strauss, 2008, p. 65). While this data analysis tactic is similar to

making comparisons and contrasts as recommended by Miles and Huberman

(1994), grounded theory data analysis developed more specific strategies

including open and axial coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Open coding is applied in

the initial analysis of the data in order to break data apart and delineate

categories and concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 9). Axial coding is a second

stage that involves making connections among the categories. In particular, axial

coding requires analysts to look at the context of the categories/concepts/themes,

to uncover the relationships among them, and to explore how these relationships

illuminate the participants’ understanding of conflict resolution in

communication practice. Axial coding furthered my understanding of the

behaviors, interpretations, strategic recommendations, and insights the

participants revealed during our interviews. Theoretical strands emerged in the

results as a set of constructs and factors. The data yielded enough evidence to

articulate a descriptive model and conflict transformation theory comparable to

the grounded theory examples provided by Glaser and

Strauss (1967, p. 213) and Corbin and Strauss (2008, p. 271).

Analysis stage two. Once the major construct and factors solidified, stage

two considered concepts and themes from the results of previous research studies

on conflict resolution in work settings (Creswell, 2007). This analysis aided me in

what Corbin and Strauss (2008) called integration in which researchers add

“missing links in the logic” of their grounded theory models (p. 274). New sections

were added to the literature review to investigate emotion, conflict avoidance, and

transformation of conflict–themes that emerged in stage one analysis. I kept a

concept journal on research studies that connected to the study’s major themes.

For example, the journal covered studies on e-mentoring (Srivastava & Jomon,

2013), team personality (LePine et al., 2011), detoxifying negative relationships

(Gallicano, 2013), and the use of communication audits to uncover organizational

conflicts (Hargie & Tourish, 2009). This stage of examining existing research

allowed me to get a bigger picture of the workplace conflict terrain. Using this

research information, I was able to refine my participants’ understanding in ways

that helped me create a logical structure for my final theory.

Analysis of critical incidents. As explained under Data Collection,

critical incident technique (CIT; Flanagan, 1954) was incorporated into my

research through a single question augmented by probes in the interview

protocol. Critical incident technique employs many of the same data analysis

techniques used in other qualitative methods that rely on interviews. These

include phenomenology, grounded theory, and case study (Creswell, 2008).

Still, other data techniques are specific to CIT because its origins were in job

effectiveness analysis, selection of pilots, and other organizational applications

involving employees (Flanagan, 1954). Because its method strategies have been

geared to practical results, the data analysis has been more standardized and has

even included specific numerical standards for including a category in the final

analysis of the data (Butterfield et al., 2005). Strategies involving counts of

participant responses have been excluded from my data analysis because they

contradict theoretical underpinnings of my study in grounded theory. However, I

have adopted other method analyses from CIT and its newest development

Extended Critical Incident Technique (ECIT; Hughes, 2012). These tactics include

using several pre-existing categories to analyze the critical incidents and several

strategies developed as credibility checks.

Specific coding categories in critical incident technique. Butterfield et al.

(2009), Hughes (2012), Miles & Huberman (1994), and others have compiled pre-

existing categories that bolster the analysis of critical incidents. Some of these

categories are meant to create homogeneity of descriptive details across the

critical incidents. I used the following detail categories:

Topic of the incident

Context, including any triggering factor

People involved and their histories

Organization

Time period (short-term versus long-term)

Tone or affect of the incident (positive, negative, neutral)

Turning points or differences (e.g., age, gender, culture)

Outcomes and explanation of outcomes

Wish list items to improve the outcomes

Other coding categories were added as needed.

Selected credibility checks in critical incident technique. Credibility or

trustworthiness checks have been highly evolved in CIT because many applications

have focused on behavior measurement (Flanagan, 1954). Butterfield et al. (2009)

listed nine of these checks (pp. 274-276); a number of them mirror

reliability/validity strategies that are widely used in other qualitative method

approaches (e.g., saturation, audiotaping and complete transcription, evaluation

of researcher bias). However, I found several of the credibility checks of critical

incident method highly applicable and feasible in the data analysis.

1. Incidents were analyzed in batches of three and categories were

organized on a table that included the participant identification code, the

date categorized, and new categories that emerged. Separate tables were kept

for the critical incident narrative and for the items that participants included in

their wish lists to be added to or eliminated from the conflict resolution process to

achieve a better outcome.

2. An independent analyst with a PhD and previous faculty tenure

acted as a check on categories in at least 25% of the interviews

(Butterfield et al., 2005). His checks included distinguishing critical incidents

and wish list items (e.g., independent extraction of CIs); placing incidents

into categories; and determining if the categories were

exhaustive.

Analysis of print and digital materials. A variety of print and digital

materials were collected throughout the study. Prior to interviewing each

participant, I examined organization websites, LinkedIn pages, and other

Internet evidence. During face-to-face interviews, I collected print materials from

the participants’ offices that documented the current activities and

communication campaigns of the organization. In person and on the telephone, I

asked for organizational charts and other materials that the practitioner thought

would be useful in helping me understand his or her everyday work life. At

several stages in my constant comparison data analysis, I incorporated

information from these sources and other digital materials such as newspaper

articles and professional publications. For example, I used these materials to

check the accuracy of statements or to deepen my understanding of the outcome

of a news event that a participant offered as critical incident.

Triangulation. I used a number of data triangulation procedures to boost

the internal validity of my results (Creswell, 2007). Triangulation strategies

occurred throughout data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Merriam

(2009) listed four types of triangulation including the use of multiple sources of

data. In this study, I used interview data, observations, and

artifacts/documents/records (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 12). Before interviews, I

reviewed organization websites to familiarize myself with the workplace context,

During interviews, I collected organizational charts, mission statements,

pamphlets and other materials. These proved invaluable in clarifying exact job

titles, hierarchical relationships, and other details about the work lives that

participants described.

After interviews, I conducted extensive fact-checking of details and events

described by participants. For example, one participant described conflicts

surrounding his communication work after a high-profile plan crash. I located

newspaper and magazine reports that helped me to clarify this event and the

participant’s role. I was also able to trace a public dispute over closing of schools

during a flu outbreak and the sale of a health insurance company. These artifacts

allowed me to authentic results.

Finally, I used observation to triangulate data. No only did I interview in

the workplace of as many participants as possible; I attended several conferences

and events where participants presented or were actively involved. In one case, I

observed the agency where a participant was actively dealing with clients. In

another case, I attended two different panel discussions where the participant

was a speaker.

Standards of Validity and Reliability (Internal Validity)

This section briefly covers the theoretical debate over the standards for

judging qualitative research, traditionally conceptualized as validity, reliability,

and utility (Potter, 1996; Wolcott, 1994). The following paragraphs define validity

as an ethical construct and reliability as a form of internal validity, subsequently

proceeding to explain the strategies I used to boost internal and external validity

and minimize bias.

Among qualitative research scholars, concepts of validity and reliability

have been vigorously disputed and theorists have proposed alternative

frameworks to judge whether the findings and conclusions of a study are “possibly

or probably true, reliable, valid, dependable, reasonable, confirmable, credible,

trustworthy, useful, compelling, significant, empowering (add others of your

choice)” (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014, p. 310). This section cannot cover the

complex debate over what criteria of truth or objectivity should be applied to

qualitative research studies like this one (Starks & Trinidad, 2007). Even a review

of the alternative terms used by qualitative scholars to designate validity and

reliability would require a lengthy essay (Creswell, 2007, p. 203).

However, I was guided by concepts of internal and external validity and reliability

that I believe apply logically and ethically to the goals of this study. First, I

defined external validity in two contexts: fittingness (or fit) with other people’s

understandings and values (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). External validity

is a highly contested construct in qualitative research, but its meaning seems to

center around whether the conclusions are trustworthy enough to be applied in

the real world (Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011). The question that I asked myself

about external validity while conducting this study was whether I had applied

enough rigor to make links with other studies, other communication work

settings, and other professionals. Another perspective on fit as an external

validity standard is transferability—a concept from qualitative research

approaches that assert conclusions are applicable to other settings (Miles,

Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014).

The ethical context of external validity considers “how we [qualitative

researchers] are able to improve the lives of those we study” (Tierney, 1997, p.

vii). Ethical validity is very closely tied to applications of the conclusions in

communication practice (Lincoln et al., 2011). At the very least, the interview

process should have expanded the awareness of my interviewees on how the

conflicts they experience benefit or detract from their everyday work lives. One

participant already told me that he had improved his hiring practices after our

interview. I hope the conclusions of the study can influence practice if and when I

can describe them to communication professionals through conferences and

meetings of professional organizations such as the Public Relations Society of

America.

Another element of validity that I stressed in the process of completing

this study is credibility or authenticity—a component of internal validity (Miles,

Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). Internal validity in qualitative research is a standard

of reliability because it demands consistency between the results and the data

collected—just as replication of a study in quantitative research demands

reliability in producing results consistent with those found in the original study

(Merriam, 2009, p. 221). As a researcher, I asked the following questions to

determine if this study’s conclusions have internal validity: Do the conclusions

make sense to me? Would the conclusions seem credible to the participants of the

study? Does the study authentically depict the conflict and its manifestations in

the work lives of these communication professionals? Strategies to increase

internal validity. Internal validity–also called credibility and authenticity–has

been defined as the “truth value” of the research that includes insuring that the

“findings of the study make sense,” that they appear “credible to the people we

study,” and that they create “an authentic portrait of what we were looking at”

(Miles, Huberman, & Saldano, 2014, p. 312). I used several qualitative method

tactics to insure that the descriptive results of this study are “reliable, dependable,

reasonable, credible, [and] useful” (Miles &

Huberman, 1994, p. 277).

Because grounded theory and related qualitative research methods

privilege the participant’s understanding of the experience (Creswell, 2009), my

internal validation activities first included asking for clarification of answers

shortly after the interview. After each interview, I typed up my notes from the

conversation, noted any confusing passages, and crafted a thank-you note to the

interviewee summarizing a main point or insight that had surfaced. If I needed

clarification of a point, I asked for it in the email or, in several instances, in person.

I received only two responses to email requests, both including additional details

about the interviewees’ work experience.

Further, I checked facts and filled in details about the participants’

organizations from website information and printed materials that I collected

during face-to-face interviews. For example, I checked job titles, mission statements

of the organizations, key stakeholders, and organizational charts.

Strategies to increase external validity. Qualitative researchers such as

Miles and Huberman (1994) have sought verification of findings through twelve

"operationalized tactics," such as checking for representativeness in the data and

"triangulating across data sources and methods" (p. 28). Creswell (2007) listed

the following strategies for improving external validity: “prolonged engagement

and persistent observation,” triangulation of data, peer review or debriefing,

providing disconfirming evidence, clarifying researcher bias (see section below),

member checking, and providing rich, thick description (pp. 207-209). To varying

degrees, I applied all these external validation strategies during the conduct of

this study. Triangulation of data is described in the data collection section of this

chapter while clarifying and researcher bias is described in the next section. The

results section (Chapter 5) provides evidence of rich, thick description for each

theme and critical incident. I included extensive narratives and plentiful

quotations to verify my analysis of the actual words spoken by participants.

I achieved prolonged engagement and observation, continuing my contact

with participants and practitioners by joining and becoming actively involved as

an officer in a local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. The

membership provided me with national leadership training and exposure to

many communication practitioners in my region. Through PRSA and supervision

of graduate communication practicum interns, my knowledge of practice has

been deepened over the course of this study and has helped me verify themes and

constructs.

I also used member checking to test the validity of the findings—a

technique recommended by Lincoln and Guba (1985) as “the most critical

technique for establishing credibility” (p. 314). Peer checking involved asking

participants if they deemed the findings credible and representative of their

understandings (Merriam, 2009). After completing the second stage of data

analysis, I spoke with eight participants informally to review the study’s discussion

of conflicts with internal audiences, conflict avoidance, conflict transformation, and

informal versus formal conflict resolution techniques. These participants

confirmed the results and added further understandings, especially about conflict

avoidance.

In addition, I used peer review or debriefing as an external check of the

findings (Creswell, 2007). I made a formal PowerPoint presentation of my results to

a group of colleagues in communication and government at Johns Hopkins

University. The presentation included brief quotations from the interview

transcripts, data analysis notes, and relevant literature (Merriam, 2009). The

feedback from these participants and colleagues helped me to assess how well I

applied the method, as well as to judge the depth of understanding and the

credibility of the results. Their comments helped me understand how readers will

absorb or reject the meta-themes and the transformation of conflict model (Eisner,

1991).

Reflective strategies to reduce personal biases. Reflexivity in

qualitative research has been generally defined as a strategy used by researchers

to reduce their personal biases in the collection and analysis of data. Finlay

(2002) described it as “an explicit, self-aware meta-analysis of the research

process” (p. 531) that requires qualitative researchers to put aside the belief that

our methods are “objective” processes and to accept instead that “we actively

construct our knowledge” (p. 532). Biases in data collection and analysis can

result from the researcher’s emotions that influence participants’ responses

(Corbin & Strauss, 2008), from personal values about what is good or useful, and

from expectations about what the results should be (Maxwell, 2005). The

theoretical underpinnings of reflexive practice cut across many traditions in

communication research, including critical, social constructivist, participative,

and postmodern (Finlay, 2002; Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011). A main

approach in qualitative research to reduce researcher bias is

called bracketing. Fischer (2009) described it as “an investigator’s identification of

vested interests, personal experience, cultural factors, assumptions, and hunches

that could influence how he or she views the study’s data” (p. 583). The goal is

make sure that the findings remain "as faithful as humanly possible to the

participants' description and that the essence of their description is reported

accurately" (Hamill & Sinclair, 2010, p. 23). Researchers have developed extensive

bracketing activities. These include developing an audit trail, clarifying one's

personal value system, describing role conflicts, identifying "gatekeeper's

interests," exploring feelings, narrating events in one's personal history that

influence the research, reflecting on post-analysis bias, applying guided imagery

after data collection, and exploring biases absorbed from literature review articles

(Ahern, 1999; Gearing, 2004; Hamill & Sinclair, 2010; Moustakas, 1994; Wall,

Glenn, Mitchinson, & Poole, 2004; LeVasseur, 2003).

Because no single researcher can engage in all these activities without

weighting the researcher's perspective too heavily in the study (Clegg & Hardy,

2006), I used the following activities throughout the project. The activities

created a bracketing practice that I believe allowed me temporarily to suspend my

personal beliefs, prior knowledge, and assumptions during data collection and

analysis.

1. I kept a reflective journal. My journal began before data collection and

continued throughout the research process. Bracketing through pre-research writing

included reflections on the following aspects of my experience and the research

context: gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, power, hierarchy, value system,

and problems that may arise in the research process (Gearing,

2004).

2. I wrote observational notes and memos during data collection. Bracketing

activities included keeping a set of observational notes during and immediately after

in-depth interviewing (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and writing memos after interviews

to record "personal, methodological, and substantive" issues (Miles & Huberman,

1994, p. 72).

3. I maintained an audit trail during data analysis, recording the details of data

analysis and the bases for decisions made during data reduction (Cutcliffe &

McKenna, 2004; Wolf, 2003).

4. I engaged in more formal and systematic memoing during data analysis. Miles

and Huberman (1994) described memoing "as a rapid way of capturing thoughts that

occur" through all stages of data reduction and development of the final conclusions

(p. 74).

Although these activities included reflection on the specific content of data

and their interpretation, bracketing reflexivity must focus heavily on filtering out

my "internal suppositions" (Gearing, 2004, p. 1433) as a researcher, including

personal knowledge, experiences, cultural assumptions and values, as well as

academic and scientific ideas gleaned from the communication discipline.

Reflexive observations. This section examines some of my personal

biases, assumptions, and research perspectives that can help the reader understand

more about how I arrived at my conclusions. These observations emerged during

the reflexivity strategies described above.

First, I assumed that some of this study’s results would have been different

if I had interviewed my participants prior to the severe U. S. economic downturn

beginning in 2008. While pundits have debated to what extent the public relations

industry suffered financially during this recession (Rudawsky.

2011, August 11), public relations practitioners and educators in the MidAtlantic

region where I live have reported that recent graduates in communication studies

are having a tough time finding jobs. The Public Relations Society of America in

this four-state area plus the District of Columbia has developed an employer

survey to find out how these recent graduates with BAs and MAs can be made

more employable. The recession, linked to my graduate students’ difficulties in

finding or changing jobs, may have influenced the attention I paid to

intergenerational conflicts in my data analysis. In addition, some older

participants in this study reported fears over finding new jobs in a tough job

market that places strong emphasis on technology. As an older employee myself, I

may have been especially sensitive to intergenerational

conflict.

Second, I made assumptions about the skills of communication

professionals that can be challenged by research and real world experience.

Because communication is often cited as a major factor in successful conflict

resolution and management (Jones, 2005; Putnam, 2006; Ruck & Welch, 2012;

Verčič et al., 2012), I assumed that communication practitioners/managers have an

edge over other managers in dealing with conflict. The skills practitioners use in

their direct practice role—such as audience segmentation, message crafting, and

persuasive techniques— should enhance their skills in managing disputes within

teams, resolving employee conflicts, and even using conflict to enhance

performance. This assumption seems to underpin previous negotiation and

conflict theories in public relations scholarship (Cancel et al., 1997; Grunig &

Grunig, 1992; Huang, 2001; Plowman, 2005). During this study, I did not

vigorously challenge the assumption that public relations practitioners will be

skilled conflict managers because they’ve been trained in communication with

external audiences, the media, and even during crisis situations. Participants in

this study acknowledged the powerful influence of emotions, identity, and even

childhood experiences in their ability to manage conflict. I underestimated these

highly personal, non-professional factors in conceptualizing this study. Last,

I found that the dissertation genre both limited and distorted my research process.

I had not adhered to the strict requirements of the grounded theory philosophy

and method as set forth by Corbin and Strauss (2008) and did not realize how the

prospectus’ literature review would—in the opinion of some scholars—distort my

ability to generate a true grounded theory model from the data (see Charmaz,

2014, pp. 306-310, for the pros and cons of preparing the literature review in

advance of a grounded theory study).

These assumptions and sensitivities highlight some common biases I

believe I share with my participants, many other public relations scholars, and

even my readers. Through reflection, I am questioning my negative perception of

bias, and am exploring more positive constructions of bias in qualitative research.

Any qualitative study may reflect many kinds of bias. Although researcher bias

can distort results—especially when it mirrors participant bias—the biases of

participants provide data that can lead to credible insights. I claim to explore the

understandings and perceptions of my participants, but from another vantage

point, I realize that I have been documenting their biases and the biases inherent

in a specific era and professional culture. No doubt my results on conflict reflect

this difficult post-2008 historical period in the United States.

Generational conflict offers one example of potential distortion created

when the biases of participants overlap my own. I am an older professional whose

career has involved teaching literature, writing, and communication to graduate

and undergraduate students. Because I have worked so long with younger people,

I have a strong commitment to their future success and a sensitivity to difficulties

that gatekeepers create. This may have affected my analysis of generational

conflict. But, as seen in my sections on strategies to increase internal and external

validity, I worked hard to sideline my biases in order to allow the biases of my

participants to emerge.

Chapter 4: Results

This results section summarizes data collected during 31 interviews with

communication professionals. A complete profile of the characteristics of the

participants was included in the Methods section. The data collected through the

interviews helped me to summarize participants’ answers and develop themes in the

following areas:

Description of the communication practitioner’s role and job activities (RQ1)

Understanding of conflict management and negotiation in communication

practice (RQ2)

Understanding of how digital and social media are used in conflict

management, transformation, and negotiation (RQ3)

Perspectives from critical incidents on processes used to manage conflict in

practice (RQ4)

In order to achieve in-depth analysis, the interview protocol expanded the four

general research questions specified in the Literature Review into 12 questions that

covered participants’ current job/role in the organization, problem solving or conflict

resolution on the job, and critical incidents involving conflict resolution or

negotiation (see Appendix A). This section systematically covers results from each

research question and sub-questions. It reports details and themes that developed

during the data analysis process described in Methods.

RQ1: How do public relations/communication practitioners with at least 5 years of

experience describe their job activities and roles in the context of conflict

management?

Five interview protocol sub-questions helped me find out what kind of

organizations the participants worked for (RQ1.1), what were their daily work

activities (RQ1.2), what audiences they wanted to reach (RQ1.3), how important

digital communication was in their daily work (RQ1.4), and what challenging

projects the practitioners were currently facing. Although the questions for RQ1 did

not specifically deal with problem solving and conflict resolution, participants

provided many data relevant to their experiences with conflict in their answers to

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these descriptive questions. Table 4.1 summarizes the major themes, variables and

conflict sources that emerged during the analysis of RQ1 that described the work

environments of the practitioners.

RQ1.1. How would you describe your organization to someone who doesn't know

anything about it? What is its mission?

Interviewees currently worked for a diverse group of organizations at the

international, national, statewide, regional, and local levels. The majority were

employed by for-profit (20/31 or 64.5%) enterprises. Nonprofits totaled 11 and

represented 35.5%.

International organizations

Profit: 4

Non-profit: 3

National organizations

Profit: 7

Non-profit: 1

Regional organizations

Profit: 6

Non-profit: 3

Statewide organizations

Profit: 2

Non-profit: 3

Local organizations

Profit: 1

Non-profit: 1

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The missions of the international organizations divided into two main groups:

U.S. Government organizations (e.g., State Department and military) and global

integrated communications firms that provide public relations, marketing, research,

and advertising services to clients worldwide. One firm distributed personal care

products and vitamins globally.

National organizations were more diverse. They included pharmaceutical and

engineered wood products manufacturers, a digital development corporation, and

several integrated communication firms. One interviewee worked for a U. S. agency

with an international security mission; another worked for a major national political

party.

Regional organizations were located in heavily populated areas and included a

theater, an environmental group dedicated to water quality, and a community college.

For-profit regional organizations included four public relations firms.

Most statewide organizations—both profit and non-profit––had missions of

providing services to state residents. These included health and education. One public

relations firm specialized in advertising only to state residents and one consulting

firm represented government agencies in California.

The study included only two local organizations: a Hispanic community

center and a public relations agency that serves only town businesses.

RQ1.2: Please tell me what you do on your job every day? How much of your job is

working on projects and how much is management?

According to my interviewees, work in a job labeled as communication or

public relations involves a welter of activities that were not logically linked to the job

titles of the interviewees. High-level professionals in large international

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communication firms reported writing press releases and conducting environmental

scanning just like professionals at the beginning of their careers in small

organizations. Others—a very few—conducted formal negotiations or directly

lobbied elected officials to change features of legislative bills. The categories of job

functions—defined as routine tasks or activities performed by interviewees—reveal

significant overlap. For example, member communication might well involve

significant relationship building. However, this research question asked participants

to identify their job activities using their own language, not categories that were

prompted by the interviewer or a survey.

Six job functions surfaced as common to sizeable numbers of the participants.

In particular, two job functions (i.e., routine tasks or activities performed by the

interviewee) were identified most often as tasks the participants completed

frequently: media relations (23/31 or 74.19%) and client or member communication

(23/31 or 74.19%). Next, participants reported engaging in strategic planning (16/31

or 51.61%) and in promotion and marketing (16/31 or 51.61%). The third largest job

function categories were relationship building (14/31 or 45.16%) and general

management (14/31 or 45.16%). One other function stood out as fairly common:

crisis communication (10/31 or 32.26%).

Sixteen other job activities were identified by between one and eight

participants. Eight (8/31 or 25.81%) indicated environmental scanning as a job

activity. Categories mentioned by seven participants (7/31 or 22.58%) were crisis

planning, communication to staff, and policy research. Six people (6/31 or 19.35%)

indicated one of the two following categories: event planning or briefing managers.

Five activities occupied four people each (4/31 or 12.90%): website management,

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lobbying, training, formal teaching, and interpreting information for managers. Three

people each (2/3 or 6.52%) reported mentoring or mediation or policy analysis.

Finally, one person (1/31 or 3.23%) engaged in formal negotiation.

Further analysis showed that participants clustered their roles or job functions

into three main categories: direct practice, management, and training/mentoring.

These major roles give additional clues into where conflict management activities can

occur in everyday practice.

Direct practice

1. Media relations

2. Client and members communication

3. Promotion and marketing

4. Relationship building

5. Crisis intervention

6. Environmental scanning

7. Research

8. Event planning

9. Website management

Lobbying

10. Negotiation and mediation

11. Program assessment

Policy analysis

Management

1. Strategic planning

2. General management

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3. Briefing and interpreting information for managers

4. Crisis planning

Staff communication

Training and Mentoring

1. Training

Formal teaching

2. Mentoring

Participants were not asked to define each activity but only to provide a label

for their everyday job assignments. These categories were collected to aid in analysis

of the major research questions on conflict resolution. Some activities could fall into

more than one category.

RQ1.3: Can you describe some of the audiences you want to reach through your job

activities?

This question provided a database of audiences that could be sources of

conflicts and communication problems for participants. Audiences were analyzed

using two dimensions: (1) whether the audiences were internal or external and (2)

whether the organizations were profit or non-profit. These dimensions emerged from

answers to this question only. The participants indicated two types of for-profit

organizations: public relations (or communication) agency and corporation.

Nonprofits included government agencies, NGOs, arts and education, and other.

These dimensions revealed significant matches between type of audience and type of

organization. In examining these data, it is important to remember that the

participants were divided among 20 for-profit and 11 non-profit organizations.

Further, the category labels were not crisply distinct because of word definitions. For

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example, did the participants mean to indicate a significant difference when they

mentioned a client in contrast to a customer?

Internal audiences were similar in profit and non-profit organizations. Most

important were the participant’s team or department and other departments in the

organization. Non-profit employees mentioned the C-suite or top management more

often than those in for-profit organizations. Further, non-profit practitioners also

listed board members or similar internal stakeholders more frequently than those in

for-profits (7/31 from non-profits as opposed to 1/31 in the for-profits). Finally,

students were mentioned as an internal audience in one for-profit organization and

two non-profits.

Types of external audiences revealed more differences among practitioners

who worked in profit and non-profit organizations. Without question, external

audiences involving company clients under contract formed the major external

audience for for-profit communication agency staff. However, government officials

were an almost equally important external audience. In contrast, corporate

communication staff were also involved with clients, but with far fewer government

audiences. The non-profit employees dealt with far fewer client audiences, but a

fairly strong number of government officials.

Media was an important audience for both profit and non-profit practitioners.

The corporate communicators reported media audiences more strongly than did

public relations agencies. All categories of non-profits (i.e., government, NGOs, and

arts/education) were equally involved in media outlets as audiences.

The general public was identified by both profits and non-profits as a major

audience. However, government agency employees cited the general public more

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frequently than did other communication practitioners. Corporations also showed

strong interest in the general public as audience.

Another category of audience that was mentioned frequently by interviewees

was leaders of other organizations. These include business leaders, civic leaders, and

other influencers or opinion leaders in outside organizations.

Some categories listed by small numbers of participants showed the most

striking contrast between profits and non-profits. Only participants from for-profit

communication agencies and corporations mentioned customers. Moreover, only one

employee of a corporation mentioned an opposing negotiator as an audience; no

nonprofit employees mentioned this category. Finally, young communication

professionals or students counted as audiences for a sprinkling of non-profits and one

for-profit.

Some conclusions emerged from the extensive data on audiences that

participants indicated they wanted to reach in their communication work.

1. Regardless of the type of organization they worked for, participants

identified a broad spectrum of domestic and global audiences.

2. The main audience was the clients or customers of the organization.

3. Government communicators in this study reported internal audiences more

frequently than employees in other types of organizations.

4. Corporate, government agency, and NGO communicators identified media

as audiences more often than did PR agencies and arts/education

organizations.

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5. Few interviewees cited top management as one of their audiences. RQ1.4: What is

the most challenging project you have worked on lately? Probe: What was so

challenging about these projects?

The data analysis revealed two general areas where participants experienced

challenging projects. The first type of projects involved communication difficulties

within the internal hierarchy of their organizations. Difficult external relations

characterized the second type of projects that were challenging. Only about a third of

participants answered this question after it was asked, but many others gave examples

of challenging projects in response to other queries. More challenging projects

involved internal audiences than external.

Challenging internal projects were characterized by the goal of persuading

colleagues toward or away from an action. Themes involving challenging internal

projects included:

1. Dissuading colleagues from acting on a bad idea

2. Persuading staff to accept a social media policy

3. Establishing guidelines on whether the creative staff or the public relations staff

would make final decisions on the social media messages within a client’s

campaign

4. Dealing with crisis responses when systems go offline

5. Implementing website and social media plans within departments that resist

change, to make platforms more user friendly

6. Developing new taglines and other organizational identity slogans in the face of

resistance from internal stakeholders

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7. Creating communication links with staff working in distant locations

Challenging external projects often required persuading stakeholders to

support decisions or engage in behaviors requiring commitment. Themes involving

projects with difficult external relations included:

1. Convincing external stakeholders that cutting an academic sports program would

be beneficial to the community

2. Controlling information about a merger so it is not leaked prematurely

3. Implementing a pest control program about the dangers of moving firewood as a

behavior that spreads the insects

4. Managing summer promotions and ticket sales for the fall theater season 5.

Recruiting union members when potential enrollees fear retaliation from other

employees

Summary of main themes in RQ1. Table 4.1 summarizes the major themes,

variables and conflict sources that emerged during the analysis of RQ1 that described

the work environments of the practitioners.

Table 4.1

RQ1: Themes, Variables, and Conflict Sources

Themes Variables Conflict Locations

Organization types Profit/Non-profit

Local to national

Loose or hybrid structure

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Job activities Project vs. management

Mentoring, training

Overlapping

responsibilities

Little formal negotiation

Audiences and

collaborators

Internal vs. external

Profit vs. non-profit

Internal: Organizational

teams

Internal: Higher

management

External: Clients including

government, media,

general public especially in

tax-supported

organizations

Note. Profit includes agencies and corporations. Non-profit includes government,

NGOs, arts, and education.

The participants’ type of organization—for-profit versus non-profit—played a

significant role in themes that surfaced in answer to this first RQ about how

experienced professionals described their job activities and roles in the context of

problem solving and conflict resolution. Two-thirds of the participants worked at

forprofit organizations, so analysis did break down somewhat along organizational

lines. A second important factor connected to claims made for the negotiation role of

public relations professionals (Grunig & Grunig, 1991; Plowman, 1995): very few of

the participants reported formal negotiation as a role in their job activities and these

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individuals worked for labor organizations or for employers. Job

functions, roles, or activities clustered into three areas: direct communication or

public relations practice, management, and training or mentoring. Within these

clusters, six specific functions surfaced: media relations, client or member

communication, strategic planning, promotion and marketing, relationship building,

and general management. Crisis communication ranked somewhat below these six

functions. Interestingly, these job functions were reported by participants in both for-

profits and non-profits regardless of their formal job titles in the organization.

Participants identified a broad range of specific domestic and global

collaborators. Audiences that the practitioners were trying to reach divided along two

axes: internal versus external audiences and profit versus non-profit audiences.

Participants in for-profits identified their departmental teams or other departmental

teams as their primary internal audiences while more non-profit practitioners reported

top management or the C-suite as one important internal audience. Still, relatively

few participants mentioned top management among their major internal audiences.

Predictably, the external audiences were different for practitioners in profits

and non-profits. For-profit communication agencies focused on their contractual

clients, including government agencies; corporate communication professionals

identified clients or customers as their major external audiences; and non-profits

reported various external stakeholders, including a fairly strong number of

government agencies. In both profits and non-profits, the practitioners identified the

media and the “general public” as major external audiences.

In describing recent challenging projects they had undertaken, the participants

cited persuasion as a major goal. Internally, for example, they had to persuade staff to

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accept a social media policy or changes in the organization’s digital platforms.

Externally, challenging projects included controlling information about mergers and

convincing external stakeholders to accept cuts or change behaviors in their personal

lives.

RQ2: How do public relations/communication professionals understand conflict

management and negotiation as roles in their practice?

Questions 6 through 10 in the interview protocol were aimed at finding out

what conflict situations the participants experienced on the job and how they

understood the process and outcomes of these situations. The protocol separated

questions about conflicts within the organization from those with external

stakeholders. The protocol allowed me to explore the processes involved in conflict

situations, as well as the time and resources devoted to solving problems that went

beyond those normally encountered in getting the work done. Participants early in the

interview process asked to clarify what I meant by problem solving because their

daily work required making decisions frequently to complete projects. For the

majority of interviews, problem solving was defined as treating disagreements and

conflicts that went beyond the usual matters that had to be handled to get the work

done. Finally, the data for RQ2 were enriched by gathering critical incidents, as well

as by the participants’ perspectives on what influenced the outcomes.

RQ2.1: What activities in your public relations or communication work have involved

solving problems or resolving disagreements INSIDE the organization? Data from

an earlier question (RQ1. 4) revealed that participants reported more challenging

projects involving internal than external audiences. Results for RQ2.1 confirmed the

dominance of internal conflicts in the everyday work lives of communication

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practitioners. While the interview protocol asked about activities that involved

resolving disagreements, participants responded as if the question were meant to

explore work situations or conditions that triggered conflict. The following themes

emerged during data reduction and analysis of responses about solving problems and

resolving disagreements inside the organization: (1) rigid or loose organizational

structures; (2) function of the public relations department; (3) interdepartmental

rivalry; and (4) intergenerational and ethnic conflict.

Conflict within the organizational structure. A majority of participants

reported conflicts arising from the rigid or loose hierarchical structures within their

organizations. While data analysis revealed mixed opinions on sources of conflicts in

the different types of structures, the few participants who worked in mixed

hierarchical and bottom-up decision-making structures reported the highest degree of

conflict.

Some participants explored the pros and cons of strong hierarchical structures.

One participant gave the example of the “rigidity of the Marine chain of command”

compared with the “more open authority” that requires “a higher degree of

supervision.” Keith who reported on his work as a public affairs officer overseas

described conflicts between the communication team and the dominant coalition that

did not want to engage media representatives. The dominant coalition viewed every

encounter with the media as a “win/lose situation” and often disagreed with the

communication staff’s objectives and vetoed press conferences. Sam—currently a

vice president for strategic communication at a public relations firm—remembered

working for locally elected officials who established hierarchy and reduced conflict

by firing the staff from the previous administration. The current president of a social

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marketing firm reflected on her past experiences working within a hierarchical public

relations firm with “a male culture of confrontation and rigid management roles.”

This structure in Jayme’s opinion “induced conflict” because leaders failed to

understand “there are three sides to everything.”

Hierarchical structures, on the other hand, included elements that reduced

conflict and increased opportunities for persuasion. Katie who works for a performing

arts organization described its hierarchical structure as reducing conflict because the

communication flowed fluently down to the staff whose job was to implement

decisions. A research and development director for a chemical corporation viewed

“meetings with management as opportunities for persuasion” to convince “leaders

that an idea is bad.” Sandra insisted that these meetings were not negotiations, but

that “good managers make decisions to end conflict.”

Participants also expressed differences about the value and drawbacks of more

open structures of authority in dealing with conflict. Supporters of top-down

decisionmaking approaches included Daniel who worked for a government security

agency. He described “peripatetic managers” whose job was to see and hear conflicts.

These individuals resolved conflicts through “open-ended conferences discussing

strategy and organizational risk.” These managers benefited because they resolved

conflict in conferences “without risk to their careers.” The communication director of

a forprofit think tank valued the “entrepreneurial spirit” supported by her CEO who

encouraged “people pitching outside their own specialties” and debating proposals.

The CEO made the final decisions after these open strategic planning meetings, but

“the debates enforced confidence in recommendations” that were subsequently acted

on. The open authority structure in this think tank was reinforced by the open floor

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plan at the central office that allowed for “transparency, informality, and discussion.”

A few dissenters pointed to problems with looser authority structures. Lynn,

the CEO and president of an integrated marketing firm, firmly believed that looser

structures undermined privacy in decision-making and created fear. Employees, he

claimed, “instinctively want to avoid conflict”—a point Lynn made again in his

critical incident narrative—and so will be reluctant to “raise concerns” in open

discussions. Sarah, a marketing director of an intercontinental digital public relations

firm, reported that global time pressures undermined the chain of command. She and

her staff had to make “quick decisions without reference to supervisors” and this

“entailed the risks of policy deviation and misunderstanding.”

Mixed structures of hierarchy and independent decision-making ranked high

for creating conflict as reported by staff in labor federations and other contexts

dependent on union negotiation. While only a handful of participants had served in

these organizations, they noted that communication professionals “worked under both

top-down authority” at the state and national levels, but had to “beg locals to get

volunteers and resources.” According to Lisa who worked for both labor unions and

unions of employers, local union members created serious internal conflicts over

negotiated agreements that “often needed resolution by subversion” on the part of the

communication staff. Gabriel agreed that message crafting was a major conflict

resolution tool in these dual structures. She was obliged to use “constant

compromises in the language of messages” in order to minimize internal conflict

situations and to “persuade members to join common efforts.”

Conflict around the function of public relations. Public relations professionals

in this study experienced internal conflict around the reputation of public relations as

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a profession, the viability of communication strategic plans, the perception of public

relations within the organization, and disputes with other departments over work

responsibilities. Taken together, these themes created conflict by challenging the

credibility of public relations practice.

Several participants identified negative images of public relations and

communication professionals that undermined their credibility internally. One public

affairs officer described his duty to produce “public relations spin” about a political

situation overseas that “masked the messy conflict resolution” process there and to

assign credit for success. Another practitioner compared her work as a strategic

consultant “who gives the best advice and then is let go” with communication staff

who implement the plan, but only sometimes “help make policy.”

Public relations staff can face low reputations among faculty at universities

and colleges according this study’s respondents. Matthew compared his experience in

public relations at a small liberal arts college with “lawyers who defend

axemurderers.” Another communication director at a college in transition between

presidents described being “an ambassador” among the academic departments who

“behave like clients” seeking unrealistic marketing campaigns.

The second source of conflict around the function of public relations occurs

when senior managers challenge the viability of strategic plans offered by the

communication staff. Sophie has worked for over a decade at a regional tourist board

that is financed by membership dues from local businesses. Her latest CEO has

demanded “shorter messages, less detailed content, doesn’t recognize segmentation of

audiences, so let it go.” Moreover, the CEO “is satisfied with glitz, quick, not entirely

accurate messages” and wants results “without spending too much time on anything.”

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Consequently, Sophie objects to the short-sighted decisions made by the CEO who

often ignores what the communication staff says. “As a communicator,” Sally said,

“you look at the whole image of the whole organization.” Ted, employed by an

environmental activist organization, felt similarly that the communication

department’s recommendations were being ignored. He claimed “the communication

staff was brought late into controversies and gets little credit for what it achieves.”

All respondents described “confrontational meetings” with decision makers.

Several participants addressed the perceptions or stereotypes of the public

relations departments in their organizations that created conflict or worked against its

resolution. Sandra, a communication practitioner who has worked at the vice

president level in corporations, complained, “Conflict is inevitable, but public

relations people want to be liked.” Their accommodating style handicaps the search

for resolution. On the other hand, Kira has found that public relations practitioners

are

“not always popular with other staff” because of the reputation they have for

“efficiency.” And Ted continued his critique of negative attitudes toward the

communication department in his environmental activist organization by contrasting

the “aggressive media strategy” advocated by his group with the belief by others that

it will undermine support from major stakeholders.

Finally, practitioners in this study described disputes that arose from rivalries

with other departments in the organization. Major disputes were reported with the

creative team, the marketing department, and accounts or legal staff. The major

source of inter-departmental conflict involved control of digital and social media.

These conflicts will be covered in depth in the results for RQ3, but several points

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deserve mention here. First, smaller agencies may experience more interdepartmental

conflict than organizations with more specialized groups. Ginger’s integrated

marketing and public relations agency seems to experience frequent encroachment on

areas formally assigned to public relations. Accounts and legal in particular “blur the

roles of departments over control of SM [social media].” Ginger called for

“restructuring by top management.” Inter-departmental conflict also arose over

clients. Kira described problems when labor was divided between the creative team

who developed campaigns and public relations staff who also interacted with clients

around project development and implementation. “Overspecialization makes it

difficult to coordinate strategy,” according to Kira, and results in “time-consuming

and delayed implementation.”

Whether or not these themes of conflict around professional status and roles

are unique to public relations practitioners, they underscore the sense of we versus

them that a group of participants experienced and expressed strongly.

Conflicts created by inter-generational and ethnic or cultural differences. Over

half of participants identified conflicts arising over inter-generational or cultural

differences. These two themes generated opposing perspectives and even negative

appraisals of other groups who differed by age. Several comments by participants

highlight the importance of age and culture in communication practice. One project

director for a federal government agency stated, “Intergenerational conflicts abound.”

Another employee of a federal security agency believed that “you can reduce

conflict” by hiring people who are similar in gender, ethnicity, and age, but “at the

cost of diversity and quality products.” Two participants appeared to disagree with the

previous appeal to diversity in hiring. Sarah and Micah whose for-profit public

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relations agencies work extensively with external clients advocated “careful hiring of

people” to “build cooperative team culture” and “head off conflict.” Macey described

“eliminating those who don’t fit, even after hiring them.” Neither of these participants

revealed their understanding of what qualities an employee would need to fit into the

team culture.

Cultural differences emerged mainly in comments made by practitioners in

global communications. Conflicts arose over non-compliance involving agreements

signed by international clients, the unreliability of local employees,

misunderstandings around messages drafted at U.S. corporate headquarters, and the

dominance of white men in public relations. Some conflicts were contextualized by a

geographical region or by conditions in developing countries. For example, two

participants working for U.S. government agencies noted problems arising from “lack

of civil society” in countries that “approach conflict differently” and “have no

structures for resolution, see no need for it, and can’t afford it.” One of these

participants noted, “agreement by handshake and no enforcement.” Rick, a director of

global public relations, described conflicts arising from the difficulty of translating

central management’s messages deployed from the U.S. to local employees in Japan

and Eastern Europe. Specific narratives involving cultural differences are included

among the critical incidents covered in RQ4.1 and RQ4.2.

Two participants countered conventional perspectives on public relations

culture. One particularly pointed comment on public relations practice was made by

Lynn who owns his own communication and marketing firm. He stated that “white

men dominate the leadership of the communication profession.” He has experienced

conflict from this dominant culture because white men “will promise what they

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cannot deliver.” Lynn’s comment resonates with Mike’s observation at the beginning

of this section that conflict can be reduced by hiring people who are highly similar.

Natalie who currently works in the Hispanic television industry in the U.S. clarified

cultural misunderstandings of Latino cultures. She noted that “Latino cultural

boundaries are more malleable than White American, and that the main medium in

the Hispanic community is word of mouth.”

The second theme, intergenerational conflicts, revealed significant criticism of

older and younger professionals in our field. Older professionals were criticized for

pride and inability to adapt. Younger professionals were criticized for lack of basic

skills to do their jobs and communication deficits in the workplace. Kira who works

in a large independent public relations firm claimed that “seniority comes with excess

personal pride” and insistence on “precedent.” She found senior staff had “difficulty

in adapting to changing conditions.” On the positive side, older staff had experience

that “enables professionals to tolerate conflict despite discomfort.” As an older

practitioner in environmental protection, Ted agreed that he had “to swallow my point

of view” to be successful in working with younger professionals.

Participants agreed that older professionals had an obligation to take on the

role of mentoring. However, that role could create conflict because, as Caitlin

explained, in political consulting “mentoring requires a sense of precedence” that

younger professionals lack. Emily, who has eight years of experience in digital media

public relations, agreed that “raw youth” requires “good mentoring that includes

ethics.”

Younger professionals, identified as Millennials, were faulted for “not

thinking of the outcome of their actions” or “the long-term commitments required in

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the professions.” Lynn, in particular, found that interns and younger employees

created conflict because “they have not learned how to craft direct communications or

sell a point of view.” Consequently, the burden of dealing with clients falls on senior

staff. Michael agreed that younger professionals lacked “adequate communication

skills” and their inadequacy creates conflict. He contended that good communication

skills require “mentoring of younger staff, but there’s no money for it.” These

observations on intergenerational and cultural conflicts in practice underline the role

some public relations practitioners have as mediators between age groups and

cultures. Mentoring was mentioned as one solution, but one respondent doubted

mentoring would be funded.

RQ2.2: What activities in your public relations or communication work have involved

solving problems or resolving disagreements with EXTERNAL audiences?

External conflict had a lower profile in the interviews than internal conflict.

However, a smattering of participants––especially those who work in crisis

communication––pointed out how conflict with external audiences can create internal

disputes. Barbara provided a notable example of the internal conflict created when

external stakeholders wanted to buy a health insurance provider business.

Themes involving external entities included conflict (1) with external

stakeholders in direct contact with practitioners, (2) with potentially hostile

audiences, and (3) with situations involving public monies. External audiences

included clients, students and parents, divisions of large corporations, government

agencies, community activists, media representatives, competitor public relations

agencies, voters, customers, environmentalists, employers of union labor, members of

Congress, and state and federal regulators.

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Conflicts with external stakeholders in direct contact with practitioners.

Conflict resolution with external stakeholders who were directly involved in the

everyday work of practitioners appeared to occupy a relatively small number of

participants. In these instances, external stakeholders were sometimes viewed as

colleagues who shared responsibility for carrying out the organization’s goals. For

example, Rick, a communication director for a global franchise corporation,

developed crisis communication responses because of the frequent “unethical or

illegal activity” by distributors of the company’s products. “Consumers complained

to authorities or the media” about health problems they believed were caused by the

products. These distributors had independent contracts and were external

stakeholders, but the company could punish them “through fines or revoking their

licenses.”

Several practitioners described conflicts with government agencies that had

regulatory power over the organization’s operations. Sam recalled the problems a

superintendent of schools faced when the Center for Disease Control ordered schools

closed during the swine flu epidemic. As the public relations specialist for the district,

Sam had to advise the superintendent on a media campaign that would answer parents

who complained to reporters that this school closing created hardships for their

families. Consequently, the superintendent launched a public debate over what

conditions would allow him to reopen the schools. After a 24-hour news cycle, the

superintendent declared that he had met CDC guidelines and the students went back

to school.

The work of another practitioner included advising clients on how to negotiate

compliance with government regulators on safety issues in their businesses. Safety

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regulators were integrated into clients’ daily operations. This communication

professional developed persuasive tactics to mitigate the hardship his clients would

experience from these safety regulations.

Another example involved the complex interactions of government agencies

involved in security and defense. As Daniel explained, procedures specified how

inter-agency negotiations would be held “to iron out disagreements about the

interpretation of evidence-based positions” on things like whether “to invest in a

weapons system.” As a representative of a security agency, Daniel witnessed how “a

persuasive style could derail strong evidence” in the decisions leaders made. “Once a

spokesman small in stature with a weak voice lost his agency’s case.”

Within this theme, external stakeholders become directly involved in

decisionmaking and can be viewed as competitors and barriers to achieving the

organization’s goals. However, these stakeholders cannot be sidelined to resolve the

conflict. Conflict with potentially hostile external audiences. A majority of

participants described episodes involving potentially hostile external audiences.

Interestingly, the respondents sometimes contrasted the perception of hostility within

their organizations with their impression that these external audiences could become

supporters. However, in all these anticipated conflicts, participants expressed fear of a

negative mass media campaign directed at their organizations.

In some industries, the press was viewed by top management as unvaryingly

hostile. As media representative for an environmental protection foundation, Ted

described hostile interchanges with “a very negative press which enjoys conflict.” A

typical question from an editor was “Do any of your solutions not require tax

increases?” To counter this hostility, Ted “writes letters—some ghost-written [i.e.,

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published under a supporter’s name with his or her permission] that explain the

organization’s position.” At other times, Ted “seeks frank exchanges with reporters”

so that he learns their thinking about his organization’s initiatives and can counter

them. Keith routinely prepared top military officers in a combat zone for press

conferences with regional and local media representatives. These media “were

biased and wanted to produce what audiences wanted or expected.” U.S.

spokespeople “had to be prepared for hostile questions and learn how to play to the

audience.” Even when the organization believes the press can be useful in

solving a problem the management may not understand how to harness mass media

support. One participant was hired by a federal entitlement program to convince

media to “help prevent leaks.” The government agency believed that a video

presentation would convince media representatives to withhold publishing leaks; the

public relations professionals wanted to hold a live question and answer session that

would be cheaper and more effective. Both strategies were tried with mixed effect

and the retainer contract ran out without positive results for the government agency.

