Conflict and the Organization-in-The-Making: A Relational View of Perspective-Taking, Practice, Social Reproduction and Change
30 Pages Posted: 10 Oct 2004
Abstract
Building on the concept of organizations as conflictual systems characterized by the production of negotiated order, this paper considers the role of everyday conflict within organizations. Conflict is commonly viewed as disruptive to social and organizational order. In contrast, the practice theories of Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, and others indicate the dynamic mechanisms by which social systems reproduce order. These mechanisms involve the recursive relationship of social structure and social process through the development of habituated practice, but they have been challenged as providing little explanation for social change. In response, the argument made here is that conflict is a necessary element to explain human agency and changes in practices in organizational contexts. This argument is explored through examination of a case of multi-party conflict in a bookstore cooperative. In this case conflict is seen as stemming from the relational clash of differing perspectives, reflecting the multiple perspectives taken toward any set of organizational events. The interaction of perspectives stimulates the production of mutations in knowledge and practice, with the organization always "in-the-making." Some terms of a conflict vocabulary - re-minding, re-membering, and re-acting - are proposed as one means to communicate the conflict's functionality in contemporary, pluralistic organizations.
Keywords: Organizational conflict, organizational evolution, perspective-taking
JEL Classification: D74
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation