CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

15
Making Sense of an
Elusive Phenomenon
DeBorah M. KolB
simmons school of Management
Conflict is part of the fabric of organizational life. In our daily round
of interactions, we are more than likely to be involved in some form of
conflict, even if we do not label it as such. Some nice examples in the context
of escalation include failing to help, to return phone calls, to give
out information, or talking behind another’s back and refusing requests
(chapter 8). Indeed, we now widely accept that conflict is embedded in the
very structures of today’s organizations, making the possibilities for conflict
and its management almost infinite. And because it is potentially ever
present, it has been an elusive phenomenon to frame and conceptualize in
a systematic way. As the editors note, the absence of comprehensive treatments
of the subject is striking. Certainly, there have been efforts to focus
on particular dimensions—the management of conflict (De Dreu & van
de Vliert, 1997), the hidden or less formal dimensions (D. M. Kolb & Bartunek,
1992), and the processes of constructive conflict (Kreisberg, 2003).
What has marked the study of conflict in the past decade or so has
been fragmentation of the topic. The late Jeffrey Z. Rubin (1981) once likened
the disjointed study of third parties to an elephant where different
scholars notice only certain parts. A similar phenomenon has occurred in
the study of organizational conflict. Foremost, have been the students of
negotiation; the empirical work on this topic has been voluminous. Even
though much of this work suggests an organizational context in the tasks
that are studied, negotiation has been treated largely as an isolated phenomenon
unhinged from other organizational processes (Barley, 1991). In
a slightly different vein, the importation of alternative dispute resolution
(ADR) into organizations has resulted primarily in handbooks of dispute
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