Some interviewees contrasted expressions of audience hostility reported in

mass media in contrast with social media platforms. A communication practitioner,

Matthew has routinely worked with non-profit organizations such as colleges and

public museums to create communication strategies to deal with crisis events

publicized in the media. These events have included physical attacks on students

overseas, insect infestations on imported fruit, and the theft of valuable historical

documents. In contrast with Ted and Keith, Matthew prefers strategies that evade

mass media coverage. For example, Matthew avoided publicity around the student

attack “by off-the-record briefings with key press outlets that hinted at motives of the

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plaintiffs in the case.” On the other hand, Matthew believes “controversy attracts

attention” in social media platforms and communicators “have to use it to advantage

or get it offline ASAP.” The political consultant Caitlin also recommended direct

engagement with social media during political crises: “Join the conversation; change

the conversation. Use outside validators and surrogates who help reinforce your

point.” Caitlin offered this conclusion about whether to engage or avoid media when

audiences turn hostile: “Media conflicts become emotional and emotion must be

dealt with.” Sarah supported that view. Her public relations firm operating in a large

city got into “a spinning match in the press” with a competitor agency. Sarah

explained that her agency was in the wrong; it “confronted the accusations factually

and honestly without spreading gossip. The best policy is to own up and explain that

the agency understands the audience point of view.”

Other interviewees preferred communication interventions to prevent open

conflict with community groups, customers, competitors, and business opponents that

could become hostile around organizational actions. Kira provided one notable

example when her public relations firm represented a large-scale developer of a

shopping center that did not hire union employees. She anticipated opposition from

union and community members who would “block rezoning action needed to build

the project.” Kira created a five-stage crisis prevention plan that included “appealing

to the community and stressing job creation and organizing meetings for stakeholders

with the client.” The shopping center has subsequently been built with little

controversy. Similarly, Katie avoided subscriber backlash about a major change in her

organization’s theater venue by handling all customer complaints personally and

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immediately. However, her organization was prepared “if community wide problems

occurred” to respond “by press relations to communicate its side.”

Potentially hostile external audiences, according to my interviewees, gain

their power from their ability to use mass media or social media platforms. While

interviewees offered different strategies to deal with conflict from these audiences,

most agreed that understanding the opposition was crucial. “Grasp the needs of the

opponents without losing loyalty to the company,” Sandra offered. “Directly address

long-standing hostility. Sustained attention and patience can result in changed

community attitudes,” Matthew advised. Finally, Keith recommended a strategy of

helping your hostile media practitioners develop their craft of reporting objectively.

Conflicts over the spending of public monies. Another theme developed out of

situations where spending of public monies caused conflict requiring communication

interventions. A number of these conflicts involved practitioners in for-profit

communication agencies holding contracts with external government agencies.

Conflicts involved government accounting procedures, money spent on campaigns,

employee pay and benefit contracts, budget cuts, and activist publics who were suing

government agencies. Practitioners faced monetary conflicts that developed in their

own work with government agencies, but also were called in to help resolve conflicts

that entailed public spending.

Participants gave detailed accounts of conflicts with “preoccupied, demanding

government clients” who were “being pressed by timelines and budget constraints.”

Merit, who worked in a national public relations firm, experienced “incremental

demands from the client” who would then become “uncommunicative about the

delivered products.” Her agency could not get approval of its work either because of

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“confusion and competition” within the government agency or because the client

“was merely unsure or preoccupied.” Because the “agency’s reputation was at stake,

it risked angering its clients by demanding a response.” Merit said her agency “often

played therapist to the client, sometimes to avoid lawsuits or sanctions.” Another

communication employee of a major national firm was charged with convincing a

defense agency to change its accounting procedures. David encountered stiff

resistance from his defense agency contacts who preferred “the way it’s always been

done.” David’s arguments calling for short-term documenting of costs that would

result in long-term survival of the agency were not effective. “The conflicts became

emotional” and could not be resolved without intervention by “top management or a

mediator.”

Government agencies sometimes needed the help of communication

professionals in high conflict situations. Lisa worked on behalf of state agencies that

had to negotiate labor contracts with their public employees. Although pay scales

were at stake, “rights [i.e., benefits and work conditions] were harder to negotiate.

People got more polarized.” Lisa’s communication skills were applied in formal

negotiations, but also in dealing with media to sustain the government agency’s

credibility. She explained the elaborate negotiation process where “nothing is

scripted, [so] be prepared for surprises.” On the other hand, the negotiators had to

honor traditions and expectations valued by public sector audiences. “Negotiations

could be shortened by rational decision-making,” Lisa explained, but often dragged

because “the dance has to go on.” Communication staff for both government and

union had a major goal of “maintaining good relationships for the future” because

these professionals would be meeting frequently and “wanted to make [the opponent]

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feel safe.” In safe spaces, the negotiators could communicate “informally, regularly,

but in strict confidence” so that an agreement could be worked out that was

acceptable to stake-holders sensitive to public spending.

Other communication practitioners were called in to advise on strategies for

dealing with Congress or with activist groups who were suing a government agency.

Paige conducted focus groups and interviews with activists and populations affected

by government programs to determine “what was needed, really needed” to settle

these disputes. Caitlin unsuccessfully recommended strategies for persuading

members of Congress to include additional parts suppliers in the recent federal auto

bailout. The top management of the auto parts manufacturer who hired Caitlin’s

agency had never done direct political lobbying before, so he held back. The strategy

of appealing to the auto companies instead did not work and the manufacturer’s

products were never covered by the bailout. Caitlin expanded this story when asked

to report a critical incident.

Problem solving with external audiences navigated conflicts with closely

connected external stakeholders, potentially hostile audiences, and situations where

public monies are at stake. Generally, the closer the relationship with the external

stakeholders, the more likely conflict will arise and the greater the need for conflict

resolution. Also, the press and other mass media representatives were often viewed as

hostile audiences. Some participants worked hard to avoid conflict with external

audiences rather than allow disputes to surface in mass media platforms. Others

engaged accusations and negative comments immediately when they appeared on

social media,

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RQ2.3: How much of your current job do you think is dedicated to resolving conflicts

or working through disagreements about how to solve problems?

This question emerged from literature review sources that claimed public

relations practitioners can fill a negotiation role for their organizations (Dozier,

Grunig & Grunig, 1995; Grunig, 2001; Grunig & Grunig, 1992; Huang, 1997, 2001;

Plowman, 1995, 2007). Participants were asked to explore their experiences of time

spent in conflict resolution. They answered this question both as a percentage of their

daily work and in word descriptions. The data clustered into three themes:

distribution of conflict resolution between internal and external audiences, time

devoted to conflict involved in practice as compared with management, and estimates

of conflict situations built into the job.

Distribution of time spent in conflict resolution with internal audiences.

Estimates of percentages of daily job time spent in dealing with conflict involving

internal audiences ranged from 10% to 100%. About equal numbers reported that

conflict required less than 45% of their time as participants who reported percentages

above 50%. The divide between fairly low and fairly high percentages of conflict

resolution was strikingly bimodal. The highest number of participants either

estimated 10% of their workday or 60-70% of that time as devoted to conflict

resolution.

Job types involving fairly low reports of conflict (less than 45%) among

internal audiences included media specialist, director or vice president of

communication marketing, communication director for a think tank, agency

communication research analyst, communication director for a global franchise,

public affairs officer for the U.S. State Department, and senior vice president for

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communication in an insurance company. In contrast, job types with fairly high

reports of conflict (above 50% of time) involving internal audiences included public

affairs officer for the U.S. military, communication for a labor federation, and

executive director of communication for colleges and universities. A sizeable number

of participants reported higher percentages for situations in which they dealt with

management issues involving personnel disputes and team disputes. These personnel

issues generated conflict percentages ranging from 60% to 90% or 100%. Several

participants also reported that during crisis situations the need to resolve internal

conflicts became extremely high for weeks or even months.

Distribution of time spent in conflict resolution with external audiences.

Fewer participants (about half the number) estimated percentage of time spent on

conflicts with external audiences. Further, these percentages clustered more obviously

into bimodal estimates. About half estimated between 10% and 20% while the other

half indicated 75% to 100%. Job roles with low levels of external conflict resolution

included media specialist, communication specialist to the military, communicator in

corporate research and development, and CEO of a public relations and marketing

firm. Participants who reported higher percentages of external conflict resolution held

jobs as director of marketing, communication manager and negotiator for an

employer consortium, information officer at a county health agency, and senior vice

president for communication at a health insurance company.

Time devoted to conflict in practice and in management. Participants

described some differences between the conflict resolution they experienced in

getting their communication projects done and the conflict that developed during

their duties as managers. The data revealed clear distinctions between levels of

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conflict in practice and management, but no clear patterns emerged. One CEO of a

public relations firm reported very low conflict with his clients: “Clients are my

bosses.” On the other hand, he found extensive conflict in dealing with management

of volunteer programs sponsored by his firm and with mentoring young professionals.

In contrast, a public relations employee at an environmental protection organization

reported spending 80% of his time resolving conflict in practice and only 20% during

management.

Time spent in conflicts sometimes depended on how much public funding was

involved. A vice president of a small public relations agency said that conflict rose to

100% of time with practice in public sectors. An information officer for a public

agency described major conflicts in staff management when the state legislature voted

“resource cuts” and “passed guidelines that kept the employees from talking about

those cuts with the decision-makers.”

Other comments revealed a few practitioners who worked to avoid spending

time with conflict or had to accept social conditions that produced it. One person

engaged with NIH communication contracts spent significant time building teams so

the members worked together with less conflict. This same practitioner described

spending 40% of her time in “serious problem-solving, but less in real conflict.” Two

practitioners described conflict that arose in both practice and management because

of language and cultural differences. One said, “These misunderstandings create

conflict.” Another commented, “There’s lots of emotion in this work” that created

conflict.

Summary of themes in RQ2

Table 4.2 summarizes the main RW2 themes that surfaced in the data analysis.

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Table 4.2

RQ.2: Conflict Management and Negotiation Roles

Conflict Source Internal to Organization External Stakeholder

Structure Mixed and bottom-up

decision making

Direct client contact,

especially with

government

agencies

Status of the profession Doubts about expertise,

credibility, control of

digital media

Hostile media, general

public; suspicions over use

of public money

Personnel disputes Intergenerational and

ethnic differences; abuse of

social media

Favoritism in contracts

International cultural

differences

Positive role for the

profession

Advocacy

Mediation

Explanation of role

Damage control

Time spent on conflict

resolution

Wide fluctuations, but

increases with personnel

issues and internal crisis

management

Intense time commitment

during critical incidents

Participants reported many more conflicts with internal audiences than

external audiences. Internally, understandings of conflict situations requiring conflict

management centered on organizational structures and decision-making, conflicts

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with marketing and other departments involved in communication over work

functions; and intergenerational conflicts.

Externally, understandings of conflict situations and management involved

stakeholders who had direct contact with practitioners, potentially hostile audiences

who could mobilize mass media and social media platforms, citizens concerned with

spending and activities of tax-supported organizations including schools. When

asked how much time in the workday was spent in resolving internal conflict,

estimates varied widely with internal and external audiences and across jobs.

Internally, time was largely devoted to personnel and team disagreements. The time

spent resolving conflict with external audiences was bifurcated between 10-20% and

75-100%.

RQ3: How do public relations/communication practitioners understand their use of

digital and social media in roles that involve conflict management or negotiation?

Three interview protocol questions allowed me to explore how digital and

social media have been used by practitioners in their daily jobs and how these

platforms have been used to resolve conflict. Results showed that digital

communication filled two functions for these participants: disseminating information

and relationship building. Participants rarely used digital platforms for attempts to

resolve serious conflicts. Finally, except when distance intervened, practitioners

preferred face-to-face communication during conflict because they can gain more

information and can respond to non-verbal cues.

RQ3.1: How important is digital communication in your job? Does your job involve

communicating with audiences through digital channels such as Facebook, Twitter,

organizational intranet, or other social media?

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This question aimed at establishing a database of digital communication that

might be the source of conflict in the everyday jobs of the participants. The data

collected from this question turned out to be complex because participants not only

reported the benefits and drawbacks of the digital technology they used, but the

multiple contexts in which they used it. Similar to RQ2, data seemed logically

organized along two dimensions: (1) whether the digital technology was used to

communicate with internal or external audiences and (2) whether the participant’s

organization was profit or non-profit.

The participants described using the following digital technologies when

communicating with both internal and external audiences: email, Facebook, Twitter,

Flikr, and blogs. Intranet (by definition) and YouTube were only mentioned with

internal audiences. Websites were reserved for external audiences. When discussing

internal audiences, communicators from both for-profit and non-profit organizations

indicated a strong preference for face-to-face communication over digital formats.

Further analysis revealed that participants used digital communication for

three main purposes: (1) disseminating information; (2) interpersonal communication

in social media; and (3) crisis communication.

Disseminating Information. The participants identified four factors as the

main sources of conflict in disseminating information over digital platforms: the

quality of the information, speed of transmission, accuracy and clarity, and its

permanence on the Internet. The interviewees revealed these conflict areas indirectly

when they described the benefits and drawbacks of digital communication in reaching

external audiences. Internally, conflict was created between Communication and

Marketing departments over who would control various digital platforms such as the

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organization’s website or Facebook page. Communication practitioners “could be

marginalized” in these turf wars.

The threat of conflict increases with the speed of information and the need for

controlling its effects. Communication staff need to “keep information current and

create buzz” in the digital environment, said one academic information officer. This

“quick turn-around” in turn increases the risk of distortion, misinformation,

falsification of information and “mere rumors,” as one public relations staff member

described it. Turning messages over quickly on digital platforms results in

“information that tends to be shallow” and of low quality. Because stakeholders can

misinterpret these messages, conflict arises quickly around information that “is hard

to control,” especially “when media go viral.” The slower speed of transmission and

audience control allowed by some digital media, particularly email, was a great

advantage mentioned by many participants. As one PR practitioner explained,

“Emails can be ignored or deleted, but they allow time to respond. They serve as a

record of communication especially to the press.” Given these characteristics, email

can help reduce conflicts.

Finally, interviewees worried about the permanence of digital information and

the security risks that arise with information on the Internet. “Issues need

straightforward description” in digital platforms, said one interviewee because while

“broad audiences provide opportunities,” the digital record remains to be examined

over long periods by these large audiences. Government agencies, in particular, “fret

over security” of their digital platforms, but these channels also offer opportunities

“in all sectors to provide accuracy” in the information that the organization transmits

to its audiences.

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Even though digital media provide increased opportunities for conflict, these

practitioners found websites and social medial platforms “essential today.”

Relationship Building on Social Media Platforms. Some interviewees viewed

social media as beneficial in building relationships and thus avoiding or reducing

conflict. Social media were defined by the participants broadly to include email,

intranet, and social networking media. In particular, the media could be used to

manage (1) staff morale, (2) client recruitment and maintenance, and (3) networking

opportunities of the organization. Among the participants who used social media on

the job, comments were generally positive about using these platforms to improve

communication among stakeholders at a more personal level.

Social media sites were also viewed positively as tools to maintain staff

morale even when the communication was one way. One respondent commented,

“They [social media] provide visibility and transparency.” For example, intranet and

email were mentioned as a way to “provide information and encouragement to staff

and contractors” even when no response was possible. Globally, corporations use

“central-source messaging,” but then provide “local market exchanges” with their

franchise managers and employees in other countries. As I understood this global

communication manager’s point, social media allowed him to communicate with

local employees about more formal messages they received from corporate

headquarters—a strategy to reduce conflict.

The employees of public relations agencies among my participants indicated

that social media are preferred when relationship-building goals with clients are at

stake: for example, “to start dialogue about products, events, even go viral.” One

participant described these as “affinity links,” although she believed these “links were

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under-exploited by corporations.” Moreover, social networking media such as

Facebook and Twitter allowed these agencies “to piggyback on the social media of

partners and cooperating organizations.” This piggybacking allows organizations to

build relationships with the established audiences of partners. To build relationships

with some clients, interviewees had to comply with their “demand for social media

use,” especially with motorcycle distributors, students, and labor unions. Potential

conflicts arose when the interviewees implemented social networking sites in their

organizations. First, while the sites are a growth area for corporations, NGOs,

academe, and arts organizations, these media “require resources, technology, and staff

guidance” that are often not available. Consequently, the platforms are poorly

maintained or abandoned. Second, while these media provide staff solidarity in

government and corporations, supervisors are obliged to oversee their junior staff so

that they do not reveal privileged organizational information to their networks or use

work time for personal messaging. As one interviewee put it,

“social media requires emotional intelligence.”

Overall, the minority of participants who answered this question perceived

overwhelming value in using social media to build relationships with clients, improve

staff morale, and network with partner organizations.

RQ3.2: Could you describe a situation where you have mainly used digital channels,

like email or instant messaging or texting, to resolve a conflict that arose?

Very few participants provided incidents involving situations where they used

digital channels to resolve a conflict. In responses to RQ3.1 and RQ4 on critical

incidents and to sketch perspectives on how to manage and resolve workplace

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conflicts, participants tried to describe face-to-face conflict situations and to indicate

a preference for face-to-face contact during serious conflicts.

Controlling Crises with Digital Media. A handful of participants described

social media tools that they used to deal with crisis situations. According to one

participant, social media allow “wide distribution of responses and explanations.”

Tim, Lisa, and Gillian reported that labor unions, in particular, used social media

liberally to engage their employees in political crises. One practitioner gave advice

that websites should “convey policy to staff and client audiences” but that during

crises, emails and social networking “especially when packaged together, provide

rapid alerts and prompt response.” Two warnings about digital media use during

crises emerged: in complex situations, understanding cannot be assured, especially

when messages are distributed hastily. Second, according to Matthew, an experienced

public relations professional, social media should “not entail anonymity or deception.

The speaker must identify himself.”

Although this question on digital media was meant to be descriptive,

participants revealed their understanding of how these platforms could create or

minimize conflict. Social networking media were embraced by several participants as

essential to practice, but generally not identified as major sources of conflict—except

when staff were misusing them for personal tasks or showing lack of “emotional

intelligence” in the content they posted.

RQ3.3. Does most of your conflict solving work occur in face-to-face situations or

through more distant channels (e.g. over the telephone, in email, through instant

messaging, via texting)? Problem solving is done in many routine jobs; conflict

resolution involves more serious disagreements.

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Although virtually all participants made use of email, websites, and/or social

media from time to time, the majority—16 of the 23 who answered the question

explicitly—expressed preference for face-to-face discussions of internal

organizational problems. These respondents often acknowledged the complexity of

those conflicts, requiring a versatile toolkit of remedies. The choice among those

tools, as we might expect, depended on the circumstances of the disagreement and the

parties involved in it.

Ginger, who manages public relations for a small private agency, admitted

that problems “might start in email (e.g., budget negotiations with clients), or maybe

through the phone. [But] I like dealing with people. Too much gets ‘lost in

translation.’ The body language. You are forced to listen, act with civility.” Sam,

working in a similar firm, found that face-to-face contact resolved most conflicts.

Daniel, who recommended training in social relations as a “charm school, teaching

employees to play well with others,” recounted resolving a conflict between two

subordinates by isolating them in a room alone, and requiring them to emerge after a

specified period of time; although he never asked what was said or transacted in the

room, the outcome was a healthy improvement in relations.

Within her large agency, Paige acknowledged that email had to be copiously

used, but found that telephone contact allowed a more personal, efficient, probing

approach to internecine disagreements. “Let’s try to get a verbal agreement,” she said,

but if the response is hostile (“they can cut you off”), email was the obvious

alternative. In her service to regional labor organizations, Gillian needed frequent

recourse to digital and social media, but “would not send an email to deal with

conflict; the message may get through but you wouldn’t.” She considered face-to-face

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contact most effective, but “it’s the words you use,” and in telephone calls “you can’t

read the body language.” She admitted that indirect connections might lower

emotional levels and facilitate compromise, but “if you are making an ask it’s much

more difficult to say no face-to-face.”

In her own labor/employer negotiations, Lisa sought to reduce the circle of

interlocutors and witnesses: to reduce “the fishbowl effect” while bargaining. When

they have witnesses, she says, negotiators “tend to take strong positions favored by

their constituents.” In his labor organizational work, Todd found face-to-face contact

essential, even among his clientele of university students, who were typically thought

to “know and use technology to communicate with the leadership.”

In serving as public affairs officer for diplomatic missions, Jean found that

“personal relationships are the key to your success,” partly because not everybody in

host countries has access to digital media, and power outages can kill cellphones.

Natalie pointed out that many Hispanic Americans also don’t have Internet access;

although they too use cellphones, they still preferred face-to-face discussion. In

Anna’s government agency, digital media proved useful, but there were never enough

staff or other resources to maintain websites properly. Keith referred to the military’s

need to deal with conflict in meetings and press conferences. At his university,

Brandon started the week with a staff round-robin. Macey, project manager for a

government contractor, strove to “get it out on the table” promptly, finding that email

sometimes “takes too long,” and that it gets details wrong. So, “tailor your

communication differently to people who don’t like email—or some other channel.”

In his work at a community college, Duncan viewed “email as a necessary

evil” that solves many conflicts but can be misunderstood, especially when the

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subject gets batted back and forth over time or is treated emotionally. Social media,

he said, are illusory: “An avatar can say anything and it’s not you.” Caitlin pointed

out that face-to-face treatment within an organization “conveys seriousness.” For

problems of less gravity, telephone or email contact should suffice. Of course

digital channels have advantages, too. In her service with an international think tank,

Drew found that email allows contact with all who need to know, that it provides time

to think, to compose one’s responses, to track the comment thread, and to speak one

at a time. Lynn praised email for “reducing conflict because the tone may appear

neutral;” he tended to avoid Tweeting, however, as the content restrictions of the

channel produce a high degree of miscommunication. Although choosing whichever

medium is most efficient for a task, Katie considered emails and text messages to be

crucial in communicating within her performing arts organization, for anything

important should be reduced to writing. Although her agency inevitably used digital

channels, Sarah sought in problem contexts to avoid texting and social media

platforms, regarding them as “an intimate channel used with family and friends, and

often conducted on privately owned phones.”

Coping with external problems, interviewees tended to accept the utility of

email and social media channels more readily than in their internal relationships.

Conceding that face-to-face relations build the trust needed to resolve many

difficulties, Rick’s global corporation required the immediacy of electronic media. “If

something happens, you get on your own site, you get on other people’s sites . . . and

just say ‘Let us tell you what happened, from our viewpoint.’” Caitlin’s dealings with

political and government audiences required a broad range of online channels. In her

contractual work, Kira found government interlocutors prone to initiate conference

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calls, a kind of hybrid mode that features voice-to-voice immediacy combined with

technological diffusion.

As vice-president of an insurance company, Barbara preferred email as a

medium that, unlike telephone calls, establishes a record of what is said. While

arguing that “conflicts are never resolved with email,” she found that medium “good

in terms of saying ‘Hey, here’s a problem that has come up. Here’s our response to

the problem.’ It doesn’t allow for a dialogue . . . if you’re trying to resolve the

problem, it requires a conversation.” Conversations make “it easier to hear pauses in

the cadence of their language – sighing, or if they’re scandalized by something.”

Moreover, phone calls allow prompt answers to questions and can be held short.

Hence, the phone line was important in crisis situations with legislators or regulators

who should never learn about conflicts first from newspapers or letters of complaint.

However, when dealing with reporters, she did not use telephone: “I don’t want them

to hear any anxiety in my voice.”

Matthew also understood external conflicts as delicate, particularly when

representing clients vulnerable to critical opinion. He tended, however, to shun digital

media in such situations. When crises arose, he sought to move the controversy

offline as quickly as possible, to save the client from a spreading stain of Google

listings. Moreover,

I would do everything in my power not to use emails – not to use anything

written that can’t be taken back. You can be frank in a discussion with

someone, but if that discussion is an email discussion that can be forwarded

to the world, it can come back to bite you very easily. So I almost never do a

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conflict resolution in any modality other than verbal. It could be telephone, it

could be face-to-face, but it has to be verbal.

Summary of themes in RQ3

The following table summarizes the main themes that surfaced in the data

analysis related to RQ3 on digital media and conflict.

