Organizational Conflict, Conflict Management, and Communication : A Social Complexity Perspective
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Organizational conflict research has centered on a few dominant models that have directed the development of the field in theory and in practice. Although these models have undoubtedly benefited the field by providing a common focus, the focused concentration has had costs. Specifically, there has been a lack of approaches that depart from the positivistic, linear, and reductionist views of communication and conflict. This study answers this call by exploring the possibilities and implications that a social complexity approach has to offer organizational conflict management with a special focus on organizational communication. The study consists of four sub-studies. Study 1 (conducted as a questionnaire comparing the conflict and face maintenance styles of Finns and U.S. Americans) functions as an entry to the study of organizational conflict management. Studies 2 and 3 (conducted as theoretical accounts) introduce social complexity principles for individual- and organizational-level conflict management, respectively. Finally, Study 4 develops a framework of managerial conflict influence based on a qualitative analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews. In sum, the dominant individual- and organizational-level models are insufficient to account for conflict behavior and interaction as well as to address conflicts in organizations. A social complexity perspective on organizational conflict implies a constitutive role of communication processes in organizing. The communicative view of organizational conflict is illustrated by using the metaphors of performance, contradiction, and voice. Conflict management in turn is represented via three main variables (the dual function of communication, circumstances, and directness) resulting in six ideal types of influence at the individual level and four strategies at the organizational level. This study contributes to the existing organizational conflict research by providing an alternative view of social complexity to understand the communicative aspects of the phenomenon. This approach helps to illuminate the limitations of and to find areas for development of the dominant models at the individual and organizational levels. This perspective also draws attention to the discursive aspects of organizational conflict, places conflict purely within a communicative context, caters to the relational and systemic aspects of conflict management, and takes a broader view of conflicts. In addition, this study contributes to the interpretivist strand of social complexity and provides a fresh metaphor of organizing for the organizational communication literature.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Kalle Siira
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1570631340