ABSTRACT

This impressive volume attests that researchers and professionals have begun to give conflict in organizations the theoretical attention and rigorous empirical analysis that it deserves. Through organizations, wars are waged, peace is developed, communities are built, and goods and services are produced and delivered. Less fully appreciated is that to make these organizations work requires daily, even hourly, conflict management. Indeed, in our intensifying, interconnected, cross-cultural, and fragmented world of organizations, the demands on managers and employees to deal openly and constructively with their differences are increasing. To paraphrase Kurt Lewin, there is nothing more important than a good theory about conflict management, especially theories that protagonists can apply together.