Table 3.3

RQ.3. Practitioners’ Understanding of Conflict in Digital/Social Media

Themes Digital Understandings

About the Internal

Organization

Digital Understandings

Around External

Stakeholders

Importance of digital

communication

All channels essential;

digital useful in profits and

non-profits if well

managed. Value of intranet

questioned

Essential, especially

websites and email; less so

with social media

Purposes Information, interpersonal

contact, and crisis

communication.

Relationship building

Information, interpersonal

contact, and crisis

communication. Client

recruitment and

networking

Conflict Sources Lack of training and

guidance.

Abuses in digital use

Lack of quality, speed, and

accuracy.

Permanence on web.

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(caused by lack of

emotional intelligence).

Disputes over who controls

digital use

Risks of anonymity.

Utility in conflict

management

Social media (includes

email) useful to build

relationships, staff morale,

and provide wide

distribution

Relationship building.

Useful as informal,

backchannel

communication.

Digital preferences Face-to-face for serous

conflict.

Email and social media

useful if controlled for

accuracy

Face-to-face, including

telephone.

Email and social media

useful if controlled for

accuracy

Although this question on digital media was meant to be descriptive,

participants revealed their understanding of how these platforms could create or

minimize conflict. Social networking media were embraced by several participants as

essential to practice, but generally not identified as major sources of conflict—except

when staff were misusing them for personal tasks or showing lack of “emotional

intelligence” in the content they posted. Participants’ understanding of conflict

management through digital and social media included the positive benefits of

building relationships with stakeholders, managing employee morale, and networking

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with partner organizations. Themes pointed up the complexity of problems in our

field; they entail an array of remedies, from simple face-to-face confrontation to

broad, technologically mediated message strategies. All remedies have their

advantages and disadvantages; they have to be applied as circumstances demand.

RQ4: How do communication practitioners understand conflict processes and apply

conflict resolution techniques in critical incidents they have experienced in the

workplace?

This research question prodded me to seek real depth in participant responses.

The Methods section describes the strategy of asking about critical instances and

explains its benefits in qualitative research (Butterfield et al., 2005; Butterfield et al.,

2009; Chell, 2004). Results from the critical incidents gathered in this study are

summarized in RQ4.1. The closing section of the interview protocol proved to be a

surprising source for my participants’ understanding of conflict in their workplaces.

When I asked each interviewee if he or she had anything to add, the answers were

often lengthy and included broad themes and advice that they hadn’t previously

touched on directly. The closing remarks of my interviewees are summarized in

RQ4.2.

RQ4.1: Can you tell me about a time when you played a role in trying to resolve a

disagreement during your public relations or communication work? Or could you tell

me an incident that you witnessed and know a lot about?

The critical incident (CIT; Flanagan, 1954) protocol question asked

participants to identify and then describe a conflict incident in the workplace.

Prompts focused participants on details and circumstances, images that came to mind

as they remembered, communication problems, and outcomes. The incidents added

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depth to the results because interviewees reflected on the people involved, on how

events evolved, and on the outcome and its causes (Butterfield et al., 2005; see also

Critical Incident Data Collection in the Method section). Although interviewees

offered many examples and illustrations, the critical incidents described in this

section met these standards of CIT: (1) the interviewees gave an account “sufficiently

complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions” (Flanagan, 1954, p. 327); (2)

the interviewees described the conflict in the situation clearly and in detail; and (3)

the interviewees portrayed a definite outcome to the incident. Some interviewees

provided several incidents that are included in the analysis.

Interviewees recalled incidents involving people within the organization

(internal) slightly more often than incidents involving external individuals (external).

Four categories of incidents emerged: (1) conflicts involving personnel who were

incompatible (internal); (2) conflicts generated by clients (external); (3) conflicts

generated by external audiences hostile to the organization (external); and (4)

conflicts involving overt negotiation among parties (internal and external). Names in

this section, as elsewhere, have been changed to protect the identities of participants.

Incidents involving incompatible personnel (internal). More participants

described incidents involving conflicts among employees than any other category.

These seventeen conflicts involved individuals, teams, departments, and the dominant

coalition. The incidents broke down almost equally into two main subcategories:

conflict with peers (no overt power differences) and conflicts with superiors or

subordinates (overt power differences). One incident involved an internal conflict that

started after an external agency recruited an employee. The conflict issues ranged

from promotion to ownership of projects or activities, performance problems,

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decisions viewed as arbitrary, to top management behaviors that disrupted the work

of subordinates.

These issues sound like typical disputes in organizations. However, the results

were enriched by the intense emotions that made them memorable and by the

subthemes that participants wove into the narratives. Intergenerational conflict, for

example, surfaced in a surprising number of these incidents. Clashes of values and

personality conflicts abounded. Conflicts were sometimes embedded in troubled

organizations where people peripheral to the incident were quitting or demoralized.

Participants also identified differences in ethnicity and gender that intensified

conflict.

Promotion conflicts. Promotion conflicts did not end happily in these

narratives. In these four incidents, promotion conflict arose when employees were

pitted against each other for promotion or when top management promoted an

individual without consultation or adequate support.

Sarah reported an incident that started when top management sponsored a

promotion contest that it hoped would improve the performance of all employees in a

large non-profit agency. This marketing/communication director reported that she got

caught up in the contest and felt “pressure to make an impression” even though she

was not eligible for the promotion. Two men at the firm began competing heavily for

advancement, especially in meetings where their contest “became increasingly noisy

and even rude [because] . . . they wanted their ideas to be validated.” Sarah

repeatedly emphasized a quality she believed motivated the employees: “The people

in my current agency are very bright and like to be told that their ideas are good even

if they won’t work in the campaign.” The competition culminated at a meeting where

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among others, Sarah, a senior supervisor, and the two men were present. The men

began “behaving rudely” over how to handle a work assignment. The supervisor

asked everyone to leave but Sarah and the two men. Together, the senior supervisor

and Sarah communicated that neither would be promoted while their conflict was so

open and disruptive. “Eventually, we got through to them, but it took some time.”

According to Sarah, the competition to improve performance was highly “destructive.

It brewed hostility between the two men.” The men could not modify their behaviors

and neither was promoted to the higher position.

Another promotion conflict occurred when an international personal care

products corporation selected a manager from New Zealand to supervise operations

in Australia. At the meeting in Sydney where the New Zealander’s promotion was

announced, the man wore a jersey with a silver fern that represented New Zealand’s

All Blacks rugby team—a national rival of Australia for the Bledisloe Cup.

According the interviewee, “Now that’s like coming onto the stage and throwing

blood or something like that. I mean horribly offensive. You think the manager [the

Kiwi who was promoted] would have had better brains than that.” The top

management in the U.S. did not consult with the communication team or the staff in

Australia when making the promotion. “The Australian market did not recover

quickly from this insult.” In other words, the corporation lost money for a number of

years.

In the context of these promotions, both interviewees faulted decisions by top

management that either distorted employee communication behavior or did not

adequately predict and prevent communication disasters.

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Personal conflicts. Some interviewees framed conflicts as attributed primarily

to incompatible personalities among employees with similar job rankings. When

encouraged to dig deeper, the participants found attributes of the employees that

produced a richer analysis.

Daniel, a team leader and communication trainer, described two women he

supervised in a U.S. security agency. He noted their conflict immediately when the

younger woman was promoted into his team. “They hated each other’s guts from the

day they met each other and they had nothing in common with each other except for a

very, very good professional understanding of their issue, and the tolerance level

wasn’t there.” When the women communicated, they talked past one another, neither

hearing the message of the other. Daniel summed up the situation as “an older person

who repeated herself 3000 times and a younger person who didn’t have time to listen

to the 3001st time.” Although the interviewee noted the generational difference, he

emphasized essential personality differences. “You can’t fix a broken egg,” he said.

He worked “very hard to get them together,” but when that failed, he worked “very

hard to get one of them a different job.” In the end, the older woman “was hired as an

advisor at the White House and left.”

Another supervisor encountered a similar problem when an older worker was

hired as a manager to join a communication training team. The government client

hired him, but his job was to support the agency’s staff in reaching its contract goals.

Macey, the project director, immediately heard complaints from her staff that the

older worker was disrupting their work. Every morning he stopped by to chitchat and

give updates on his hobbies, particularly his woodworking projects. More

importantly, the new manager offended team members with his communication style.

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“His way of communication was a little different. He was not big on e-mail

communication,” Macey said, “even though email was a major channel in keeping in

touch with clients around the country.” His email messages were “very very direct.”

The recipients “felt like he was barking orders” and “set very short deadlines.” He

also did not like to be “copied on anything” although he had to keep current with the

office activities. The new manager preferred to communicate face-to-face which he

had relied on in his previous work in the military. In addition, during the weekly team

meetings, he deflected the talk away from work to his personal life.

Macey felt that “her group was stuck in their attempts to solve the problem”

with the new manager. Because she “wanted to make the [government] client happy,”

Macey was highly motivated to integrate him as a productive team member. After she

consulted her immediate supervisor, she decided to hold a meeting to resolve the

problem. Because “emotions were running high,” Macey prepped the team for the

meeting. She emphasized that “they had to walk out of the room with a resolution so

that they could work with this person.”

The meeting resulted in the team gaining new understanding of their coworker

and in setting guidelines for the team’s interactions with him. The older man

explained that he “was new and wanted people to get to know him. The other team

members emphasized [sic] with this and what he was going through.” The manager

felt that email was “just a cold way of communicating. He preferred face-to-face.”

The team explained the negative impact the manager’s emails were having on them.

After explaining to the new employee that if the interrupting behaviors continued, he

would be “written up,” Macey and her team agreed to accommodate his

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communication style in specific ways. First, the office would distribute his

handcrafted wooden boxes as “small rewards for excellent work.” Next, they

established “artsy-fartsy” days when all employees would bring in their crafts and

showcase them.

In hindsight, Macey offered several explanations for the “high emotions”

involved in this conflict. “I don’t know if it was maybe a trust thing,” but the

interviewee “felt tension was created by a difference in the ages” of the team. Macey

placed blame on both sides in this intergenerational conflict. Older people “like to

talk. They like to share stories, and these younger people, they just want to be in front

of the computer, and that’s how they communicate: text messages and Office

Communicator.” The conflict, according to the interviewee, was effectively resolved.

These incidents both involved personal characteristics of employees that

created hostility. In the first, Daniel was unable to explain the conflict between two

employees using any factor other than personality incompatibility. Macey analyzed

the conflict between her team and the new manager as intergenerational, but also as

differences in communication preferences.

Supervisor and subordinate conflicts. Most of these internal conflicts pitted

subordinates against supervisors. The conflicts arose when supervisors wanted an

employee to behave unethically, when employees were abused verbally, when CEO

actions undermined employee work, when supervisors cut pay, and when employees

failed to meet benchmarks. In all but two incidents, the interviewees recounted

situations in which they had been the subordinate.

These episodes sometimes showed the participants endeavoring to avoid

conflict. Ted who works for a non-profit activist organization sized up the potential

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conflict with his boss this way: “I calculated that I had to play nice with her and make

her feel important; that challenging her was going to make my life miserable. But I

also think it helped that after the fourth person quit she began to understand that she

was part of the issue . . . and she was willing to be a little bit more self critical.”

Ginger related a serious conflict among six employees that seemed to have been

created and sustained by the CEO/founder of a public relations agency. The CEO was

“difficult” and may have been “bipolar,” but Ginger continued to work in the agency

for two years even though she spent about 70% of her time resolving conflict in this

environment. She knew “the difficulties going in,” but the “job market was tight.”

Ginger got “good experience” and then “moved on.” In a third incident, Catherine,

the owner of a public relations agency terminated her work with a non-profit service

organization abruptly when the new “leadership screamed at staff and misused staff

time.” The participant described the finances as “a real mess.” Although she had been

connected to this organization for many years, Catherine said, “I walked away. I felt I

was too much in the middle and was too emotionally involved.”

Other incidents revealed employees who directly challenged bosses. In most

cases, the employees had only small success in changing the behavior or attitudes of

bosses. Two episodes illustrate how intense these conflicts can become. In the first, a

former journalist was working at a public organization that replaced its long-term

president who “had a national reputation and was good at communication.” Sam

described the new president as “sinister at times, arbitrary and punitive.” The

communication staff that Sam managed “strategized about how to make suggestions

that would not result in retaliation.” When the president’s financial decisions came

under press scrutiny, Sam encountered “unpredictable responses to decision-making.”

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The president became abusive when Sam disagreed with his orders on how to resolve

the press crisis. In the end, this Vice President of Communication “did not see any

way of remedying the conflict or modifying the CEO’s behavior.” Sam quit, along

with many other top managers. Two years later the president was forced out.

Jayme—a consultant at a major government science agency––encountered

similar abusive language from her boss when she earned the highest score on a

national evaluation of team leaders. Her boss called Jayme into his office and “was

ranting. ‘Isn’t this a good thing?’ I [Jayme] asked. ‘You need to get a good

asskicking,’ he said, ‘because it’s not like this everywhere.’ What I thought was a

success was not what he considered a success. . . . My EDP [i.e., ranking on the

evaluation] seemed like something soft or unsavory.” The interviewee explained that

her boss’s view of good management was equated with “fear and aloofness.” After

this event, the boss asked Jayme “to do unethical things. The first time I refused he

said okay. The second time he said, ‘You have one more time to say no to me.’ I said,

‘You can fire me or accept me.’ I was not emotional and not afraid of the

consequences. He did not speak to me for several days.” Jayme stated that her

response to the boss’s demands arose from “values that came from my upbringing.”

She was not fired and continued to work with this agency.

On the other side, bosses or supervisors remembered conflict incidents in

which they could not modify employee behaviors that were undermining the

organization’s goal attainment. In a privately owned integrated communication firm,

the CEO wanted to reduce his own workload and offered to promote a long-term

employee into the presidency of the public relations division. He met with this

employee to create her yearly professional plan. The employee said she wanted this

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promotion and together they set the goals that would allow her to become president in

one year. After the year, the employee had “missed 80% of the metrics” in her

professional plan. “She had forgotten about the money part of running three different

offices. She had 17 years of performance reviews . . . and had enough information.”

The CEO analyzed his employee’s behavior: “Her motivation was not there. She was

not committed.” During a discussion of what professional goals the employee wanted

to meet in the next year, the CEO asked, “What drives you?” The employee indicated

that she did not want the promotion, largely because of the financial responsibilities.

The CEO reorganized the office. The long-term employee became the Chief Creative

Officer and another person became the Chief Financial Officer. The CEO expressed

frustration that this trusted employee had not immediately stated that she did not want

promotion. However, he waited one year before evaluating her progress on meeting

the metrics for becoming president.

Julia, a public affairs officer in a U.S. embassy in Africa experienced similar

resistance by a local employee to meeting performance rubrics. The local employee

worked in an English-language library sponsored by the U.S. government. In spite of

being involved in planning a concert event where books by American authors would

be raffled off, the employee did not bring the books to the event or hand out raffle

tickets to the invited guests. Julia at first assumed “this was an intercultural

communication problem and did not come down hard on the employee.” However,

the local employee continued to ignore Julia’s instructions. She called in the human

resources staff at the embassy because she “was afraid that the librarian employee

would accuse me of cultural bias.” In fact, the supervisor of the library who was also

a local employee had accused Julia in a meeting of “primitive thinking” about the

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African country. Over the next year and a half, the employee received benchmarks for

performance and Julia “gave feedback several times during a document review telling

the employee that his performance had not improved.” Finally, “a warning of firing

was given” and the employee was fired. This firing lowered Julia’s reputation and her

“level of trust with the non-American staff in the library. . . . The local staff in the

library never forgave me.”

Employee turnover was one frequent outcome in these supervisor/subordinate

conflicts even if the interviewee did not personally resign. In addition to the incidents

described above, a communication director for a county agency for the aging and

disabled described quitting after her contract salary was cut by 10% even though her

earnings were significantly below local standards. A vice-president for

communication expressed personal distress over an event press conference she was

forced to organize under orders by the CEO of a destination marketing firm. The vice

president objected that the press conference was deceptive because the event in

question was going to be cancelled. Although this participant had threatened to quit

just before the interview, a follow-up meeting with our interviewer revealed that she

was still working at the destination marketing firm.

Throughout these conflict incidents involving incompatible personnel, the

narrators conveyed serious impact on their work lives. In a handful of incidents, the

interviewees expressed satisfaction that they had resolved the conflict without harm

to themselves or the teams for which they were responsible. However, the outcomes

for the preponderance of employees involved serious disruption to their lives,

including finding new jobs or dealing with unwelcome changes in their workplace

culture. As one interviewee said, “This was not the place I knew.”

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Incidents generated by clients. Four participants working for public relations

or integrated communication firms narrated incidents about conflicts with clients

external to their organizations. Three of the four related problems over campaign

plans, conveying some very rich data. The fourth described a conflict over public

relations responses during a crisis. As an example in one less complex incident, a

client rejected findings from focus group research conducted by a campaign designer.

The research indicated that the target audience preferred to receive a nutrition

message from older girls, not from girls of their own age group. The research was

robust, but the client wanted young girl models delivering the ad messages even

though ads with older models would have persuaded the teens more effectively.

Caitlin recounted an incident from her job as a strategic consultant to a client

whose business provided services for automobile manufacturers in Ohio and

Michigan. During the recent “meltdown of the auto industry that got a bailout by

Congress,” this peripheral business was not covered by the Congressional action. The

client hired Caitlin’s agency “to have this service industry included in the bailout.”

Caitlin and her team developed a two-pronged plan that “highlighted the existence of

this side industry” and that recommended “meeting with key members of Congress to

explain why the bailout should include the client’s employees.” In particular, the

media campaign was designed “to put a human face on the people who would lose

their jobs and to show them as unidentified victims.” Caitlin proposed collecting

stories from the employees to be integrated into the campaign messages. The client

immediately rejected the plan. Why? “The client had never engaged in strategies like

this before. The past ruled.” Moreover, the client was afraid this campaign would

compete with negotiations underway between Congress and the unions and the

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automakers—even though this type of business was not included. Caitlin took some

responsibility for the rejection. “We’ve got a problem as communication

practitioners. We talk too much about things in the abstract.” Consequently, the client

rejected the plan and the business never received funding through the bailout. In

another incident, told by Merit, a communication project director, a health campaign

development firm had to scrap a campaign that was close to being implemented.

Before the project could start, the contract stipulated that Merit’s firm subcontract

with a consultant who was a friend of managers in the client’s organization.

Moreover, Merit’s firm “had put a lot of resources in producing the original contract

plan and our firm stood to lose a lot of money.” As Merit worked toward

implementation of the health campaign, she noted that the client’s department

assigned to the project “could not manage the whole scope of the project” and the

client’s immediate project director “lacked skills to implement it.” This project

director was fired.

The new project director immediately announced she was scaling back the

campaign. Merit remembered a contentious meeting with her to present actual

deliverables including educational materials.

She ripped into our creative team in particular. I mean she was angry,

she was vicious, she was really. I think it’s fair to say that we all felt

she was acting like a bully. I mean people were visibly shaking around

the table. It was probably one of the most contentious meetings I’ve

ever had. But when she really started getting angry, we just basically

were silent and so I guess there were strategies [to resolve the

conflict], that silence was a strategy. And by the end of the meeting,

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the agreement was that we would go back to the drawing table because

we wanted to ensure that we met her needs as a client.

This incident also revealed how indirect communication can inflame conflict.

The client’s new project director decided to interact almost exclusively with the

consultant/subcontractor who had been hired under the contractor’s requirements.

“The client and subcontractor joined into an adversarial relationship” with Merit’s

firm. The client and consultant “had been friends and received the same background

training” that they wanted to see reflected in the campaign—although they did not

explain this to Merit’s firm. “We just didn’t realize,” Merit said, “that this altercation.

. . where one pits against the other and vice versa, we just didn’t see it coming.”

The outcome required Merit’s firm to redo the project. Merit acknowledged

that “we went over budget, but they [her managers] really wanted to do it so we could

come out of it with a happy client.” Merit identified several communication problems

in this incident. Use direct communication, she recommended, “to establish some

kind of trust that people are going through the proper channels.” If trust can’t be built

through communication, “then don’t take the contract. . . . Because the—quite frankly

—emotional baggage that happens if you don’t insure that trust and if you don’t set

up the chain of communication, it’s just not worth it.”

Finally, a public relations director I’ve named Matthew related an incident

where his personal behavior undermined the crisis campaign he had launched after a

plane accident. He worked for an agency that represented an airline when one of its

planes rolled off the end of the runway at a large urban airport. “I did public relations

for that organization. I had heard probably minutes after the accident what

happened.” Disputes erupted almost immediately over the details of the accident and

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what responsibility the airline should take for passenger injuries. In a bizarre twist,

“two passengers appeared to be missing. They were in the front of the plane that

broke off.” Matthew immediately wanted to distribute the airline’s version of the

story. As the airline’s spokesperson on the ground, he arranged an interview with a

major national newspaper. He delivered the facts as the airline understood them.

Matthew described unconsciously pulling on the end of his moustache because he

was nervous during the newspaper interview and did not notice that a photographer

had taken his picture. The next day his unflattering photo appeared on the front page

of the newspaper. He appeared to “be twirling his moustache like Snidely

Whiplash”—a cartoon villain.

This was my lowest point on being on the wrong side of

public relations. My photograph completely undermined the

airline’s valid position that I had communicated to the reporter. My

picture showed that the airline was untrustworthy and that was the picture,

the PR guy twirling his moustache. More importantly, Matthew’s photograph

almost certainly increased the conflict that swirled around the parties involved in the

accident. Afterwards, few media reports gave credence to the airline’s statements

and Matthew’s client suffered serious financial consequences.

These incidents with clients were narrated in notable detail and involved

failure for the participants who experienced the conflicts. Although this category was

under-represented in number of incidents, other research questions in this study

elicited examples and illustrations of conflicts involving clients of public relations

firms.

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Incidents with external audiences hostile to the organization. Thirteen

participants narrated conflicts with external audiences that held negative views of

their organizations or clients. Participant organizations in this category include

universities, an environmental protection group, a theater, a social service agency, a

health insurance company, a federal government agency, and a labor union. Many of

these organizations are operated primarily through public support. One interviewee

pointed out that whenever tax money is involved, “the public feels it has the right to

[an] opinion about how money is spent. They’re empowered stakeholders.”

Educational institutions in these incidents experienced significant conflict

with parents, students, and community members. In several incidents, stakeholders

objected when a college cut tuition benefits to senior citizens or passed on $100 fees

to international students in order to pay its share of a federally mandated student

database. In the international student case, the institution backed down after student

protest supported by one communication practitioner in this study. The executive

director of communication for the college that had eliminated tuition discounts for

retired citizens strongly protested to top management because these senior citizens

were strong supporters of the institution.

Two other incidents involved conflict with specific groups of students who

experienced crises while attending college. As a vice president for marketing and

public relations at a smaller state university, Matthew faced a media outcry when

students had to vacate a residence hall rendered uninhabitable because of mold.

Stakeholders like “alums and parents” demanded a resolution; the university was

under threat of “loss of reputation.” Keeping the students in local hotels was too

costly. But, “the PR team heard about a cruise ship that was traveling from Maine to

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Florida and thought that living on a cruise ship for a semester [would] create a

positive communication campaign.” The president and his staff adopted the cruise

ship solution and a media campaign diminished conflict from stakeholders.

A more serious incident at the same university involved students traveling in

South America on a summer program. “The students were robbed on a bus and three

or four of the girls were raped.” Rather than relying on Matthew and his team, the

university immediately hired “a professional crisis communication consultant who

handled the media at the time the story hit the papers.” According to Matthew, there

really wasn’t a lot of negative publicity at that particular moment.” However, the

interviewee had to deal with media when several of the parents sued the university.

Matthew’s public relations strategy was to reduce conflict with a wider audience by

keeping the lawsuits out of the media. He succeeded by pointing out to his media

colleagues that the students involved were young and deserved privacy. He also

offered negative characterizations of the people who “attacked the organization” he

worked for. To journalists, he used phrases like “deep pockets” when describing the

suing parents.

