CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

16. THEORY OF CONFLICT IN THE WORKPLACE: WHENCE AND WHITHER 437
How significant is the term organizational as a qualifier of conflict? Of
course, arenas of conflict differ from one another in terms of how negotiation
works, to be sure, but there are many more similarities than differences
among settings—organizational, political, and interpersonal.
These similarities make it possible to develop general theories of negotiation.
This means that we can learn things from one arena and generalize
to another. For example, negotiations between representatives differ in
some respects from negotiations between individuals who act on their
own behalf, as noted by De Dreu and Gelfand (chapter 1, this volume)
as well as by Beersma, Conlon, and Hollenbeck (chapter 4, this volume).
These sorts of distinctions—about variables—are more fundamental than
the differences between the arenas in which negotiation takes place. This
means that we can borrow ideas and effects, and models, from a variety
of literatures—international relations, for example, that speak to matters
of organizational conflict.
WhenCe
Modern writing about organizational conflict reflects several key influences
and traditions. One source of influence is historical writing, highly
informative descriptions of actual conflict events. Indeed one of the earliest
known instances of writing, in the history of writing, was a description
of a conflict that was resolved via mediation (Kramer, 1963). Other
examples are the highly informative descriptions of labor and industry
disputes written by people close to real situations (Peters, 1955; see also
Douglas, 1962; Follett, 1926), and international mediation the collection of
essays put together by Campbell (1976) written by the people who were
the actual participants in the 1954 Trieste negotiations involving Italy and
Yugoslavia.
Sometimes historical reports and accounts inform the popular books
and manuals that provide advice (e.g., Fisher & Ury, 1981). Often these writings
are cook-bookish and full of aphorisms that in practice are difficult
to apply; for example, one should be “. . . firm as a rock when necessity
demands, and supple as a willow at another moment” (de Callieres,
1716/1963, p. 43). However, when does necessity demand firmness and
when should one be supple? Nevertheless, these writings serve as useful
foils for the modern researcher.
Often historical writings and close observations of real settings are synthesized
in broad theoretical generalizations about conflict behavior. The
behavioral research tradition in conflict, which is represented predominantly
in this volume, seeks to develop and test predictive theory about
the impact of environmental conditions on negotiator (and mediator)
behavior and the impact of these conditions and behaviors on outcomes
(cf. Walton & McKersie 1965). Much of the early social-psychological work,
especially the laboratory experiments, tested notions presented in works