Chapter 2

Nature of Conflict
 Occurrence of Organizational Conflict

• Organizational conflict occurs when members

engage in activities that are incompatible with
those of colleagues within their network.

• (Manifestations of conflict behavior)

 Threshold of Conflict
The incompatibilities, disagreements, or
differences must be serious.

There are differences in the threshold of conflict

awareness or tolerance among individuals.
 Conflict and Competition
Competition is a subset of conflict. Conflicts may
be placed along a continuum of cooperative to
competitive.
Cooperative: Both parties receive satisfactory
and high outcomes.
Competitive: One party wins and the other loses.
 Categorization of Conflicts

Conflicts can be categorized as following:

• Purely Cooperative Conflicts

• Purely Competitive Conflicts

• Cooperative-Competitive Conflicts
 Classifying Conflict
Classified on the basis of its sources.

1. Affective Conflict
2. Substantive Conflict
3. Conflict of Interest
4. Conflict of Values
5. Goal Conflict
6. Realistic versus Nonrealistic Conflict
7.Institutionalized versus Non-institutionalized
Conflict
8. Retributive Conflict
9. Misattributed Conflict
10. Displaced Conflict
 Levels of Analysis
Organizational conflict may be classified as:
• Intraorganizational conflict
– Intrapersonal Conflict
– Interpersonal Conflict
– Intragroup Conflict
– Intergroup Conflict

• Interorganizational conflict
 Four Models of Interpersonal Conflict
Four models of the styles of handling
interpersonal conflict in organizations are as
following:
• Model of Two Styles
• Model of Three Styles
• Model of Four Styles
• Model of Five Styles
 Model of Two Styles

This model proposed two styles of handling conflict:

Cooperative–Competitive model:
 Model of Three Styles
This model proposed three styles of handling
conflict:
 Non-confrontation
 Solution-orientation
 Control
 Model of Four Styles
This model proposed four styles of handling
conflict:
 Yielding
 Problem solving
 Inaction
 Contending
A Two-Dimensional Model
Models of 2–5 Styles
 Styles of Handling Interpersonal Conflict

1. Integrating Style

2. Obliging Style

3. Dominating Style

4. Avoiding Style

5. Compromising Style
Interpersonal Conflict According to Game Theory

According to game theorists the five styles of

handling interpersonal conflict can be reclassified
as following:
• Integrating style as a (win–win) style.
• Compromising as a (no-win/no-lose) style.
• Obliging as a (lose–win) style.
• Dominating as a (win–lose) style.
• Avoiding as a (lose–lose) style.
 Integrative and Distributive Dimensions
Five styles of handling interpersonal conflict can be
organized according to the integrative and
distributive dimensions.
Integrative-dimension: The integrative-dimension
(integrating–avoiding) represents the amount of
satisfaction of concerns received by both parties
(i.e. self and others).
Distributive-dimension: The distributive-dimension
(dominating–obliging) represents the amount of
satisfaction of the concerns received by one of the
parties (i.e., self or others).
Integrative and Distributive Dimensions Model