Communication professionals working for labor unions reported some

predictable conflicts with external groups when union leadership supported federal

legislation involving the Employee Free Choice Act and the Affordable Care Act

(ACA). An interviewee named Gillian who serves as a Communication Director of a

regional labor federation was tasked with persuading its membership to support these

national bills that would aid workers who wanted to unionize and provide some

workers and their families with affordable health insurance. A number of external

groups in Gillian’s state opposed the union’s position on the Employee Free Choice

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Act. These included most members of Congress in her state, the Chamber of

Commerce, corporations like Home Depot who operated in her state, construction

companies, and transportation companies like FedEx. More importantly, “Media

outlets were neutral or hostile at best.” Gillian developed a strategy that could

inform voters of the kinds of people who would be affected by the legislation: “their

mail deliverer, nurses at hospitals, and others. You know these people! I explained

how legislation would benefit regional people not in unions. The goal was to change

images of the people who belong to unions.”

On a second front, Gillian developed messages under the supervision of the

officers of her organization to persuade members of the regional federation of unions

that they should support the two pieces of legislation. The strategy appealed to group

loyalty and obedience to leadership.

Groups within the organization had different priorities. We made it

clear that our leadership had a firm position. Some groups wanted to

be more diplomatic. They wanted to use “campaign speak”—trying to

disagree, but say to friends, don’t hate me.

Gillian reported that her campaigns to reach voters failed to reduce conflict.

The Employee Free Choice Act failed to pass Congress. The Affordable Care Act is

still being contested in her state. She learned from this experience that she “didn’t like

press relations. Getting their attention is a pain in the neck. They will show up and

still not write the story you want.” Gillian knew that “unions had to counteract a

negative identity,” but she felt her campaign had no impact on hostile audiences.

Conflict with media outlets surfaced in two other incidents. Sandra had

frequent conflicts with the press as a Director of Corporate Communications for the

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research department of a major chemical company. Her incident showed an

acceptance of this conflict in the context of relationship building. After scheduling an

interview with Sandra, a newspaper reporter called at the end of the workday. The

man said,

I need to see if we can do this later, I have to leave and pick up my

child from day-care. And I said, oh gosh, no problem. I’m a working

mom with three children and I understand child care issues completely

and we chatted for a couple of minutes. Now do I think this changed

his story? Of course not, but I think it allowed us to view each

other as human beings and honestly the relationship was better

after that.

On the other hand, Barbara and her company never were able to mitigate the

hostility of the press. As Senior Vice President for External Affairs of a major

regional health insurance provider, Barbara accepted that “the press dislikes health

insurance companies.” She identified the conflict inherent in cases involving

coverage for certain services and “the company’s decisions about whether the

services are medically necessary.” Barbara’s strategy was to “stay away from the

press as much as possible” and “assess whether the press could be objective on an

issue.” One incident captured the difficulty the company faced in trying to place a

positive newspaper article. The conflict began when a woman was injured in a fall

while she was hiking. The woman did not show her insurance card at the hospital and

Barbara’s company refused the policyholder’s claims.

The hiker went to the press to make a complaint. We did have

some responsibility for the error and I agreed to give a press

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interview. I gave the company’s side in detail about the pro-

cedures for filing a claim. The newspaper article did give a fair

analysis, but not until the end of the article. Our CEO and

chairman said, “We’re never gonna get a fair shake.”

This perception by Barbara and her bosses resulted in press communication

largely through email in order to “establish the message transmitted” and to

“determine how the message was re-engineered when it went to press.” The distrust

between the health insurance company and the press narrowed the opportunities for

communication.

Several incidents involved conflict with audiences that were normally

sympathetic to the organizations. The directors of a regional theater decided quickly

to renovate their facilities so that within a month performances had to be moved to a

temporary building. This move would require some patrons to travel a much longer

distance. Local media “revealed the new location before notification of the member

base.” The Senior Director of Marketing and Communication said, “We could not

follow the usual procedure” that would have prepared ticket holders far in advance.

The communication department used a three-stage strategy to resolve the conflict

with patrons and prevent cancellations of season tickets.

We apologized through emails and phone calls.

We worked to raise the comfort level patrons would feel at the

new location.

We used surveys to see how customers responded.

This campaign effectively kept ticketholders from jumping ship. The director

explained the success this way: “Invest in your patrons. Call them. . . . The product is

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important, but they have to buy into your brand and show commitment to the

organization.”

In another incident, however, an environmental organization lost the support

of companion groups when its staff worked with state politicians to craft legislation

that would improve water quality in the region. The legislators invited staff in the

policy department of this organization to advise them on a state bill that eventually

passed into law. According to a communication coordinator in this organization, “The

press and other environmental groups viewed this as unacceptable.” The coordinator

said, “There was not clear communication channels with other organizations. There

are many, many [environmental] organizations [in his area].” Moreover, the

communication staff “did not know about the arrangement between the upper

management and legislators.” The other environmental groups met to resolve how

these “backdoor agreements” could be avoided, but the meeting did not result in any

resolution. The leaders of the communicator’s organization realized that they needed

to repair trust with the environmental community and they “tried to form a coalition

with some other groups, but the drawback is that decision by committee is less

effective. But the coalition attempt was a direct result of the negative press and the

environmental activists’ response to unilateral work by the organization.” The

outcomes of these conflict incidents with external audiences showed mixed results.

The press or other news media turned out to be major antagonists in these narratives.

Incidents requiring negotiation. Participants reported four incidents that

required direct negotiation with an adversary. Two situations involved universities

that wanted to change traditions. Participants in the two other incidents engaged in

clearly defined negotiations to resolve salary or health care disputes. In one

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university dispute, several faculty in a graduate communication department

campaigned to change the curriculum to offer a professional project option in

addition to the thesis. The faculty succeeded in lobbying for the change, but it proved

a hollow victory when the option was not effectively marketed and no students

selected it. The persuasive campaign seemed to work well with faculty, but no similar

campaign was directed at the students.

A more challenging university dispute arose when administrators tried to

change a popular athletic slogan. According to higheredtaglines.com, a slogan or

tagline is “a concise and memorable phrase that embodies your brand’s position.”

Brandon, the Vice President of Marketing and Communications, argued against this

change because the slogan or tagline was an integral part of the university’s brand

much like Be a Maverick represents the University of Texas or Fighting Irish is

inseparable from Notre Dame. The administration, however, “didn’t like it [the

existing tagline]. It was not appropriate” to the organization’s educational mission.

An alternative was proposed similar to Heading to the Top and Aiming High. Brandon

and his marketing staff conducted a survey about the new tagline and “students hated

it.” Moreover, because the students showed strong loyalty to the old tagline, the

change “would require dealing with angry students, a powerful consumer group.”

Under Brandon’s direction, the communication office managers decided to

launch “a campaign to get acceptance of the existing tagline.” Staff went on “a

listening tour to every major administrator and interviewed them individually. They

asked, ‘How does the tagline make a difference in your marketing?’” The staff

listeners agreed not to criticize the proposed new tagline. The listening revealed that

academic administrators felt the old tagline was “too generically applied to every part

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of the university. It did not apply to individual departments.” The communication

office then developed a marketing strategy that showed how the tagline could be

adapted to advertise academic, financial, support services, and other departments. The

staff organized group meetings with the administrators and showed a marketing

PowerPoint as part of a persuasive campaign to save the tagline. Brandon reported

“unanimous support for the tagline by the administrators.”

This negotiation over the university’s brand involved surveys, a fully

developed persuasive campaign, individual and group meetings, and finally an

informal up-or-down vote on retaining the original tagline. Why was this extensive

effort with students and administrators needed? Brandon implied that the slogan

conflict could be resolved only when stakeholders were convinced the tagline could

communicate their respective identities.

In a salary negotiation for county employees, Pink Power became the rallying

cry for a communication campaign to gain wage equity for women workers.

Interviewee Lisa was part of a three-woman negotiation team that met with the Board

of Supervisors to work out an equity pay agreement based on a state-wide study that

“showed a significant inequity between male dominated and female dominated jobs.”

This team was involved in year-long face-to-face negotiations with the Board

members. Confronted by employer statements that “the study recommendations

would not be implemented,” the team also directed “a vigorous media, political, and

pressure tactics communication campaign” outside the negotiation room. Lisa, a

communication professional in a county department, said, “The situation required

dramatic things.” Because “wage equity is technical and relies on data hard to

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understand,” the team developed catch phrases such as Pink Power Rally and Pink

Collar Ghetto to make the issue accessible.

The group staged rallies in the Board of Supervisors meetings. We

carried a small black coffin to illustrate the death of comparable worth.

We rallied politicians and relied on the woman politician on the Board

to educate her colleagues and support us. These tactics were used

primarily when things stalled in the negotiation room.

In the end, the team reached a 3% equity settlement with the county employer.

The negotiators developed a strategy to declare victory to the women employees who

were the stakeholders. “We called this 3% a ‘down payment’ on future equity

payments, even though the Board made it clear no more equity would be

implemented. The Board wanted the employees to shut up and go away.” The team,

Lisa explained, “had to spin this compromise as a success to engage the employees

and make this fight seem as worth the effort.” At a second negotiation, the

Board made it increasingly clear that no more concessions would be made.

So the negotiating team asked for another study to further document wage

inequity. This seemed like another step, but, in fact, it is a common

tactic when no further agreement can be reached. Still it had value as a PR

tactic—something more had been done.

Lisa claimed she “learned the art of compromise in this incident.” Her team

“had to learn the process of getting some benefits when they had little power.” In

answer to the question whether she felt a disconnect between being a negotiator and a

demonstrator, Lisa said, “It did not feel like a conflict.”

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In a final critical incident about negotiation with an external audience, a

Senior Vice President for External Affairs met with a surgeon who wanted his

patients treated in a hospital setting, not in the outside facility that the interviewee’s

insurance company had mandated in its latest guidelines for reimbursement. Barbara,

the vice president, recounted their conversation about the conflict this way:

The surgeon said, “You’re killing my patients because you’re not

letting them get these AM [lower-level ambulatory] surgeries in

hospitals.” I said, “Then, okay, really. Are we? Let’s think about it.

You wanna be able to get the surgery scheduled within a timely

manner within your day. Your patients want to have things scheduled

timely. They wanna get out. They want to get on about their lives.

They don’t want any repercussions. Can’t this be done outside the

hospital? Your problem is that you don’t think that you can

accomplish the goals you’ve set for yourself. Isn’t it really that you

can accomplish your goals, you might just have to do it in a slightly

different way. Is that really bad?”

The goal of this conversation and those with other physicians was “to get

them no longer to say mean things about the company to their patients. That was

essentially it. Or no longer to complain before the legislature. Of if they’d asked for

an audit from a regulator, they would back off.” Did Barbara succeed in negotiating

these outcomes? “It depended. Sometimes I was called the princess of darkness.

Sometime I was called the princess of light.” She was called the princess of darkness

when “the physicians lost.” Barbara accepted the label of the princess of darkness as

part of her role as the representative of an insurance provider.

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Barbara described tactics that she used to gain compliance from surgeons so

that they would stop attacking her insurance company and work with regulators to

achieve compromises on costs. “I’m trying to make them look like they are the

person in the wrong.” She would say, “Look, you have an appeals process, and you

didn’t use the appeals process.” Or, “You went through the appeals process . . . and

that independent medical expert didn’t agree with you. What are we supposed to do?”

This Senior Vice President for External Affairs explained that she had to use

these tactics because she “had very few options to negotiate a settlement.” Her bosses

gave Barbara very little room for independent decision-making.

The more independence you have in negotiation, the more ability

you have to modify the company’s decision, the better off you are.

That’s a rare company that will allow an employee to walk into

a negotiation [with decision-making power].

In addition to in-person conflict resolution, Barbara explained further how

negotiation was essential to her communication job. She offered a broad definition of

negotiation. “Influencing public opinion is a form of negotiation. The public opinion,

right, is a mediator of sorts.” Her team’s work in media relations aimed at getting a

fair argument of her company’s position in the press on or on television. “In the court

of public opinion, your job as a PR person is to make sure the company—at least—if

the people don’t agree at least they say, ‘Okay, they did it for the right reasons.’” In

short, media relations practitioners engage in a media debate after which the public

viewers express their opinions to stakeholders such as political decision-makers,

court officials, and regulators.

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RQ4.2: Are there any comments you would like to add about how public

relations/communication people work to solve conflicts? Or about your role in the

public relations/communication field?

In the closing section of the interview protocol when asked if they had

anything to add, the interviewees often summed up their understanding of workplace

conflict in general and offered considerable advice on how to resolve conflict. They

talked at length about (1) what personal qualities and skills they possess that helped

them deal with conflict, (2) what strategies proved effective in conflict resolution, (3)

how mentors—including family members––had shaped their conflict resolution

strategies, and (4) how to avoid conflict especially through team and relationship

building. Participants early in my data gathering suggested that I ask about mentors

and personal traits or skills that benefit people who are faced with conflict. These

probes resulted in rich data that explored the highly personal perspectives my

participants hold on conflict resolution. Based on their professional experiences,

many participants offered principles of conflict resolution or advice to other

practitioners.

Personal qualities and skills. During their critical incident narratives, many

participants revealed personal skills and qualities that they believed made them

effective conflict resolvers. About one third of participants succinctly listed a handful

of personal characteristics that proved invaluable in resolving the critical incidents.

Senior managers underscored the impact of personal qualities as a theme in these

quotations:

“We have to use our individual strengths as communicators.”

“Knowing your weaknesses is key.”

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“I was born to do this, I think. . . . It was a gift I think of this cross cultural

communication. . . . And to me it just seemed so natural and logical.”

“I’m a personable person, and I strive to get along with everybody I work

with and I strive to treat people the way I would want to be treated.”

“I don’t like conflict and arguing.”

“I want to raise awareness. I do not give up.”

“I don’t take rejection personally.”

Many of the personal qualities can be grouped in categories of cognitive

abilities (e.g., listening), emotions, and values.

Cognitive qualities. Most frequently participants identified good listener as

the personal quality most valuable in conflict resolution. Scholars in listening

research connect this ability to a variety of cognitive functions (Bodie, Washington,

Imhof, & Cooper, 2008). During iterative data analysis (i.e., constant comparison), I

discovered that many participants did not operationally define good listening or

express clear understanding of how that personal quality affected conflict resolution. I

began to probe participants on what they meant by listening and how it influenced

conflict. Catherine, the owner of a boutique public relations firm, explained, “Being

able to listen really means being able to understand.” Jayme also connected listening

to cognitive skill of clarifying: “Listen and clarify. It’s not that deep. Point out what

doesn’t make sense. Being a manager is not different than being a person.” Lisa

described listening as “keeping my pores open” and elaborated on it as an activity

that allows her “to scan the emotional environment, to see who is who, who has

vulnerability, what people need.” As a communication practitioner for a state-wide

labor union, Tim used listening to become skilled in “prioritizing the needs of the

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potential members.” Barbara who has worked for many years in the for-profit health

industry expressed the cognitive purpose of listening as establishing the motivation of

the speaker.

Some people think listening means like you never cut off the other

person and you let them talk all the time. I’m not like that. I cut

people off. I interrupt them. . . . In listening, you’re trying to get to the

core, the essence of what’d drive them to say whatever it is that they’re

saying. You have to understand their problem.

Good listening as a personal quality gained resonance primarily when the participants

linked it to other cognitive or job skills. Without prompting, however, many

participants simply mentioned listening as if it were a widely accepted requisite skill

for a communication professional.

A number of other cognitive abilities were mentioned as traits that participants

said helped them in conflict resolution: “good judgment,” “prediction of the

consequences of actions,” grasp and application of “objective information,” “rational

thinking that convinces clients,” “strong problem-solving skills,” and “accurate

assessment of the needs of people” involved in conflicts. Caitlin summarized these

cognitive assets as her “ability to see the big picture of the forest, rather than the

trees.” In addition, participants mentioned their mastery of “local knowledge”

obtained in inter-cultural experiences in Asia, Africa, South America, and on

immigration into the United States.

Emotions. The theme of emotions in conflict was detected in almost all

interviewee transcripts. Participants talked about their own positive emotions as

beneficial contributors to conflict resolution, but admitted to difficulties in controlling

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emotions that sparked conflict. One participant claimed to possess “emotional

intelligence” that, in turn, helps her “know how to make people feel safe.” Duncan, a

director of PR and marketing, described “a sense of humor and enjoyment” as a

personal quality he brings to workplace problem solving. Sam and Kim who both

work in public relations agencies listed “enthusiasm” as an invaluable personal

characteristic that seemed to dampen conflict among staff. Macey who directs

communication on a federal project likes to work in a “warm, happy environment”

and tries to create one for her staff. The value of “niceness” in asking was practiced

by Sandra in her corporate communication work.

On the other hand, an equal number of participants warned against emotional

disruption. This perspective was summed up by Jayme and Sarah: “Emotions get in

the way” and “Take the emotion out of it.” The director of an overseas media and

communication firm stated, “I always keep a calm demeanor.” Natalie who currently

works in Spanish-language television stated, “I do not like conflict and arguing.”

Lynn warned, “Don’t piss people off.” Rick gave a direct appraisal of his own

“biggest problem in keeping my cool.” He described a situation where he “lost my

cool with a coworker” and she has “not forgiven me.” He has to “be very, very

careful to keep on an even keel.” In crisis situations, he can “feel like it’s a personal

attack on me.” While he used to be “better in crisis situations,” Rick remarked that

it’s “getting more difficult” as he ages.

One participant, Ted, articulated the importance of emotion in dealing with

conflict and called for HR programs to help people overcome “interpersonal

problems.” He analyzed the importance of emotional responses in the frequent

conflict his environmental organization experiences internally and externally.

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A lot of it comes down to what’s going on inside, emotionally, and it’s

not always strategies and planning documents for crises. It’s sort of

how two people get along and we don’t have any official formal-like

personal development programs, but I think that’s a really big

part of it.

He felt that “people are trying to work out things on their own instead of being

supported by their organizations.” He argued that human resources should provide

personal development programs that would, in turn, improve “good performance.”

While Ted supported training, Duncan who has worked in non-profit and

forprofit settings questioned whether positive emotional skills applied in conflict

could be taught. More than any other participant, Duncan placed high value on

emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence I guess is kind of the heart of what we’re

talking about. The emotional ability to relate to people in such a way

that you fully understand where they’re coming from, maybe

empathize and try to become—you know, from their point of view

understand—can that be taught? I’m not enough of an expert to

know. . . . I mean I think there are some children that have this

amazing sense of empathy and understanding and can really relate to

people and others just don’t. They have no clue.

Later, Duncan criticized professionals who avoid face-to-face communication

because they fear the emotional content. “I think the non-verbal is the key to

successful communication. If my dog can pick up on emotions, then, I mean come

on!” Again and again, Duncan returned to emotions that he experienced on the job

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(“It makes you want to pull your hair out.”) and how his emotional responses enhance

his job. “In fact, my boss knows how I get irritable when I get hungry . . . and I was

really fired up. She actually said ‘Don’t go eat lunch, go call them right now’ because

she wanted me to convey the anger. It was the opposite. Don’t calm down. Go get

‘em, tiger.” Emotional intelligence and manipulation raised serious questions for

Duncan about human nature and its effect on the job.

Although only a small number of participants like Jayme, Lisa, and Duncan

delved deeply into emotion in conflict situations, interviewees quoted in this section

and most other participants held clear views on whether emotions should be

suppressed or encouraged in such situations. Generally, these observations on

emotions were given in short specific guidelines: “Emotions get in the way.”

Personal values. In comparison with cognitive skills and emotions, personal

values were not often directly explored, although values were often implied. For

example, Lynn remarked, “I don’t take rejection personally” and “I do not give up” as

a way of expressing his value of being an effective leader in the communication

profession. Julia identified “fairness” as her personal quality that she applied in

overseas embassy jobs. While offering guidelines on resolving conflict, Sarah

commented, “Try to build trust and forge alliances.” Her statement does not reveal

whether trust-building is a practical tactic or an expression of a personal value.

Similarly, Barbara indicated that she gained “trust and credibility organically over

time” as opposed to claiming that a trust value guided her actions. Other participants

expressed rules of conduct that could have implied either values or simply personal

preferences in conflict situations: “I don’t like complaining” and “I draw the line on

bad behavior.”

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However, for some participants, personal values surfaced as the bedrock of

individual conflict resolution strategies, as well as a source of conflict. Jayme, a PR

agency owner, spoke most extensively about personal values—how they developed

and functioned on the job. She attributed her professional success to “the strong set of

values I gained from my upbringing” in “a segregated city.” Because of her father’s

experience with bi-racial identity, he gave Jayme advice such as “Be smart and know

who you are.” Her family values applied in the workplace initially created conflict.

“People don’t know I’m bi-racial. I come in a different form than you expected. Early

on it was a problem.” Jayme related several critical incidents in which she applied

personal values to resolve conflict involving racial prejudice and disrespect. Another

personal value has functioned primarily as a conflict-reduction device: “I won’t work

on something I don’t believe in. This is a blessing and a gift.” Throughout her

interview, then, Jayme used personal values as a touchstone for her success in our

profession.

Lisa, a labor communication director, also traced personal values useful in

conflict resolution to early family experiences. “People who seek out the job of

negotiator have often grown up in difficult families where they acquired skills that

can be applied in negotiation.” These skills include “hypervigilance, reading the

signals of others, gaining what you need without having power to compel the

agreement of the other.” In describing the high value she places on resolving conflict

in the workplace, Lisa said, “What makes this job attractive is that I can remake the

family type and get a good outcome in the current situation, so that I feel satisfied

when the conflict is overcome.” Lisa, then, perceived negative experiences as the

laboratory in which solid conflict resolution skills could be learned. Personal

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qualities and abilities included cognitive skills, emotional intelligence, and values.

Cognitive skills revolved around listening, judgment, problem-solving, assessment,

and contextual understanding. Many participants mentioned emotional abilities and

perspectives, but a few delved deeply into the emotional components of conflict

resolution. While personal values were clearly articulated by a few notable

participants, the majority expressed conflict resolution rules or tactics that could be

interpreted as values or simply practical guidelines. Conflict resolution

strategies. A political communication professional, Caitlin insisted that “conflict

strategies have to match the situation; you can’t use mechanical judgments.” Her

analysis illuminates the diversity of strategies that participants recommended for

dealing with internal conflict. RQ2 established that internal organizational conflict

occupied communication practitioners more heavily in their job roles than conflict

with external stakeholders. Consequently, the participants’ understanding of how to

resolve conflict focused primarily on internal conflict, including how to improve the

resolution process, and the need to supervise and mentor staff in conflict resolution.

Improving the conflict resolution process. The participants offered general

advice on how to improve the methods that practitioners apply to resolve conflicts.

Two major themes emerged: (1) using informal versus formal conflict resolution

processes and (2) improving the specific steps in the conflict resolution process.

Several participants expressed unique opinions on recourse to “subversive” tactics to

reach an agreement and the need for self-reflection about one’s own contribution to

the conflict situation.

Formal versus informal processes. Several participants disagreed on the

benefits of using formal as opposed to informal processes to resolve conflicts that

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arise during communication practice. Supporters of formal processes argued that

specific formal procedures prevent misunderstanding, foster top-down conflict

resolution, and facilitate communication among parties. Catherine, who learned

public relations practice in Great Britain, praised Americans for being “the first to

have formal conflict resolution procedures.” She explained further, “Americans are

good at formalizing strategies to deal with conflict that include team building and

involvement of communication.” Catherine also recommended “dealing with

complaints from the top” in a predictable process. Matthew agreed that formal

procedures work best because they “avoid decisions made outside meetings”—that is,

decisions that do not include all relevant actors. He believes that by “including key

personnel in formal decision meetings,” we can “avoid misinformation when your

words are filtered by others.” Michael praised the formal process because “it

permitted a record of decisions.”

Other participants advocated informal conflict resolution processes. Michael

described using informal approaches first and then applying more formal remedies.

“When conflict arises, talk informally at first; then, when necessary, take it upstairs.”

Macey recommended an informal process involving “jumping into disputes, even

unpleasant ones.” The divide between these two positions reflects the preference of

some practitioners to rely on a well-defined structure and the perception of others that

when conflicts first arise they can be resolved interpersonally.

Improving the steps in the process. Sandra, who has worked as a research and

development communication specialist, expressed a remarkably detailed list of steps

and strategies that practitioners can use in the conflict resolution process:

1. Find “what the disputants have in common.”

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2. “Explain the context to reveal the reality behind the conflict.”

3. “Lay out the options.”

4. “Keep focused on the organizational goals.”

5. “Agree to disagree and move on unless it’s required by the standards

to persist.”

6. “Good conflict managers make decisions, but hear every point of

view.”

