CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

8. CONFLICT ESCALATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 261
adept at predicting de-escalation. For example, we know that high
costs on both sides cause some highly escalated conflicts to end
quickly (e.g., the Nagorno–Karabakh War; see Mooradian & Druckman,
1999), but they have a much delayed effect on others (e.g., the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict since 2000). What conditions account for
this difference? How can ripeness theory be made more predictive
(for initial efforts to answer these questions, see Zartman, 2000;
Pruitt, 2005)?
4. Ripeness theory is also deficient in identifying the mechanisms by
which ripeness produces movement toward de-escalation. Somehow,
the structural changes that produce persistent escalation are
reversed or outbalanced, but it is not clear just how this works? Coleman
(1997) suggested that “unfreezing” occurs, and Pruitt (2005)
proposed that leaders gather new information. However, these ideas
are quite preliminary.
Gaps in Applying Escalation Theory to Organizations
Most escalation theory has been developed in realms other than organizational
behavior, and it is not always clear how to extend this theory
into the latter realm. Three empirical questions arise from this unclarity:
1. Is it true, as hypothesized earlier, that passive and indirect forms of
escalation are more common within organizations than in other settings,
such as relations between organizations?
2. If passive and indirect forms of escalation are especially common
within organizations, it should be harder for victims to trace escalation
to its source than in other settings. If so, there should be less
retaliation within organizations than in other settings. This implies,
in turn, that conflict spirals should be less likely to develop. Can this
derivation be verified empirically?
3. The last and most important question is a broad one: Do the propositions
of escalation theory that have been developed in other settings
apply equally to organizations? The answer to this question is clearly
“yes” for some propositions because they have been cross validated
(or in a few cases initially tested) in organizations. Thus, Bies and
Tripp (1996) showed that attributions of responsibility encourage
retaliation in organizations, as they do in other settings. All three
forms of injustice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) are
found to be related to escalation in organizations (see Adams, 1965;
Greenberg, 1990; Lind & Tyler, 1988) as well as other settings. Type A
(in comparison with type B) individuals are more likely to retaliate
in organizational settings (Baron, Neuman, & Geddes, 1999) as well
as in the laboratory. However, most escalation theory still needs to
be tested in organizational settings.