Managing Organizational Conflict: A Model for Diagnosis and Intervention:

TL;DR: The management of organizational conflicts involves diagnosis and intervention to maintain a moderate amount of conflict and help the organizarional members learn various styles for effective handling of different conflict situations.

Abstract: Summary.-Conflicts occurring in or as a result of membership in organizations can be classified into three major categories: intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup. Conflicts in each category result from various personal-cultural and organizational structure factors. These factors may be identified through appropriate diagnosis and their effects on and implications for each of the three levels of conflicts established. Such a diagnosis is a prerequisite for the appropriate development and implementation of intervention strategies. The management of organizational conflicts involves diagnosis and intervention to maintain a moderate amount of conflict and help the organizarional members learn various styles for effective handling of different conflict situations. Even though conflict is often said to be functional for organizations, most recommendations for those relating to organizational conflict still fall within the "conflict resolution," reduction, or minimization realm. Insofar as we could determine, the literamre on organizational conflict is deficient on several points. ( 1) There is no diagnostic tool or method for the identification, typology, or taxonomy of conflicts occurring within an organization or its participants. (2) There is no clear set of rules to suggest when conflicts ought to be maintained at a certain level, when reduced, and when ignored. (3) There is no clear set of guidelines to suggest how interpersonal conflicts ought to be handled in different situations. This paper attempts to address these issues to develop a design for the management of conflict at the individual, group, and intergroup levels. It has been suggested that the management of organizational conflict involves the maintenance of a moderate amount of conflict at these levels by altering the behavioral and structural sources of conflict and enabling che organizational participants to learn the various conflict-handling styles to deal with different conflict situations effectively.