Natalie agreed directly with this sixth point; she commented, “See all angles before

reacting.” Sarah added to items #1 and #2 when she recommended using the

“discovery conversation” to determine the sources of conflict. These points and

others made by the participants resonate with concepts developed by Fisher et al.

(2011) and others in the Harvard Negotiation Project. Their concepts include

establishing the context, identifying the parties involved and their respective interests,

the issues to be decided, and the standards the parties can apply.

Participants filled in several other important factors in the process, including

timing considerations. Paige said, “Choose when to engage in conflict, but only when

you are in the position to effect change.” Sam cautioned practitioners to limit the

length of the conflict. “The longer you fight, the more you risk the organization.”

Lisa also advised practitioners to “let bad consequences play out, dissipate,” rather

than intervening to prolong the conflict.

Finally, several participants championed using creativity, subversion, and even

increasing conflict through debate. Lisa whose work had included formal negotiation

for both labor and management, strongly advocated using creativity and subversion in

the conflict resolution process. For example, she described building long-term

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friendships with opposition leaders that her employers might have viewed as

subversive, but that resulted in less stressful, rationally directed negotiation sessions.

Sarah, who worked in a global consulting and public relations firm, insisted that

intensive debate in her organization increased conflict but resulted in more effective

strategic plans.

Conflict resolution through staff supervision. Communication managers in

this study offered strategies using performance evaluations and sanctions to resolve

conflict among staff. A number of participants enjoyed positive relationships with

coworkers, describing staff they supervised as “extended family” and working

“indirectly to prevent conflict among internal audiences who face difficult working

conditions” (Anna, regional office for the aging). In spite of positive working

relationships, many participants described using criticism to change staff behaviors

that they believed cause internal conflict.

Participants used diverse strategies to supervise staff in an effort to reduce

conflict. Catherine stated, “Criticism is more useful than praise in changing

behavior.” Lynn described personnel evaluations as “a way to tell employees what

they did wrong.” Although Sandra agreed that communication staff should be given

“honest, timely feedback,” she urged other professionals to “keep style humane, let

people know it’s okay to fail. Be mindful of the needs of younger staff.” Several

public affairs officers mentioned the conflict that Americans experience “when they

have to give feedback on poor performance by employees from other countries.”

Brian, who works as a VP for communication at a major university, had

serious concerns about personnel evaluations on two fronts—relationship damage and

effect on creativity. He acknowledged that “some people are better at receiving

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criticism than others” and recommended that we “give and receive criticism without

breaking the relationship that allows ideas to emerge even if they’re dumb.”

Personnel evaluations can curb team creativity—an asset that Brian believes

intrinsically motivates people. “People want to enjoy their jobs and part of the reason

they enjoy them is because they get to be creative.” His staff supervision incorporates

a team exercise each morning that allows people to “build room for the free-flow of

ideas” by portraying their successes and current concerns about work assignments.

Staff stand in a circle for this exercise to symbolically “close the creative circle.”

Brian believes that a “creative environment can “enhance problem solving and lower

conflict” because “it encourages positive thinking.” But he also recognized that

creativity can “cause conflict when people are asked to change.”

Other participants openly advocated punishment as a conflict resolution

strategy. For the handful of participants who endorsed such sanctions, they were most

appropriate against staff who violate the organizational culture. “Adapt to the

organizational culture or be fired,” Jayme recommended in her critical incident about

a consultant who by-passed her agency supervisor. Caitlin was equally firm about

political communication personnel who violated campaign ethics. “Warn prospective

leakers they’ll be fired.” Paige who works in health communication advocated having

“a set of rules to apply when conflict arises.” This cluster of participants attributed

failure to comply with workplace culture to a responsibility of the organization to

train employees about what’s expected. Drew explained, “Employees are informed

about the style of business here [in an overseas media and public relations firm] and

the style of communicating here.” Her critical incident involved conflict between the

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founder/president and a senior research staff member who objected to the boss

breaking the cultural communication rules and creating conflict.

Finally, several participants recommended that the ability to resolve conflict

be included in performance evaluations of communication practitioners. Very few of

them found conflict resolution skills included as part of their evaluation exercises.

One notable exception were practitioners who dealt directly with elected officials and

who had to negotiate agreements or understandings with them. This included Barbara

who managed communication in profit-motive health insurance, Sam who developed

communication strategies for county executives and school boards, and Lisa who

negotiated for an association of state employers.

Participants talked about using performance evaluations, criticism,

punishments, training in organization culture, and motivational activities as strategies

for managing conflict through staff supervision. One final strategy involved hiring

practices that excluded people who would cause conflict. Jayme stated, “Hire people

without baggage who know how to play well with others.” Macey advocated “hiring

practices [that] build a team that can work together without conflict.” She

recommended “background checks before hiring, explaining the organization’s

culture, and setting a time limit for expiration of negative energy.” In other words, if

individuals find it difficult to adapt to the team and “create negative energy,” they

should be fired.

Mentoring around conflict resolution. Participants invoked mentoring as an

important factor in conflict resolution. By the end of the third interview, I noted that

interviewees had started to establish mentoring as a variable when exploring conflict

on the job. When this variable continued to surface, I added mentoring as a probe and

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sought feedback from previous interviewees. Mentors in communication included

bosses in the profession, fathers, newspaper editors, academics, a Quaker, union

officers, and public relations consultants. Participants (1) discussed how mentors

helped them master the processes of conflict resolution, and (2) gave profiles of an

effective conflict resolution mentor. A few participants were skeptical of mentors. “I

had no mentors.” “I learned from experience, not mentors, to deal upfront and set

expectations.” Sam who works in strategic communication at a small agency pointed

out that “mentors can also function poorly, so you must be able to learn from bad

examples, too.” Brandon concurred: “I’ve learned from bad examples. I’ve never

seen a perfect mentor.”

Two practitioners observed professionals who were good at conflict resolution

and then applied the skills they witnessed. As CEO of an integrated public

relations/marketing firm, Lynn has had the opportunity to watch “many skillful

people and adapt their approach.” Anna also observed “many successful people and

probably modeled them” when she encountered conflict. Drew admired her current

boss “who welcomes debate and uses it in making decisions and accepts criticism

without becoming hostile.” Sandra also witnessed the success of a mentor who

embraced conflict and the existence of enemies as a mark of effective management.

Her mentor explained his philosophy of conflict this way.

You are going to pick up etiological adversaries along the way, people

who don’t agree with you. And the fact that you have these conflicts

sometimes also means your ideas have weight.

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Other participants experienced indirect mentoring. Keith, for example, who

has had experience in military and for-profit communication, described reading to

acquire conflict resolution skills.

I did not have a mentor, but wished I had. I learned from books and

then had the opportunity to put skills into practice because of the jobs

I’ve had. But commonly people need models because most people are

not good negotiators.

Brandon mentioned a specific entrepreneur whose positive attitude in the face of

conflict inspired him. His role model Kevin Plank had founded a successful athletic

apparel and footwear corporation against great odds. This vice-president for

communication liked to quote from his role model when conflict became intense: “No

loser talk, ever.” This strategy of using pithy quotations to guide behavior in the face

of conflict applied in Brandon’s critical incident during an organization’s search for a

motivating tagline.

Participants who had been directly mentored gave glimpses into the processes

of conflict resolution that had been passed to them. Sarah remembered a music

mentor who said, “People are motivated by two things: fear and love.” In her current

job at a large digital media agency, Sarah’s mentors believe instead it is important to

“teach critical thinking and take time to think matters out.” In Merit’s work as a

communication research analyst, she encountered a mentor whose conflict resolution

skills were largely revealed through effective staff management. This mentor lowered

conflict by “refusing to micro-manage or to bother competent people.” She “assigned

tasks systematically and intelligibly” and “used a constructive approach festooned

with praise; but had high expectations.” A communication manager for a global

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franchise corporation described a mentor from academia “who was attentive,

conciliatory, and able to calm disputers down.” Rick identified this conflict resolution

style as “an inherent gift.”

Macey had a similar experience with her mentor who oversaw communication

pertaining to large government health contracts. Her mentor used an “open door

policy, asked directly about problems, was shy yet very personal, valued casual

conversations, and used praise.” These qualities that Macy has adopted as a manager

created an environment in which staff conflict could be resolved quickly. A public

relations consultant in the insurance industry also mentored Barbara, “remaining

calm” during conflict and inviting her pupil to “bounce ideas off her.” In dealing with

external stakeholder conflict, Gillian was mentored by union officers at a regional

labor federation through their “experience in dealing with decision makers” on many

levels of state and national government. She described how these mentors adjusted

tactics in response to current political climates. Ted and Katie appreciated their

mentors because “he had our backs” and “it’s valuable to have a mentor as one’s

safety net.”

In these quotations and other interview responses, participants revealed the

personal impact of these mentors’ actions and conflict resolution approaches on their

concept of our profession and even the course of their lives. For example, Natalie

who followed her father into the communication field said, “I didn’t get much

mentoring from my father but he influenced my choice of profession.” According to

Duncan, “Good mentors helped me to understand my strengths.”

Other participants gave profiles of what a good mentor should be rather than

examples from specific mentors they had known.

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Mentors are there to coach and emphasize your personal strengths

(Duncan).

Mentors and conflict solvers have much in common; they’re hands on,

work with adversaries, and help the other side reach

agreement with them (Lisa).

Mentors accept all viewpoints, avoid rushing to judgment, but don’t

hesitate to decide. They keep conflicts from escalating

(Sandra).

Mentors exemplify fairness, steadiness, calm, knowledge of the

context, and focus on outcomes (Jean).

These quotations take on the form of items in a guidebook or handbook on mentoring.

Significantly, some participants advocated mentoring through conflict

resolution training. Catherine specifically mentioned training in the Managing

Interpersonal Conflict (MIC) approach by William H. Donohue (Donohue & Roberto,

1996), combined with Gordon Mack’s Strategic Improvement approach. She has

applied this training in her public relations consultation and volunteer work with a

legal conflict resolution organization. Ted spoke extensively about the need for

“personal development training” to help staff manage conflict. Keith follows up on

his belief that “people are not good negotiators” by implementing “training in

negotiation and conflict resolution through scenarios.” Barbara described and

recommended “taking workshops where we modeled problem-solving strategies.”

While the participants covered many strategies of mentoring, the data

supported the use of mentoring as a tool for transmitting conflict resolution

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techniques to other professionals. Mentoring can be buttressed by training in conflict

resolution.

Conflict avoidance techniques. Participants offered many strategies and

guidelines that would enable practitioners to avoid conflict with both internal and

external stakeholders. Paige offered a useful metaphor to illustrate the difference

between direct action to resolve conflict and these conflict avoidance techniques:

“Most situations don’t require emergency medicine.” If we extend Paige’s conceit,

conflict avoidance strategies are preventive medicine as opposed to the emergency

medicine required in open conflict. Gillian adapted her metaphor to include knowing

when a conflict is beyond medical treatment. “Avoid conflict that can’t be fixed.”

Strategies for conflict avoidance entail creating a non-toxic work environment

in which the staff understands the cultures of different departments and where clients

are respected. Avoiding conflict also requires personal discipline and self-knowledge

in the workplace. Drew summed up the main point: “Communication is key in

heading off conflict.”

Participants have examined the importance of organizational culture in

conflict resolution. Some seemed to be applying the definition used by Deal and

Kennedy (2000): “the way we do things around here” (p. 4). Consequently, they saw

the pertinence of organizational culture in forming conflict avoidance strategies.

Jayme advised “creating an environment of low goal conflict.” Strategies to reduce

goal conflict included “exchanging communication about goals” and “getting people

to see themselves as part of a team with consistent values.” Building teams and

relationships are covered as themes in the next section.

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Building teams and relationships to reduce conflict. In previous sections in

this data analysis, participants have discussed building relationships and teams as part

of their workplace activities. Building relationships, including teams, has been a

major element in scholarly constructions of communication practice (Hung, 2007;

Ledingham, 2006; Scott, 2007). Participants commented on team relationships

primarily in RQ2.1 when they were asked to explore problem solving and conflict

within their organizations and in RQ3.1 when asked about how they used digital

communication in the workplace. In response to this latter question, practitioners

described relationship building primarily in their use of social media platforms such

as Facebook and Twitter. The themes in this section extend the data analysis beyond

details participants provided about their workplace activities. In their final comments

participants provided general advice about how to reduce conflict through team and

relationship building.

Several participants articulated the obligation of employees to work as part of

the team. Drew most clearly expressed the centrality of teamwork in achieving

organizational goals.

You should be on the same team, and you know we work for the same

company. You know, and so we have to find what is best for the

company. Employees are told about the style of business here and the

style of communicating here.

Macey described a compatible team as “primordial, like a family.” Like Drew, she

viewed team building and support as a major activity of communication managers. “I

want to create a happy work environment for my team.” While Gillian admitted she

lacked authority to “compel compliance with requests that help implement

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campaigns,” she advocated internal persuasive campaigns to convince affiliate teams

to work together or suffer goal losses.

Internal audiences have to be persuaded to join a common effort. They

have to see their identities as linked to common action. They have to

understand issues in certain ways. We have to use specific kinds of

language in conflict situations and our internal audiences help craft

language in messages and position statements.

This emphasis on developing common language and identity was echoed in Jayme’s

distinction between creating common values rather than simply enforcing

organizational rules. As owner of a communication firm, she believed in “negotiating

identity” of the staff and in helping them become “socialized into the organization’s

culture.” Keith also emphasized establishing “the common goals that people share”

while Macey explained, “Organizational culture can reduce conflict.” If a relationship

breaks, Catherine advocated dismissing members who don’t fit in and “trying to get

exit interviews” that determine what went wrong. Caitlin also recommended firing

employees who showed disloyalty to the organization’s goals.

Several participants emphasized personal bonding in teams. Ted called for

going beyond formal team building to promote activities that “allow people to

become intimate, to interact.” Further, Ted advocated “personal development” of

team members that Human Resources should support by offering specific programs

beyond skills training. Samantha encouraged bonding through meetings of staff

comfortably seated on the office couches “to learn in the moment and create workable

compromises and decisions.” Macey advised bringing personal experience into the

workplace through “water cooler discussions about kids, things like that.” Anna

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agreed that “chitchat” and other “morale-boosting activities” like “supplying ice

cream” were effective in team building and reducing stress and immediate conflict.

According to many participants—especially those who had worked in global

communication––team and relationship building provides long-term benefits for

reducing conflict internally and externally. Jean had developed the metaphor of

solving conflicts “by building relations as you would weave a necklace.” The

completed circular necklace would link many segments of society. Rick stated

directly that building relationships in Asia reduces conflict. In overseas

communication work, Jan agreed that building relationships with “lower-level

employees” was highly valuable because they could indirectly influence “top-level

decision-makers.” Natalie viewed Hispanic communication practitioners as attuned to

the time investment needed to create solid relationships––“often spending hours at

lunch getting to know each other.” The payoff includes helping “people on both sides

of the cultural divide” reduce “their fear that they won’t be understood.” In other

words, relationship builders can act as translators between cultures.

Not surprisingly, participants advocated building relationships that could

cushion fallout from crises and reduce conflict. Matthew said, “Keep trust of allies

for support against the infidel”—presumably those who are hostile to the

organization. As an employee of a government agency, Macey recommended

“reinforcing relationships” that would be useful when the organization was “faced

with budget

cuts and layoffs.” Practitioners can “use external networks to support the agency”

during conflicts over resources.

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While some vivid metaphors of necklace building and cultural translation

emerged in these closing themes, the interviewees largely supported a major

understanding of communication practitioners as relationship builders, either within

their immediate work teams or in larger social networks. While one interviewee,

Caitlin, stated directly, “I prefer working alone rather than in teams,” most

participants placed emphasis on strategies for reducing conflict through team building

and establishing long-term work relationships.

Summary of themes in RQ4. The data from critical incidents yielded the

themes below on conflict processes and resolution in answer to RQ4.

Table 4.4

RQ.4. Conflict Processes & Resolution Techniques in Critical Incident Narratives

Themes Processes Internal to

Organizations

Processes Related to

External Stakeholders

Conflict sources Incompatible personnel

Resentment by

subordinates or

supervisor decisions,

conflict styles

Client generated disputes

Hostile external

audiences

Issues of public money,

unpopular institutions or

actions

Negotiation involving

contract or policy

disputes

Conflict Management

Strategies

Increase understanding

of participants Develop

personal qualities and

skills involving

cognitions (listening),

emotions

(managing) and values

Applying advice about

conflict management

Training

Conflict Resolution

Strategies

Staff supervision

Performance evaluations.

Build external conflict

resolution into job

Sanctions

Enhancing creativity and

workplace culture

expectations

Apply both formal and

informal strategies.

Improve the process

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steps

Mentoring Models and advice

important, but not always

beneficial

Mentors need training.

Conflict Avoidance Selective hiring for

compatibility

Team and relationship

building to establish

common language and

identity

Recruitment and HR

policies to ensure process

skills and ability to

translate between

cultures

Five significant themes emerged from the extensive critical incidents narrated

by the participants. Participants understood the major goal of conflict processes as

avoiding or minimizing conflict. Many incidents involved incompatible employees,

supervisor and subordinate conflicts, and some conflict with clients or hostile

audiences. A few incidents dealt with formal negotiations—that is, conflict processes

that ended in agreements or recognized resolutions of the problem. Themes pertaining

to conflict resolution included improving the resolution process, using staff

supervision, mentoring, building team relationships, hiring compatible team

members, and training to improve conflict resolution skills.

Gender, Racial, Ethnic Influences on Conflict in Practice

This section summarizes how some participants understood gender differences

and racial or ethnic discrimination as variables influencing conflict in their

workplaces. Because the participants claimed many identities, often the

understandings of what happened in critical incidents or other responses did not

privilege one identity over another. For example, Daniel described a conflict between

two women in a government agency, but age differences seemed more salient than

gender. Consequently, data results from these identities have also been reported in the

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Result sections for specific RQs.

Understandings about gender, race, and ethnicity fell under an umbrella

concept: assumptions about minorities create conflict. These understandings were

offered by a small number of participants who expressed strong opinions. The

assumptions about minorities covered three areas: language and ethnic characteristics,

employment, and women’s conflict resolution abilities.

Assumption 1: People who speak the same non-English language share the

same experiences and culture. Natalie, a media specialist and communication director

in a Hispanic community center, was the only informant on this assumption. She said,

“I act as translator between two language groups.” Her job involves “translating

government regulations and other expectations to Spanish-speaking clients.” Natalie

warned against lumping all Spanish-speaking communities together. “We have to

have specific knowledge of individual Hispanic communities we want to reach. No

generalization possible.” As part of triangulating data in this study, I attended two of

Natalie’s presentations delivered to communication practitioners who wanted to reach

Hispanic/Latino audiences. Rather than making assumptions about Spanish speakers,

Natalie urged us to think differently about Spanish-speaking immigrants who flew

into the United States in contrast to those who walked into the country. The needs of

these two groups require different communication campaigns.

Assumption 2: Minorities are expected to hold only certain kinds of jobs in

communication practice. Among the five participants (16% of total) who identified

their racial or ethnic category, three related incidents in which they had experienced

discrimination in the workplace. Research has documented lack of diversity among

practitioners in our field (Austin, 2010; Hon & Brunner, 2000). Two Black

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participants— both currently presidents of their own integrated communication and

social marketing firms—perceived racial discrimination in the public relations

profession. Jayme described discrimination by her erstwhile manager in a major

government science agency, behavior that included criticism both for winning the

highest personnel evaluation for communication consultants and for not following his

unethical orders. Again, the conflict seemed to engage Jayme’s identities as both a

woman and racial minority. Lynn candidly criticized white men who “dominate the

leadership of the communication profession,” commenting that in conflict situations,

“Whites will promise what they cannot deliver.” Lynn’s firm devotes two departments

to working on problems of race equity, but does “not engage around issues of gender

or sexual orientation.” This CEO offered evidence of discrimination in the lack of

invitations to Black professionals to speak at major public relations conferences and

the failure experiences of Black professionals he has recruited for jobs in major

corporations. Both Jayme and Lynn reported actively challenging discrimination

when it was directed at them in the workplace or in professional organizations.

Assumption 3: Women communication professionals deal with conflict differently

than men.

Gender was not a major research focus of this study, but probes did bring out

some gendered interpretations. As reported in Method, 64.5% of participants were

female, 35.5% male. Several women participants confirmed research findings that

gender inequality exists on many levels in public relations practice (Aldoory, Reber,

Berger, & Toth, 2009; Al-Jenaibi, 2011; Working, 2013). Lisa’s critical incident

involved a specific communication campaign to achieve wage equity among female

county employees in California. Lisa served as both campaign manager and member

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on the three-person team that negotiated the wage contract with the Board of

Supervisors. As described in detail in the RQ4 results on conflict processes, Lisa’s

group won only a disappointing 3% equity increase, but used mainstream media to

“turn a loss into a victory.” However, Lisa conveyed an even stronger attachment to

other formal negotiators whether male or female because many shared a common

childhood experience of conflict in their families.

A small number of women and one man among the participants expressed

both positive and negative assumptions about the opposite gender in workplace

conflict situations. Kira, a media relations professional, described the male staff in

the creative department as “ego-sensitive” and “less skilled in personal relations.”

They tend to work toward “self-advancement” and “enrich their CVs through

awards.” Lisa agreed that her negotiation and communication work took place

largely in a “testosterone-laden environment” where she advocated humor as an

essential conflict resolution tactic. Two younger participants viewed women as better

conflict managers than men. After six years of experience, David described women as

“more objective, more demanding for evidence, and better negotiators.” Sarah, an

8year veteran of managing digital media and communication, credited women with

being “better at seeing both sides to a controversy, heading off conflict, and seeing

the human element.” Other participants did not offer dissenting opinions about

women’s leadership capabilities nor did they describe an experience of promotion

barriers for women communication professionals as a source of conflict

(AlimoMetcalfe, 2010).

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Table 4.5 summarizes the understandings of a small number of participants

concerning gender, racial, and ethnic influences on conflict in communication

practice.

Table 4.5

Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Influences on Conflict in Communication Practice

Themes

Conflict Situations

Processes in

Management

Assumptions about

minorities create conflict

Managers assume you

are a low-level employee

Top managers in public

relations are white males

Use strategic responses

when confronting

discrimination

Withdrawal when no

change is possible

Beliefs that language

determines ethnic identity

fuels conflict

Spanish-speaking groups

are lumped

together, not segmented

Practitioners act as

translators between

language groups

Perceptions that women

professionals manage

conflict differently than men

Conflicts between

departments where

women and men

dominate Women as

better conflict

resolvers because of

objectivity, seeing

both sides, and

preventing conflict

Emulating women

leaders’ skills in

working toward

collective good, using

objectivity, gathering

evidence, and heading

off conflict

Dominance of white men in

communication practice Access by minorities to

leadership roles in

professional

Individual challenges to

discrimination in the

workplace and in

organizations Unfair professional

evaluation practices organizations involving racial

minorities

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Conclusion: Conflict Constructs and Factors

Chapter 4 has systematically covered findings for the study’s four research

questions on how public relations practitioners understand their roles dealing with

conflict in the workplace. Data from approximately 1,000 double-spaced pages of

text were condensed into patterns for each research question and displayed as themes

or metaphors in subheadings. The themes were further condensed in the summary

section of results for each RQ.

This section reports the final stage in qualitative data analysis—drawing and

verifying conclusions (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). The goal is to make

comparisons and contrasts across themes that will produce a smaller number of

factors and to develop constructs that will yield a more conceptual vision of the

practitioners’ understandings of conflict. Miles et al. (2014) defined factors as

“disparate but related pieces of data [that] have something in common” (p. 286). A

final goal in drawing and verifying conclusions involves “making

conceptual/theoretical coherence” (Miles et al., 2014, p. 292) from the metaphors,

factors, and constructs derived during the analytical process.

Drawing a conclusion required connecting themes to yield factors and

subsequently to develop constructs underpinning a coherent theory of how public

relations practitioners understand conflict in their work lives and why they hold those

understandings. Constructs in the grounded theory approach used in this study reveal

dimensions in the data and cluster the factors that “show the range and thus

parameters of the data” (Miles et al., 2014, p.173). Outliers, surprises, and negative

evidence emerged as factors to disconfirm findings in the conclusion (Miles et al.,

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2014). Figure 4.5 displays five main constructs and the factors that emerged within

each construct.

