CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

8. CONFLICT ESCALATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 255
interested in serving as mediators (Kolb & Sheppard, 1985), though this
may be changing as executives attend the many conflict management
workshops available today, they are often well placed to mediate. As organizations
become more complex and decentralized, emergent mediators
are becoming more common, that is, people who “operate at the boundaries
between different parts of the organization” and talk informally to
both sides in a controversy (Kolb, 1989, p. 107).
Community structure is also important. Heavily escalated reactions
to annoyance from other groups are much less likely when there are
crosscutting, as opposed to overlapping, bonds (Coleman, 1957). In a heavily
crosscutting structure, important members of most subgroups have
bonds with members of most other subgroups. In a heavily overlapping
structure, subgroup members are only bonded to other members of their
own subgroup. When conflict arises between two groups in a heavily
crosscutting community, group members who are bonded to members of
the other group will be reluctant to escalate. They will also try to dampen
the conflict by urging moderation, criticizing leaders who are seeking to
incite intergroup hostility, refuting inflammatory rumors, and trying to
mediate the conflict. In heavily overlapping communities, such individuals
are not available, and escalation is much more likely.
The importance of crosscutting for preventing severe escalation was
seen in a study by Varshney (2002). Three Indian cities that experienced
repeated and severe Hindu–Muslim conflict over a 45-year period were
compared with three matched cities that did not experience much conflict.
The latter cities contained strong civic associations—trade unions, political
parties, professional associations, business groups—that embraced
members of both ethnic groups, while the former did not. Furthermore,
whenever signs of conflict arose, members of these associations became
active in combating escalation.
Common group membership is an especially important bond in organizations.
It motivates problem solving because of the desire to preserve the
common group and it facilitates communication, which makes problem
solving possible. Likert’s (1961) “linking pin” approach to organizational
decision making is an example of a crosscutting structure. Critical members
of each department (the linking pins) become members of an interdepartmental
(crosscutting) committee with decision-making powers.
struCtural ChanGes anD Persistent esCalation
Most escalation dissipates over time. However, heavy escalation sometimes
persists, continuing month after month or reasserting itself regularly
whenever there is minor conflict. Persistent, heavily escalated conflict
is sometimes called “intractable conflict” (Coleman, 2000).
Two main dynamics underlie intractable conflict. Conflict spirals account
in part for this phenomenon, with the parties alternating, ad infinitum, in