Communicating Interpersonal Conflict in Close Relationships: Contexts, Challenges, and Opportunities provides a state-of-the-art review of research on conflict in close personal relationships. This volume brings together both seasoned and new voices in communication research to address the challenges in evaluating conflict. Contributors review the current state of research on themes related to power, serial arguments, interpersonal and family dynamics, physiological processes, and mechanisms of forgiveness by presenting theoretical reviews, original unpublished data-driven research, and discussions about the methodological challenges and opportunities in studying interpersonal conflict.
An essential resource for graduate students and faculty interested in interpersonal conflict in close relationships between romantic partners, families, or friends, this volume is intended for advanced coursework and individual study in communication, social psychology, and close relationship scholarship.
Interpersonal Conflict book pdf
Party-Directed Mediation: Facilitating Dialogue Between Individuals (3rd Edition, 2014) by Gregorio Billikopf may be downloaded for free as a PDF file and printed. Instructions on how to distribute this book for free are found at the bottom of this page. If you have trouble printing any of the chapters, please let us know. This is a public service of the University of California.
Party Directed Mediation: Helping Others Resolve Differences is an effort to present practical, sound, research-based ideas hopefully leading to the improved management of deep-seated interpersonal conflict. While many of the concepts were originally developed through research in agriculture and agri-business firms, the methods (Party-Directed Mediation and Negotiated Performance Appraisal) have since drawn the interest of a wide range of people from women's groups, churches, attorneys, and mediation centers throughout the world. The methods used require more time than traditional mediation, but are particularly well suited to volunteer mediators, intercultural and multi-ethnic conflicts when issues of saving face are important, and other conflicts in which emotional factors are high. This approach is especially geared to help parties who will continue to live or work together after the mediator goes home, and need to learn interpersonal negotiation skills for handling future differences.
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Although managers spend over twenty percent of their time in conflict management, organization theorists have provided very few guidelines to help them do their job ethically. This paper attempts to provide some guidelines so that organizational members can use the styles of handling interpersonal conflict, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising, with their superiors, subordinates, and peers ethically and effectively. It has been argued in this paper that, in general, each style of handling interpersonal conflict is appropriate if it is used to attain organization's proper end.
M. Afzalur Rahim is Professor of Management at Western Kentucky University. He holds B.Com. (Hons.) and M.Com, M.B.A., and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Rahim teaches courses on organizational behavior, strategic management, and management of organizational conflict. He is the author of over 65 articles and book chapters, five cases, and three research instruments on conflict and power. He is the author of six books, four of which are on conflict management. He is the editor of theInternational Journal of Conflict Management and theInternational Journal of Organizational Analysis. He is the founder of the International Association for Conflict Management and President of the International Conference on Advances in Management.
Gabriel F. Buntzman is Associate Professor of Management at Western Kentucky University. His current research interests concern relationships between ethics, conflict and the strategic management of organizations. His work in the area of conflict management has appeared in theInternational Journal of Conflict Management, theJournal of Psychology, and three books.
IntroductionConflict may occur between people or within groups in all kinds of situations. Due to the wide range of differences among people, the lack of conflict may signal the absence of effective interaction. Conflict should not be considered good or bad, rather it may be viewed as a necessity to help build meaningful relationships between people and groups. The means and how the conflict is handled will determine whether it is productive or devastating. Conflict has a potential to create positive opportunities and advancement towards a common goal, however, conflict can also devastate relationships and lead to negative outcomes ((Kazimoto, 2013; Fisher, 2000; Evans, 2013).
An under-reported aspect that is not commonly discussed among leadership qualities is the ability to handle conflict (Guttman, 2004). Guttman explains that there might be two reasons as to why there is little recognition of conflict management in leaders. One is called rationalistic fallacy, and Guttman explains that most of the literature available focuses on arming leaders with all necessary leadership concepts and success will just follow, almost as if it is assumed that leaders will automatically know how to manage conflict. Secondly, Guttman explains that leaders may have a fatalistic attitude towards conflict. Leaders may look at conflict as situation that will never be resolved, so why bother addressing it? We should focus on what can be addressed and changed (Guttman, 2004).
Conflict management is a skill that leaders must be able to employ when needed to help foster a productive working environment (Guttman, 2004). There is a realization that conflict management should be a skill that leaders need to give priority to learning and mastering (Kazimoto, 2013). The inability of a leader to deal with conflict will not only lead to negative outcomes but may also undermine the credibility of the leader (Kazimoto, 2013). Whereas if a leader is able to establish an atmosphere of cooperation and foster teamwork, making it clear that this is his/her value system, there is a likelihood that this value system will be adopted by the entire organization (Guttman, 2004). Therefore, it is very important that we discuss and address conflict management as a leadership skill.
This chapter will discuss the definition of conflict and its sources, describe conflict management and resolution, and discuss a guide for leaders to use to help them effectively manage and resolve conflict. We discuss the different types of conflict that can exist and describe the different conflict management modes that can be used to address them. Lastly, we will analyze the relationship between leadership and conflict management through a literature review. By reading this chapter, I hope that readers will understand conflict, the role it plays within teams and organizations, and the importance of developing conflict management skills for leaders.
According to Ana Shetach, an organizational consultant in team process and development, conflict can be a result from every aspect such as attitude, race, gender, looks, education, opinions, feelings, religion and cultures. Conflict may also arise from differences in values, affiliations, roles, positions, and status. Even though it seems that there is a vast array of sources for conflict, most conflict is not of a pure type and typically is a mixture of several sources (Shetach, 2012).
Conflict is an inevitable part of life and occurs naturally during our daily activities. There will always be differences of opinions or disagreements between individuals and/or groups. Conflict is a basic part of the human experience and can influence our actions or decisions in one way or another. It should not be viewed as an action that always results in negative outcomes but instead as an opportunity for learning and growth which may lead to positive outcomes. We can reach positive outcomes through effective conflict management and resolution, which will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter (Evans, 2013).
Since conflict can result in emotions that can make a situation uncomfortable, it is often avoided. Feelings such as guilt, anger, anxiety, and fear can be a direct result of conflict, which can cause individuals to avoid it all together. Conflict can be a good thing and avoiding it to preserve a false impression of harmony can cause even more damage (Loehr, 2017a). If we analyze the CPP Global Human Capital Report, we see evidence that conflict can lead to positive outcomes within the workplace environment. This research project asked 5000 individuals about their experiences with conflict in the workplace environment. They reported, that as a result of conflict:
Based on this report, we can conclude that conflict can lead to positive outcomes and increased productivity, depending on the conflict itself (Loehr, 2017a). Approximately 76% of the respondents reported that conflict resulted in some type of positive outcome. This speaks volumes to the ideology that conflict within the workplace is something that should be welcomed and not avoided (CPP Global Human Capital Report, 2008). 2ff7e9595c
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