Figure 4.1

Conflict Constructs in Public Relations Practice

Construct 1: Organization Factors

Findings did not reveal strong understandings of how organizational structures

contributed to conflict, but some critical incidents pinpointed organizational culture

and values as an element in reducing conflict. However, two factors connected to

decision-making and division of functions among departments were believed to

increase conflict in the workplace.

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Factor 1.1 Conflicting organizational decision-making structure. One major

factor that emerged in conflict within organizations was the structure of

decisionmaking. Participants underscored conflict that developed when mixed

structures of decision-making were accepted in the organization. Conflict arose when

practitioners experienced strong hierarchical decision-making along with acceptance

of independent decision-making within departments or horizontal structures.

Factor 1.2 Conflicts over the function of public relations. Conflicts with the

creative team, the marketing department, and legal staff were reported. The major

inter-departmental conflicts involved control over the use of digital and social media

to disseminate information and to build relationships with important publics and

stakeholders both internally and externally. Digital media and social networking sites

(SNS) were viewed as a growth area in communication in organizations of all kinds.

Larger organizations had tried to reduce conflict by establishing highly specialized

departments for these functions. Practitioners in smaller organizations experienced

repeated encroachment on their communication functions when social media were

involved.

Construct 2: Audiences as Sources of Conflict

Participants’ descriptions of their jobs and their critical incidents resulted in

some paradoxical findings about audiences as sources of conflict. The main

audiences for all practitioners regardless of the type of organization were external.

However, practitioners’ perceived internal audiences as the main sources of conflict in

their workplace. In short, findings revealed a contrast between the participants’

ratings of the most important audience (i.e., clients or customers) and the audience

that produced the most conflict (e.g., internal audiences).

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Results were complicated because a single audience was labeled as internal or

external depending on the situation. Shifting perceptions of the same individuals as

internal or external to the organization suggest fluid boundaries between within the

group and outside it.

Factor 2.1: Hostility from external audiences dealing with tax-supported

organization. A number of participants feared hostile messages directed at their

organizations from negative mass media or social media platforms. Government

entities and their clients or stakeholders were both sources of hostile attitudes for

practitioners. This notable finding applied to consultants providing services to

government agencies and to organizations involved in the spending of public monies.

Almost all participants who worked for tax-supported organizations faced notable

conflict with a variety of audiences.

Factor 2.2. Team and department conflicts dominate. Participants reported

more employee conflict than any other category. Team conflicts and conflicts among

employees surfaced frequently in reports of how work time was spent and in critical

incidents. Percentage of work time spent on dealing with internal audience conflicts

tended to pool either around low percentages or high percentages. Personnel disputes

and team disputes increased the percentage of time spent on conflict. Themes

included conflicts involving personnel who showed incompatibilities or personality

clashes with other employees, promotion and other HR disputes, and disputes

between immediate supervisors and employees over challenges to authority and

behaviors that were undermining goal achievement. The critical incidents involving

serious team conflicts did sometimes have positive outcomes, but generally the

participants reported serious disruptions in their lives including finding new jobs.

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Construct 3: Individual-Level Factors

The factors in this construct show a range of individual characteristics or

responses that participants understood as affecting conflict situations. These factors

include age, emotional responses, personality characteristics, and preferences for

communication channels.

Factor 3.1 Intergenerational and ethnic conflicts. Participants pinpointed

differences in age and generational background as a major source of conflict among

employees in communication workplaces. Half the participants reported

intergenerational or ethnic factors in workplace disputes. Intergenerational conflicts

involved differences in communication styles, disputes over social media use, and the

sense that older employees dominated. Practitioners in government agencies

experienced intergenerational conflicts more prominently. People in global

communication noted incidents of ethnicity and cultural differences as sources of

conflict. Black practitioners reported facing prejudices while working in the

communication field.

Factor 3.2 Emotions. Emotions were prominent individual characteristics that

had a largely negative impact. A sizeable minority of participants reported emotion as

a factor in the conflicts they encountered. Only one person out of the 10 who

commented viewed emotions as adding positively to the management of conflict.

Factor 3.3 Personality characteristics. The term personality was used to

describe individual differences that had an impact on conflict. One notable aspect of

the personality factor was that it influenced the conflict management styles of

individuals in the critical incidents.

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Factor 3.4. Preference for face-to-face and distrust of digital communication.

Many participants viewed face-to-face communication as the gold standard when

resolving conflicts with internal audiences. Few participants used digital

communication to negotiate or mediate serious disagreements. They endorsed

telephone and digital channels to resolve conflicts with distant parties, but with

reservations over digital communication. Some viewed email messages as too prone

to misinterpretations; a few endorsed email as promoting a less emotional exchange

of options to resolve conflicts.

Construct 4: Conflict Management Processes

Participants expressed their understandings of how they had experienced

conflict and how processes to manage conflicts had evolved to culminate in a

successful or unsuccessful resolution. RQ4 questions elicited general observations

and principles about how participants believed workplace conflicts could be

prevented or alleviated. Notably, only a few participants focused on the steps in

conflict resolution or offered systematic explanation of how processes could be

managed and changed.

Factor 4.1. Conflict avoidance. Avoidance of conflict was both embraced and

criticized as management strategy. This factor was mentioned often, but only a

handful of participants represented strongly expressed poles of opinion on conflict

avoidance. Participants who represented the avoidance pole wanted to suppress

conflict through hiring practices and socialization of team members. A corporate vice

president representing the outlier embrace-conflict pole criticized public relations

practitioners for the desire to be liked in a conflict-laden profession and pointed to

practitioners’ failures to use conflict to strategically produce better outcomes.

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Factor 4.2. Informal processes and steps. The critical incidents question asked

participants to recount situations that had definite endings. With few exceptions these

narratives revealed the use of informal conflict management processes and

spontaneous steps in trying to manage the most prevalent kind of incident—conflict

among employees. The recommendations for managing conflict focused on informal

processes, such as setting up meetings between employees in conflict. Practitioners

implied they wanted to transform conflict situations so that some conflict resolution

could be achieved. A small number of participants recommended improving the steps

in the conflict resolution process.

Factor 4.3. Negotiation and mediation. Conflict organized around formal

negotiation and mediation was an outlier. Only individuals who worked in certain

types of organizations including labor unions and health insurance businesses were

involved in formal negotiation or mediation. Negotiations were described in four

incidents about salary or health care disputes. A mediation incident occurred over

faculty, student, and administrator differences involving changes in a university

symbol. Practitioners who reported these incidents had received little, if any, training

in negotiation or mediation, although one agency owner had been trained as mediator

volunteer by a local conflict resolution center.

Construct 5: Mastering Conflict Management and Resolution

Participants offered suggestions on how communication professionals could

manage conflict and achieve resolutions of workplace conflict. Specific strategies for

conflict management varied widely, and participants offered a variety of suggestions

to improve the process. Two specific factors were commonly mentioned: mentoring

and training.

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Factor 5.1. Mentoring. Participants introduced mentoring as a factor that could

help practitioners develop skills in managing workplace conflict. Mentors included

family members as well as professional bosses and colleagues, and the benefits of

mentoring were controversial. Younger participants reported resentment of mentoring

undertaken by older employees. Some participants argued that bad examples were

more powerful than positive ones in showing how NOT to resolve conflicts.

Factor 5.2. Training. Training in conflict resolution was widely supported by

participants, but the preferred type of training varied from negotiation and mediation

to mentorship to personal development activities. One metaphor described training in

conflict resolution as “charm school.” In addition, training in staff management was

recommended for team dispute resolution.

The constructs emerging out of the findings require further analysis in the

Discussion section which compares these findings with existing research and explores

a model that proposes relationships among these factors.

Chapter 5: Discussion

Qualitative research informs our understanding of practices in communication and

should improve those practices (Merriam, 2009). These principles represent the two

broad aims of this study. In response to in-depth interview questions (Appendix A),

31 communication practitioners with an average of 18.32 years of experience in

regional, national, and global organizations explored their roles and their

understanding of how to manage conflict in their respective workplaces. Because

public relations research emphasizes segmentation of audience it is not surprising that

internal and external collaborators represent a main source of conflict. As research in

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social sciences suggests (Deutsch, 2006), conflict processes clustered into constructs

or meta-themes.

After analyzing over 48 hours of interviews through the grounded theory

approach, 13 themes emerged to be distributed over five categories (meta-themes)

ranging from individual to team to organizational levels.

The organized meta-themes are:

Sources of Conflict: Organizational Level

Sources of Conflict: Audiences

Sources of Conflict: Individual Level

Conflict Processes

Mastering Conflict Management Skills

From the complex of factors within these five categories I propose a grounded

theory model (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) for applying transformation strategies

(Jameson et al., 2009) to manage conflict in public relations and communication

practice. Conflict management is most simply defined as “a social process to handle

and resolve disagreements (see Robey et al., 1989)” (Olaniran, 2010, p. 44).

Following Rahim (2011), conflict management within this model is defined as

applying strategies that moderate effects of interactions that reveal “incompatibility,

disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities (i.e., individual, group,

organization, etc.)” (p. 207). This model is constructed from elements of practice

emphasized by my participants, including the types of audiences involved, whether

relationships are long or short-term, and whether the processes are formal or informal

(See Appendix F for a full-page version of the model).

Figure 5.1

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Transformation Model of Conflict Management in Public Relations Practice

This model situates conflict within organizational structures or cultures and in

interactions between teams and within teams. In other words, the model deals with

the meso-level of the organization, the meso-level of between-team or intergroup

interactions, and the micro-level of within-team interchanges (Babbie, 2010; Lyon,

DeChurch, & Thompson, 2010). Shein (1990) defined culture as the norms, values,

beliefs, attitudes, and expectations operating in the organization.

The model does not include the macro-level of inter-organizational tensions

(Bennington, Shetler, & Shaw, 2003; Lewis, Isbell, & Koschmann, 2010; Ferguson,

1984) or the micro-level of individual-level factors that are typically covered in

howto guides produced by the Harvard Negotiation Project and mass-market

publishers

(Fisher et al., 2011; Lax & Sebenius, 2006; Stone, Patton, & Heen, 2010; Ury, 19963;

2007). Data on inter-organizational conflict did not reach a level of thematic

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significance. The individual-level conflict themes were applicable to professionals in

many contexts and require further research to identify those specific to

communication practice.

Transforming conflict as relationship change. While my cohort of

practitioners did not specifically identify transforming conflict situations as a role in

their work lives, recent research in conflict transformation (Botes, 2003; Fisher &

Shapiro, 2005; Jameson et al., 2009; Jones, 2000; Martins et al., 2013) helped me find

a label for the more informal processes of conflict management that most of my

participants favored. While transformation research has focused on intragroup

conflict (de Wit et al., 2012), emotion in organizational conflicts (Jameson et al.,

2009), and large-scale social conflicts (Pluut & Curseu, 2013), the concept of conflict

transformation—defined as “inducing change in the parties’ relationship through

improving mutual understanding” (Botes, 2003, p. 4)—has applications in many

fields of practice. My model operates on the basic principle from conflict

transformation research that changing relationships among participants offers more

long-term benefits than simple conflict resolution and that it increases the potential

for changing structures that create the conflicts (Greer et al., 2011).

Further, the transformational model of conflict management in public relations

practice emphasizes the dichotomy between conflict within internal versus with

external audiences. The organizational and audience elements of the model are

explicated below.

Organizational structure and culture model overview. Participants’

understandings helped me establish links between the organizational structures in the

workplace and the roles they fill as communication practitioners in conflict

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management. The importance of organizational-level factors in creating and

resolving conflict did not surface early in my data analysis. Several participants

subsequently introduced the impact of organizational-level factors; other participants

added the strategy of conflict avoidance (Choi, 2013) as a mitigating element of

conflict cultures where they worked (Shein, 1990).

Research in several disciplines confirms that conflict is a factor emerging

from organizational structures and from dominating, avoiding, and collaborative

cultures (Choi, 2013; Gallicano, 2013; Gelfand et al., 2008; Gelfand et al., 2012;

Grunig, 1992; Hofstede, 2010; Huang, 1997; Huang, 2001; Pruitt & Carnavale, 1999;

Rahim, 2011). Because this study explores roles in communication practice,

organizational structures in this model are defined as “the relationships among

people who assume the roles of the organization and to the organizational groups or

units to which they belong (e.g., departments, divisions”) (Hatch, 2012, p. 101).

Hatch (2012) listed seven common dimensions of organizational structure including

administration, levels of hierarchy and decision-making, coordination of activities,

standardization of activities, procedures, and specialization (p. 108). Choi (2013)

divided conflict management cultures along three dimensions used in the conflict

styles model by Pruitt and Carnavale (1999): dominating, avoiding, and

collaborating. Some participants used similar language in describing the conflict

cultures in their workplaces.

Further, researchers have also identified communication as a causal factor in

organizational tensions involving negotiation order (Bennington et al., 2003),

engaging audiences (Bruning, Dials, & Shirke, 2008), organizational success (Hargie

& Tourish, 2009a, 2009b) and media use (Olaniran, 2010; Purdy, Nye, &

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Balakrishnan, 2000). Aula and Siira (2010) claimed that communication was the

bedrock of conflict management, but described how communication could both

bolster the meaning-making structures in organizations and break down these

structures to bring about change. These researchers labeled this the dual-function of

communication in conflict management. This model contributes to our understanding

by suggesting that communication practitioners fill a special role in transforming

organizational-level conflict rather than resolving, avoiding, or eliminating it.

Internal audience conflict sub-model. The transformation model of conflict

management in public relations practice follows my participants’ emphasis on team or

group conflict as prevalent in everyday practice. Their predominant goal was to

maintain long-term relations through informal conflict resolution processes, hiring

policies, and socialization practices that insure common understandings and values

among team members. In addition, they advocated training or mentoring programs to

increase team conflict resolution skills and self-awareness about personal

contributions to conflict.

The structure of this model is supported by the research described above on

the meso-level of conflict among teams and the micro-level of conflict within teams

(Lyon et al., 2010). The model emphasizes relationship building as a major role in

public relations practice (Briones et al., 2011; Bruning et al., 2008). In the bottom

tier, the model posits three conflict management strategies: transformation, hiring,

and training/mentoring.

Further explanation is needed about why I placed mediation as a factor with

external audiences, not internal audiences. Mediation models in the public relations

literature and its findings both influenced my choice. A number of participants

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expressed dislike of internal mediation because they wanted to solve conflicts without

interference from uninvolved parties. It was my understanding that mediators could

weaken feelings of self-efficacy among those employees involved in the conflict.

Moreover, organizational models of mediation, especially in public relations, aim at

eliminating conflict—conflict resolution—not conflict management or

transformation. For example, Plowman (2007) reviewed three approaches to the role

of mediator in public relations: the public relations manager as peer mediator who

meets with parties in conflict to find possible solutions, as inside facilitator who helps

parties prevent formal conflict resolution, and as provider of information and insight

in conflict resolution efforts by virtue of his/her professional experience. The

outcomes that the mediators seek involve win-win or no deal, altruistic, and

principled concepts linked to the Harvard Negotiation Project (Fisher et al., 2011) and

dual-concerns conflict management styles (Pruitt & Carnavale, 1999). My

participants preferred informal processes with less defined outcomes in dealing with

internal conflicts.

External audience conflict sub-model. In contrast, conflict with external

audiences played a less prominent role in the model, often involving the more formal

processes of negotiation and mediation. This sub-model has only two tiers that

specify the role of communication professionals as transforming the environment

through formal negotiations and as mediating formally and informally with external

audiences to transform the conflict situation.

The negotiation tier of this model reflects the finding that few of my

participants were actively involved in negotiation to reach formal agreements such as

a labor or health insurance contract. Instead, a fair number of participants endeavored

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more often to modify the environment around formal negotiations or disputes about

policies in tax-supported organizations. In other words, my participants sometimes

understood their roles as persuading and changing attitudes of publics who were not

immediately engaged in the dispute, but who were stakeholders able to impact the

outcome. These stakeholders were often journalists and other media professionals.

On the mediation tier, practitioners are engaged in mediating or moderating

conflict situations involving external audiences. According to Plowman (2007), we

usually think of mediators as disinterested or neutral third parties who offer support

to reach a solution in disputes. In the context of conflict transformation, mediation

has also been defined as “the degree of willingness to entertain change for the benefit

of others” (Shin, Jin, Cheng, & Cameron, 2003, p. 9). The literature on external

mediation in public relations is sparse. In a study summarized in the literature review,

Huang (2001) found that public relations conflict management strategies—

distributive, collaborative, and non-confrontational/avoidance—applied by

communication practitioners with members of the Taiwanese legislature had no direct

effect on the resolution of the conflict. Instead, relationship factors similar to those

used in conflict transformation (e.g., increasing trust, relational commitment, and face

gifts) did affect use of cooperative tactics. Consequently, my model uses conflict

transformation as a strategy in contexts requiring mediation with external audiences.

The remainder of the Discussion section examines the efficacy of this model and

its viability in communication research and practice. The examination (1)

summarizes the major findings; (2) compares this study’s results with the

theories, models, and findings of research surveyed in the literature review; (3)

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discusses implications of my findings; (4) describes limitations; and then (5)

makes recommendations for future research and applications in practice.

Summary of Major Findings

The research questions of this study delved into conflict situations that the

31 practitioner participants had experienced with internal and external

audiences. The inquiry probed into their understanding of conflict processes and

examined their use of digital and social media in conflict situations. According to

Guest et al. (2012), qualitative data coding should result in meta-themes that

exist at a “higher level of abstraction and [are] not directly observed in the data”

(p. 255). These meta-themes should represent the complexity of the data and

their contradictions. The empirical narratives of my participants, reflecting their

professional understanding of conflict in communication practice, induced

thirteen themes grouped into five categories or meta-themes. These metathemes

formed five dimensions summarized in Figure 5.2 and described below.

Figure 5.2: Dimensions in the Constructs Derived from the Data

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Sources of Conflict: Organizational Level

1. Conflict arises from mixed decision-making structures. That is,

organizations that require both hierarchical and independent decision-making

experience more conflict.

2. Without clear divisions of labor, serious disputes can arise over the function

of public relations/communication departments in access to new media.

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Sources of Conflict: Audiences

3. Conflicts within teams are the most prevalent, followed by conflicts with

adjacent departments.

4. Practitioners in tax-supported organizations experience the most

conflict with external audiences.

Sources of Conflict: Individual Level

5. Disputes between generations (intergenerational conflict) represent a major

source of conflict, particularly in government agencies.

6. Emotions generally have a negative impact on workplace conflicts.

7. Personality can be a major causal factor in conflict, in part because it influences

conflict styles.

8. Personal preferences for mediating channels can affect outcomes of

conflicts, but face-to-face conversations are best in dealing with serious conflicts.

Conflict Processes

9. Avoidance can be an effective strategy for conflict management in public

relations/communication practice.

10. Informal processes of conflict management are preferable to formal

processes.

11. Negotiation and mediation skills are required in specialized types of

organizations (e.g., those that require labor contracts or in diplomatic missions), but

are not used in general communication practice.

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Mastering Conflict Management Skills

12. To learn conflict management skills practitioners should have direct or

indirect access to mentors.

13. Formal conflict management training should inculcate a range of skills from

negotiation to personal development – including “charm school” or playing well

with others.

Robust Findings and Contradictions

Discrete findings within these themes and meta-themes prove to be robust

as well as problematic and even contradictory. The critical incidents and other

narratives revealed much less conflict with external audiences than with internal

audiences, even though participant work assignments dealt mainly with external

stakeholders. A contradiction arose, however, over whether to label some

audiences as external or internal. Depending on the context, participants viewed

stakeholders as “one of us” or “one of them.” In particular, communication

consultants applied flexible labeling because they worked so closely with people

outside their organizations. Public relations officers within universities, on the

other hand, frequently found themselves dealing with academic departments as

in some other workplace.

Another robust finding involved digital communication, especially social

media sites (SNSs). Professional recourse to digital communication, particularly

email and websites, was common. However, participants disputed its benefits

and drawbacks and seemed uncomfortable using digital platforms to resolve

conflicts. They overwhelmingly preferred face-to-face and/or telephone channels

216

in serious conflict situations. Moreover, role conflict arose over whether

communication, marketing, or design departments should manage social media

platforms.

Data about processes used in conflict situations also generated some salient

findings. Almost all participants plumbed the effects of positive and negative

emotions in workplace interactions. The majority regarded emotions as negative

influences in creating and prolonging conflict. Rather than examining specific

emotions, they posed this question: “Should emotions be suppressed or

encouraged in conflict situations?” A handful asked, “Can we train practitioners

how to manage emotions?” Answers to these questions showed no consensus. A

handful of participants viewed emotion as a positive factor that could exert a

favorable effect on conflict management.

The conflict management processes that participants recommended

largely involved prevention and avoidance—for example, hiring compatible

employees and using reward and punishment in staff supervision. Almost none of

the practitioners reported conflict resolution as a skill covered in their

performance evaluations. By far, the participants preferred informal resolution

processes such as information gathering, discovery conversations with the

antagonists, and decisions based on organizational goals. Only two participants

valued conflict as a boon to creativity and to the development of effective

strategic plans. One of these participants—clearly an outlier—criticized

communication professionals for preferring conflict avoidance because it helps

them achieve a personal goal of being liked.

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Primary finding. This study’s main research question asked what role

public relations and communication practitioners should play in dealing with

conflict in their everyday work lives. The main finding was that practitioners

experienced most conflict within work teams and in relation to other

departments. These internal conflicts could prevent professionals from achieving

their goals of strategic communication with an external constituency. This main

finding is somewhat paradoxical. In their classification of six kinds of strategic

communication—defined as “the purposeful use of communication by an

organization to fulfill its mission” (p. 3)—Hallahan et al. (2007) isolated the role

of public relations practitioners as “establishing and building relationships with

key constituencies” (p. 4). These are mostly external audiences such as

customers, consumers, investors, donors, politicians, community leaders, and the

media. My participants, however, did not understand the preponderance of

conflict in their work lives to be with these external constituencies. Only a

smattering of participants in tax-supported organizations and the health

industry faced hostile audiences. Instead, their conflict partners were close co-

workers.

Given this primary finding, my model shifts away from formal conflict

resolution and direct engagement with external audiences during crises (Coombs,

2006) toward the transformation of conflict dynamics (Botes, 2003) in work

place relationships. Transformation of conflicts involves modifying emotional

responses, sharpening perceptions of the conflict situation, and deescalation of

relationship conflict (Pluut & Curseu, 2013).

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Comparison of Findings with Existing Literature

According to Guest, MacQueen, and Namey (2012), “A common goal in

scientific inquiry is to compare two or more things and see how they are similar

and how they are different” (p. xv). This section examines convergences and

divergences between this study’s results and its theoretical model against those of

existing literature.

Negotiation as a role for public relations practitioners. Should negotiation

be a major function that public relations practitioners discharge for their

organizations? This study’s descriptive findings on negotiation in practice partly fills

a research gap on this function that was identified by Vasquez (1996). With the

exception of practitioners who worked in organizations where formal negotiations

were held with stakeholders (e.g., labor unions and employers), negotiation was not

described or understood as a major role among the communication practitioners in

this study. This does not devalue the models for negotiation in public relations

practice developed by Grunig and Repper (1992), Huang (2001), and Plowman

(2007). It simply means that the majority of practitioners may not be asked to fill the

negotiation role. It leaves open the question of what role practitioners should play in

dealing with conflict inside and outside their organizations.

Participants described various conflict management and resolution roles

and analyzed their processes. Communication practice itself involves significant

conflict. Vasquez’s (1996) distinction between formal and informal negotiation

applies somewhat to this study, but more recent research in cognitive and

emotional factors in conflict management (Balliet & Van Lange, 2013; Bell, 2007;

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Jameson et al., 2009; Martins et al., 2013; Posthuma, 2012) emphasizes

transformation of the perceptions of the parties rather than overt agreement on

the issues in dispute. For example, after conducting an experimental study on how

task conflict influenced trust among group members, Chen and Ayoko (2012)

advised managers that they could increase trust by stimulating task conflict

among employees. According to affective events theory this strategy increases

levels of perceived trust by arousing the positive emotions of “enthusiasm and

excitement” (Chen & Ayoko, 2012, p. 19). This focus on transforming the affective

perceptions of people in conflict situations opens up a positive role for

practitioners that already emerges in the experience of communication

professionals as shown in some meta-themes from my interviews. That role is

reflected in the transformation model of conflict in public relations practice

proposed by this study.

