Think of a man fifty-four years of age who has been with his employer for twenty-five years.

In recent years the company he works for has grown significantly, primarily via acquisitions. As a result of this growth the workforce in the past decade has more than doubled in size.

The strategy and structure of the organization have changed several times during these recent years. Our protagonist in this brief story has experienced many and rather intense changes. First, the nature of his relationship with his employer has shifted from one of relative job security to a feeling that he could be redundant any day now. Second, there are many new faces in his work life now with a number of them being “different”—younger, of course, but also different in ethnic and educational backgrounds as well as seeming to hold divergent values. These differences become manifest in problem-solving meetings and our friend often disagrees but does not know whether to speak up or keep his mouth shut. In either case, he ends up feeling uncomfortable and conflicted. Third, while the organizational structure seems to change annually, what remains constant are silos, units within the organization acting independently with little exchange of information and cooperation with one another. And, finally, with each new acquisition there is yet another corporate culture to absorb, and these acquired cultures never seem to fit.

Thus, the current workplace for our friend is in a constant state of flux causing considerable stress, and he is therefore seriously contemplating taking the company’s early retirement package.

Our short story illustrates the nature of conflict in organizations today, conflict at multiple levels. Our friend is experiencing conflict at an individual personal level. The characteristics of his psychological contract with his employer have changed causing internal, personal angst and conflicted feelings about whether to remain loyal and hardworking or to leave.

The different workforce has contributed to his feelings of being from another planet, and not knowing whether it is worth confronting and discussing these divergences or simply to let well enough alone and revert to his comfort zone of introversion.

In earlier days when our friend’s company was smaller, cooperation was the norm. Today members of work units protect their turf, and the norm is more like win-lose instead of collaboration with the possibility of win-win.

And bringing in these new businesses with their strange cultures requires an enormous amount of energy to cope with the differences and attempt to work together. Moreover, these new acquisitions are like second marriages—hope seems to overpower experience and reality.

Conflict in organizations, then, can be addressed and understood at four levels or interfaces: (1) the individual with the organization, (2) individuals with one another, (3) organizational units with other units, and (4) interorganizational relationships. These interfaces are not discrete, but it is useful to our understanding to treat them as somewhat distinct.

The organization of this chapter is therefore according to the four levels/ interfaces and our ultimate purpose is twofold: to understand the nature of conflict at each level and to suggest ways of dealing with these conflicts in as productive a manner as possible.

Before covering each of the four levels of interfaces, let us take a moment and review what seem to be the primary contributors to our causes of conflict in organizations today.

• Globalization with the consequent need for greater understanding and effectiveness in dealing with cross-cultural dynamics

• Constant and a more rapid rate of change especially in the external environment for organizations causing a lag effect, i.e., the organization experiences an unprecedented state of trying to “catch up”

• Greater employee diversity

• Flatter organizational hierarchies causing less managerial oversight, more self-managed groups, and virtual teams

• Increasing complexity of work in most organizations, which leads to myriad perspectives and viewpoints

• Increasing electronic communication, particularly e-mail, which causes (a) less face-to-face contact (losing the benefit of nonverbal cues) and (b) more “freedom” to communicate in confrontive, potentially hostile ways

• Constant pressure on organizations to be cost conscious and effective at managing costs causing a scarcity of resources, which in turn increases competition among managers, in particular, and employees, in general

These seven contributors to conflict in organizations are not comprehensive nor exhaustive, but they do represent some of the most important and powerful forces in the workplace today that give rise to discord. Let us now consider the consequences of these contributors in terms of four levels and interfaces in the modern organization.

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Source: Deutsch Morton, Coleman Peter T., Marcus Eric C.. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Theory and Practice. 2nd edition. — Jossey-Bass,2000. — 649 p.. 2000

Think of a man fifty-four years of age who has been with his employer for twenty-five years.

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