Relationship building and maintenance as roles for practitioners in

conflict management. Many participants identified relationship building as a

strategy to reduce and avoid conflict. One public affairs officer used “building a

necklace” as a metaphor for the process of adding community people into her

network to resolve conflicts. This insight reflected Toth’s (2000) concept of

relationships as “reservoirs of credibility and trust” (p. 217) that can be drawn

upon when conflict arises. Gallicano (2013) expressed a similar concept in her

theory of insulation—or viewing relationships as an investment that insulates the

practitioner when disgruntled communication partners make heavy withdrawals

on the relationship (p. 383).

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In general, participants’ understanding of relationship building and

maintenance paralleled conclusions found in communication theory, research,

and professional publications (Kent & Taylor, 2002; Leddington, 2006: Scott,

2007). Although the findings did not add to our knowledge of relationships, the

participants did show familiarity with relationship building and maintenance as a

major role for our profession. They confirmed the dialogic communication model

developed by Grunig and Hunt (1984) and extended to the Internet by Kent and

Taylor (1998). Many critical incidents and other narratives in these interviews

described building or failing to build relationships in conflict situations with

journalists, coworkers across generations, employees in marketing and design

departments, and other engaged parties.

Finally, these participants confirmed the need for dialogue in resolving

conflicts by showing strong preferences for the most immediate channels for contact:

face-to-face and telephone.

Organizational level sources of conflict. Only a few participants explored

organizational structures and climate as sources of conflict in their work

lives.

Research confirmed that social media have created highly-prized platforms

for conducting two-way communication with major stakeholders (Wright &

Hinson, 2008). A stream of literature in our discipline stretching back to the

1970s (Kotler & Mindak, 1978) predicted that the boundaries between public

relations and marketing would continue to blur and cause conflict (Grunig &

Grunig, 1998). This study’s finding that communication professionals were

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contesting control of social media with their marketing colleagues implies that

disputes over new technology will continue.

Internal organization conflicts and their causal factors. Team

interactions are a common source of conflict in many organizations. Reports from

my participants confirmed that team and other in-house interactions were the

major source of conflict in the workplace for communication practitioners.

Participants in this study failed to express deeper understanding of how the

variables actually provoke disputes. For example, they did not describe task or

process conflicts that cropped up in their work lives (Martinez-Moreno, 2009).

Abundant research on team conflict—a major source of conflict that emerged in

this study—provides fairly detailed understanding of what variables create

conflict and what effect the conflict has on team outcomes (Behfar et al.,

2001; de Wit et al., 2012; Greer et al., 2002; Martins et al., 2013; Olaniran, 2010;

Pluut & Curseu, 2013). Apart from disputes over division of labor, the

manager/practitioners in this study explored very few types of disruption in getting

the job done.

Intergenerational conflict. This study substantiated in public relations

and communication practice the same intergenerational conflict that has been

documented by research in human resources (Gibson, Greenwood, Murphy, &

Riddle, 2009; Tolbize, 2008) and in nursing (Leiter, Price, & Spencer, 2010). Many

studies in intergenerational conflict review popular literature and stop with

defining generations and their characteristics (Tolbize, 2008). A notable

exception was a study by Murphy (2012) that depicted a strategy of reverse

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mentoring that develops leadership skills in younger employees by allowing

them to mentor older employees. Nelsey and Brownie (2012) also recommended

mentoring across generations, as well as leadership training and team

development to foster productive working relationships among generations.

The meta-theme of intergenerational conflict raises several questions

that affect practitioners. Do generational conflicts in public relations have special

characteristics that make them different from other professions? What are the

variables that create these conflicts? Findings in this study isolated generational

differences in communication styles, perceptions of attempts to dominate, and

professional standards of conduct in using social media. One result of

intergenerational conflicts has been well documented in nursing where staff

retention has suffered (Nelsey & Brownie, 2012).

Based on this study’s findings, however, a research gap exists in our

understanding of intergenerational conflicts in communication practice and its

remedies.

Individual level sources of conflict. Participants identified several

individual level factors that contributed to conflicts in their workplaces. These

included positive or negative emotions, personality, and preferences for/against

communication channels. Existing literature in a variety of disciplines confirms

this study’s findings on the impact of emotional responses and personality

factors in workplace conflict. For example, Antonioni (1998) connected the big

five personality factors with conflict management styles. Judge and LePine (2007)

confirmed my participants’ recommendations for hiring policies that consider

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personality as a way to reduce team conflicts. And more recently, Bradley et al.

(2013) examined how the personalities of teams themselves foreshadowed

conflicts over tasks and success in resolving those conflicts. Moreover,

research has supported my participants’ understanding of the

importance of emotions in intra-group conflicts. In an introduction to an issue of

the Journal of Conflict Management devoted to emotions, Posthuma (2012)

argued that the influences of positive and negative emotions on conflict

management were strong and complex. Chen and Ayoko (2012) lend support to

this study’s findings that emotional factors affected our perception of trust during

conflict. One understanding of many of my participants—that emotion was

primarily a negative influence in conflict situations—was not confirmed. Griffith

et al. (2014) found that managers who used several emotional regulation

strategies could moderate the negative effects of relationship conflict.

Findings on the impact of communication channel preference when

dealing with conflict may have opened a new line of inquiry. My participants’

preference for face-to-face interactions or telephone conversations is

substantiated in the literature (Ting-Toomey, 2005; van Es et al., 2004). However,

the benefits of email and other distant channels in conflict management have not

been widely studied (Geiger & Parlamis, 2014). Impact of digital channels

and social media on conflict. Findings confirmed the widespread use of

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to build relationships with publics.

However, participants contested the benefits and drawbacks of using new media

in conflict management. These new media caused disputes with other

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departments that wanted to take control of these channels from communication

staff. Also, my participants showed little knowledge of the research on using

digital platforms (e.g., email) and software to enhance the outcomes from

decision-making or negotiating agreements (Benyoucef & Verrons, 2007; Cheung

et al., 2004; Dorado et al., 2002; Gabuthy et al., 2008; Jensen, 2009).

Filling Research Gaps Identified in the Literature

One goal of this dissertation was to enrich our understanding of practices

against negotiation theories and models developed within public relations research.

This research focused on the roles of communication practitioners within

organizations, including the role of negotiator or mediator (Huang, 2001; Plowman,

2007 ) and the role of decision-maker during conflict situations (Cameron, Crop, &

Reber, 2001; Shin, Heath, & Lee, 2011). A very small number of participants in the

study filled formal negotiation roles in their organizations. This majority worked for

specialized organizations involved in labor contracts, health insurance, and higher

education. Their roles involved negotiating signed agreements or coming to verbal

agreements to remove or put aside the sources

of conflict.

The study did establish that communication and public relations

practitioners experience varying degrees of internal and external conflict that

can be attributed to their job duties in the organization. Although smaller in

number, conflicts with external audiences claimed much more time for conflict

management. But the professionals also experienced the same types of conflict as

other employees/managers experience who do not work in communication.

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Implications of Findings

Theoretical implications. This study established its theoretical roots

within grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), its predecessors in naturalistic

inquiry (Lincoln, 2010; Lincoln & Guba, 1985), and its post-modern incarnations

(Clark, 2005). While the study generated a conflict transformation role in public

relations practice, the complexity of the findings resulted more realistically in

what Lincoln and Guba (1985) called a pattern theory. A pattern theory “contains

an interconnected set of concepts and relationships, but does not require causal

statements” (Creswell, 2009, p. 64). Neuman (2010) maintained that the system

of ideas in pattern theory succeeds when it provides information and when

themes and concepts are interconnected. The patterns revealed within this study

included a bifurcation between internal and external audiences common to

public relations practice, as well as roles of relationship building and negotiation

that have been well developed in the literature.

Contradictions and outliers. Four themes captured significant outlying

understandings of conflict in public relations workplaces: (1) impact of

organizational structure and culture on conflict; (2) appreciation of conflict and

emotion as positive elements in practice; (3) the value of digital communication

in conflict management; and (4) the distrust of mentoring as a means of learning

conflict management skills. With the exception of confusion over who makes final

decisions, participants reported on conflict elements “close to home” in their

departments rather than in leadership and culture (Choi, 2013; Gelfand et al.,

2012; McMillan et al., 2012; Shin et al., 2011). In fact, almost no one mentioned

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conflicts with top management, as opposed to supervisorsubordinate conflict

(McMillen et al., 2012).

Further, only a small minority of participants understood the positive value

of conflict in their work settings and appreciated how emotion could be used to

enhance relationships and outcomes even though research increasingly supports

this appreciation of dissonance (Chen & Ayoko, 2012; Griffith et al.,

2014; Tekleab & Quigley, 2014).

Outlying participants also appreciated the benefits of digital communication

in resolving conflict because email and other channels could provide much-needed

distance as well as a record of the parties’ responses. Almost no one saw the value

of communicating about conflict over social networking sites.

Finally, some participants expressed strong contradictory views of the

value of mentors in learning effective conflict management strategies. One person

highlighted the bad advice she had received from mentors; another pointed to

learning what NOT to do from mentors.

Implications for practice. The conflict transformation model of public

relations implies a more conscious role for practitioners in transforming conflict

situations for both internal and external audiences. The findings suggest that

communication practitioners are already engaged in managing conflict within

their teams and across departments. However, my participants reported the need

for training in conflict management strategies and had fairly superficial

interpretations of how to transform employee emotions and perceptions to

create real long-term change in team relationships.

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Further, communication practitioners need to assess whether they have a

special role to play in transforming or detoxifying conflicts within their

organizations. The implication for practice revolves around this question: Do

public relations professionals have special communication skills that would make

them exceptionally valuable in transforming and detoxifying conflict situations in

their workplaces? Does their training in relationship building and maintenance

equip these professionals to deal more effectively than others with intragroup

conflict?

Certainly, my participants did not claim the role of conflict transformation

even when their critical incidents showed that they transformed disputes among

internal publics. As the findings showed, the participants attributed skillful

conflict management to individual-level factors like positive emotions,

personality, generational attributes, and preferences for communication

channels. They did not claim that training and experience in communication

practice made them especially adept at transforming or

resolving conflicts.

My results did not support the claim that communication practitioners

played a negotiation role in their organizations. Instead, practitioners might claim

a special function as conflict transformers or detoxifiers in their organizations

with increased understanding of that role and given adequate training or

mentoring.

Limitations

I acknowledge the basic limitations of my qualitative research method:

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difficulties in developing a theory that could embrace contradictions and

inconsistencies in the data; problems in achieving reliability and validity

(described below); and obstacles in applying research usefully to communication

practice. The analytical challenge in qualitative research, as described by Miles et

al. (2014) is “to find coherent descriptions and explanations that still include all

the gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions inherent in personal and social life”

(p. 10). Personally, I felt daunted by the sheer weight of data—668 single-spaced

pages of transcripts plus written and web material—and faced risks in trying to

force logical and reasonable interpretation on data that are random and

contradictory.

Sampling. In addition, the study had sampling limitations. Although

participants came from a variety of states including Florida, Utah, California, and

New York, the majority worked in the mid-Atlantic region where the federal

government is a major employer. This may explain the prominence of conflict in

tax-supported organizations. Further, I did not limit the participants to

professionals with the job titles of public relations practitioners. As I explained in

Method, job titles vary widely in the public relations profession, but the results

would have been different if I had eliminated some kinds of communication

practitioners.

Measurement. Some of the results of this study seem generic to many kinds

of managerial positions. It was difficult to distinguish during analysis whether the

participants answered as communication professionals or as employees who also

had managerial and other responsibilities. In hindsight, a crucial question had been

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omitted: How do conflicts in your communication job differ from the conflict

experienced by other people in the organization or your clients’ organizations? This

question would have helped me understand whether communication practitioners

can take on a specialized role in conflict

management.

Self-reported data. A sizeable mass of data in this study came from

narratives of critical incidents. This kind of self-report raises questions of selective

memory, discrimination among several related incidents, attribution of positive

outcomes to the teller’s actions, and exaggeration of some events

(Butterfield et al., 2005, 2009; Chell, 2004; Flanagan, 1954; Schluter et al., 2007).

While acknowledging that such incidents cannot be fact-checked and that

distortions can affect the validity of my results, these narratives added

immeasurably to the richness of the data and allowed the participants to explore

emotions and other personal understandings that would have been lost otherwise.

Internal (reliability) and external validity. The Method section of this

study explained why validity is a contested term in qualitative research and

described the strategies I used to increase external and internal validity. Miles et al.

(2014) and Saldaña (2013) defined internal validity—or truth value—as evidence

that the findings of the study made sense, were credible to the people I studied, and

gave an authentic portrait of conflict within communication and public relations

practice. Internal and external validity bear upon the goal of this study—to

contribute to understanding of practice and improvement of

professional work-life.

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Authenticity and truth value are evident in the candor and depth of

participants’ responses. I was surprised by the willingness of practitioners to

speak with me at length—sometimes over two hours—and their generosity in

describing the trials and emotions they experienced during the workplace

incidents. Furthermore, the protocol questions and themes took unpredictable

directions. Participants led me to the importance of teams, mentors, and personal

skills in communication practice. I verified the credibility of the interview data by

fact-checking details against website and printed information. After the

interviews were finished, I asked participants to clarify their statements in

response to questions sent by email. I also checked and rechecked the transcripts

when I had questions about whether I had accurately represented the data and

duly recorded contradictions and outliers.

Reliability (internal validity) is defined in qualitative research as evidence

that “the process of the study is consistent, reasonably stable over time” so that

audiences get a sense of “quality and integrity” (Miles et al., 2014, p. 312). I tried

to increase reliability by constant comparison of data across escalating levels of

abstraction: words, themes, factors, and then the five categories/meta-themes. I

returned again and again to the practitioners’ transcripts to check exact words

and phrases. I reviewed the lists of themes that evolved over time to insure that I

consistently captured the understandings of participants during data reduction.

In the journal notes kept during interviewing and at each analytic stage, I noted

inconsistencies in how I understood the data, as well as contradictory opinions

and singular insights offered by the participants. Even in the final analysis of the

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13 strongest themes that emerged from the data, I returned to the fringe of Postit

notes on transcript pages, sending me to the original contexts in which I first

caught sight of these understandings. The struggle for consistency, quality, and

integrity continued as I continually tweaked the meta-themes and the

transformational model in light of the evidence.

Standards for achieving external validity in qualitative research require the

researcher to establish (1) the larger importance of the study’s results; (2) the

potential transferability of the findings to other contexts and individuals; and (3)

its utility or application in the field—in this case, the work settings of public

relations practitioners (Glaser, 2004). This is essentially a test of fit with accepted

professional values (Miles et al., 2014). First, I tried to bolster validity by reducing

my personal bias in generating the factors and model (see Method section). The

strategies I used included keeping a reflective journal, bracketing my biases in

observational notes and memos, keeping an audit trail during data analysis, and

engaging in systematic and formal memo writing during all stages of research,

including the writing of this dissertation.

External validity can also weaken when evidence is inadequate or not

connected sufficiently to experience, when categorization and assumptions are

implausible, and inconsistencies abound. The Results section recorded substantial

evidence that was verified through quotations. The critical incidents allowed

participants to explore their experiences more fully. Stage two analysis supported

the plausibility of my categories and assumptions through examination of existing

research and also through a PowerPoint presentation of the results to three

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colleagues in advanced academic programs at Johns Hopkins University. I also

used member-checking to assure validity by informally chatting at various times

with eight participants to get their responses to some basic findings. This practice

required me to become actively involved in local and regional meetings of the

Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Future Directions for Research

Because this grounded theory study was largely exploratory, two broad

areas of future research will help to clarify the components of the model I propose.

1. Investigate the role of conflict transformation in public relations and

communication practice. Future research will need to investigate the role that

public relations practitioners can claim in transforming internal conflict. The

transformation model of conflict management in public relations is defined as

structural in grounded theory (Miles et al., 2014). This implies that it has not

reached the level of formal theory and requires much more investigation to prove

its worth.

Consequently, a number of factors in this model and my research themes

require further research. The tendency toward conflict avoidance among

practitioners is one intriguing area. The specialized skill set that communication

practitioners bring to conflict management is another. Also, quantitative methods

(e.g., distributing a survey) could be used to measure the time communication

practitioners devote to conflict resolution and their assessments of its

importance in the profession.

2. Develop a model of conflict management specifically applicable to

digital communication channels. Because this study and the existing literature

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document the increasing use of digital and social media in the communication

profession, much more research is needed in how to manage communication on

these platforms. Although my participants overwhelmingly preferred face-toface

interactions for serious conflict resolution, these professionals will have to

manage more and more conflict with audiences—external and internal—with

whom in-person meetings are highly improbable. Very few communication

research studies have investigated how practitioners should handle conflict on

social networking sites, although some work has been done on adoption of social

media (Curtis et al., 2010) as well as building and maintaining relationships

(Briones et al., 2011). Researchers in other disciplines, however, have been

robustly exploring digital negotiation and conflict resolution (Benyoucef &

Verrons, 2007; Dorado et al., 2002; Taylor & Thomas, 2008).

Future Directions for Practice.

Michael Roloff (2009) wrote movingly on the profound difficulty of

applying conflict management research to practice. I too perceived real

limitations in using the findings of this study to help practitioners. The majority of

research studies cited in this document used experimental or quasiexperimental

research. While I believe this interview study has expanded our knowledge of

actual public relations practice, its findings still seem separated from practice.

This study demonstrated that research lags behind practice especially in

applicability of social media.

The future directions for practice should increase communication

professionals’ understanding of sources of conflict in their work lives; help them

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define their special organizational roles, if any, in dealing with conflict; provide

training in conflict transformation and management; and promote recognition of

how public relations practitioners manage conflict during organizational change.

1. Increase awareness of transforming conflict especially at the team or

department level as a realistic role of communication practitioners. Practitioners

would benefit from learning about the theoretical frameworks of conflict

transformation (Botes, 2003; Greet et al., 2008; Pluut & Crusue, 2013) and the

related construct of detoxification (Gallicano, 2013).

2. Enable practitioners to appreciate and use conflict positively in improving

outcomes in public relations and communication practice. For better or worse,

practitioners in this study revealed preferences for conflict avoidance through

hiring procedures, socialization, and staff management. Sensitizing

communication professionals to the causes and benefits of workplace conflict

could enable them to use their strategic communication skills in managing

intragroup problems. Webinars and workshops in conflict management could be

offered online and at professional gatherings such as the PRSA International

Conference.

3. Train practitioners in steps involved in the conflict management process

and provide opportunities for practicing and reflecting on effective conflict

resolution. Very few practitioners in this study could describe steps in effective

conflict resolution. Although they showed familiarity with some strategies from

the Harvard Negotiation Project (Fisher et al., 2011), they lacked, for example,

understanding of the four basic phases in the communication negotiation model

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devised by Madrigal et al. (2009). Organizations and degree programs could

consider offering training in these and other conflict management strategies.

4. Participants often deplored the absence from job descriptions and

performance evaluations of their contributions in mediating and resolving

conflicts. Research in human resource and personnel policies could help create

awareness of the conflict transformation role that public relations professionals fill

and encourage rewards for it.

Conclusion

So, what?

What’s new?

What do we know now that we didn’t know before?

This conclusion answers these essential questions about my dissertation

research. My study proposed to fill a research gap in our perception of how

practitioners understand their roles and activities in conflict resolution and

management. Its impetus included several models of negotiation in public relations

that developed over several decades (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995; Huang, 1997,

2001; Plowman, 1995, 2005). This study’s results only partly confirmed a formal or

informal role of negotiator for a small number of practitioners in specific types of

organizations such as health and unionized industries. These models continue to have

applicability, but in restricted areas of practice.

By collecting data in the field rather than through experiments or surveys, and

by covering a range of practitioners in various stages of their careers excluding

beginners, new insights emerged into conflict management in everyday

communication practice. Participants understood conflict as any serious disturbance

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in relationships and goal achievement that went beyond routine problem solving or

widely studied crisis communication roles with external audiences (Coombs, 2006;

Heide & Simonsson, 2014; Liu, Austin, & Jin, 2011).

Results of this study challenged the normative power and C-suite strategic

decision-making roles that scholars have claimed for public relations and

communication practitioners (Berger & Reber, 2006). Even though my participants

had ample opportunity to explore conflict with top management over their blocked

career advancement, including failure to be seated at the decision-making table, these

practitioners did not demean direct practice as a job function. They did not express

the tension between being locked in the “iron cage of practice” as “an order taker”

(Berger and Reber, 2006, p. 218) and wanting to move into the powerful leadership

role of “strategic advisor” (p. 13) where they might even negotiate on behalf of the

organization (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995; Sison, 2010).

Instead, my participants, who mostly occupied mid-level jobs across a

spectrum of organizations, portrayed themselves as firmly rooted in communication

practice, not in advancement to top-level management. Three real work-world roles

emerged: direct practice, management, and training/mentoring. All participants

reported engaging in direct practice no matter how senior their positions. They also

embraced training and mentoring as legitimate functions that could be recognized and

practiced even in early career stages. The major managerial role did produce

significant conflict in the work lives of participants, especially within teams and with

closely linked departments. The value of decision-making power or influence

surfaced thematically for less than a handful of participants and seemed linked with

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conflict primarily as a factor in getting the work done effectively rather than

enhancing status.

This leads me to the contribution of the transformation model of conflict in

public relations practice that synthesized my data. The model suggests this normative

conclusion: that practitioners must be prepared to manage significant short- and

longterm internal conflict in their daily work, and that this responsibility may require

transforming the conflict so that people can work together more effectively over time,

rather than resolving conflict as a short-term fix. As stated earlier, only practitioners

in specific types of organizations required high-level negotiation and conflict

resolution skills. Another way would conceptualize these different organization types

as distinct cultures that require different skills (L’Etang, 2012). To sum up this

insight, all practitioners will have a high likelihood of dealing with internal audience

conflict, while only a small minority will be called upon to resolve conflict through

formal agreements. Subsequent studies could benefit from analyzing practice within

organizational types or distinct cultures. In addition, these studies should not assume

that internal audiences can be easily identified; labels of internal and external can

shift depending on the conflict situation.

Readers may find much to question in the transformation model. Nevertheless,

I was fully committed to exploration, and allowed participants to take the lead even

though some descriptive results turned out to be too broad or shallow for theoretical

application. The model emerged inductively and could be faulted for appearing

unduly hierarchical or rigidly separated into factors relating to internal or external

audiences. However, my participants perceived sharply divisive conflict within their

work environment, even though scholars in crisis communication may argue that

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conflict with external audiences can generate internal conflict (Coombs, 2006). While

such factors or dimensions as audience segmentation, relationship building over the

long- and short-term, and strategic management roles are embedded in our

understanding of communication practice, these variables have been recontextualized

in my practitioners’ understanding of their daily work. I believe my results add depth

to our debate over putative roles for public relations/communication practitioners as

conflict resolvers and strategic leaders—roles that some argue can enhance the status

of our profession (Berger & Reber, 2006; Gupta, 2011; Heide & Simonsson, 2014;

Swerling & Thorson, 2014; Steyn, 2007). Status may be enhanced through

practitioners documenting existing skills that add value to the organization and then

marketing those competencies.

Finally, this study helped me to uncover insights about communication

practice and conflict that I hope can guide me and other researchers in future studies.

First, I question why I and perhaps other researchers assume that public

relations/communication practitioners are more competent in or prepared for conflict

resolution—and even internal conflict management—than other managers or

professionals. My assumption seemed built on a belief that training in audience

analysis, message construction, and persuasive techniques would prepare

communication professionals for dealing with conflict across a variety of situations;

that assumption should be challenged. This study showed significant differences

across types of organizations in their need for conflict management and/or resolution

skills. The factor of organization type or culture could be a useful addition to our

research. Most importantly, conflict transformation (Botes, 2003; Greer et al., 2008;

Jameson et al., 2009; Pluut & Curseu, 2013) is a concept that could be added to the

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arsenal of strategies and tactics we practice. A research stream on transformation is

developing outside our discipline, but its conceptual framework identifies emotions

and other individual-level variables that my participants understood as highly

important in dealing with conflict in their everyday communication work.

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